How to Know God as Your Personal Father

February 16, 2017
God's Love, God's presence, Personal Father

God is not only the Creator of the natural universe, He is your Creator.
He is not only the Redeemer of mankind, He is your redeemer
He is not only the Father of humanity, He is your Father.

Realizing God is your personal Father is life-changing! Simply viewing God as your Father is the first step in realistically partaking of the Abundant Life God offers, today. Much more than just being able to learn of His ways, God is dwelling among us as a Presence. He is our relational God who desires an intimate Father-to-child fellowship in order to lead and guide each of us along life’s pathway. Our Father wants everyone to know the fullness of this life-transforming truth.

What more is needed to fully partake of the Abundant Life that is “at hand?” We want to intentionally open ourselves to the fellowship of Father’s guiding Presence – draw from His perspective, learn of His ways, adapt His mannerisms, and be influenced by His caring attitude. (Our book, The Fellowship of His Presence details how we draw from Father’s Presence.) We respond to God as a child who wants to emulate “Dad,” and we share with each other throughout our earthly journey of development.

You see, life is truly more than an existence to be tolerated until we leave the natural realm. We are so much more than pilgrims and strangers passing through. Life here on earth is where our existence starts and where we begin to grow into our created purpose as expressions of Father.

Created as God’s Offspring

Humanity, each of us, began in the mind of God before the progressions of time even started. As He desired to father offspring, He saw each one of us as children who would grow and develop under His parental care into reflective resemblances of His heart. In a nutshell, our life purpose as well as life’s ultimate fulfillment, is progressively experienced as we grow to better reflect and resemble our heavenly Father (as His image and likeness).

Realizing God is your personal Father may be an unfamiliar concept to you. Unfortunately our first parents, Adam and Eve chose to ignore God’s guidance. The path they chose to follow was filled with the thick fog of self-centeredness that skewed their ability to see clearly and understand the Father’s love.

Our first parent’s confusion led them to think of Him as an angry Father, and their fear created a separation in their relationship with God. Even today, we tend to visualize Him as our ruler and condemner. When we refer to God as Lord, we visualize Him as our King and Judge. These perceptions over the centuries have been used by many natural fathers who, to our detriment, have treated children with the harshness of a ruler, having believed this is what God is like.

In fact, after Genesis 2, the Old Testament does not refer to God as Father. It appears the perspective of God’s fatherhood was lost and He became as a distant entity (Isaiah 59:2). We still tend to think of God as beyond our ability to know, communicate with, or understand.

Primarily, names and titles used to speak of God in the Old Testament include Elohim, El Shaddai, Adonai and Yahweh; referencing God’s sovereignty and majesty, yet none of these indicate God as our Father. Apparently the concept of God as Father vanished with the Garden of Eden until the advent of Jesus. When God’s spoken word was incarnated and came to us as a son, as Jesus Christ; God reintroduced Himself afresh to humanity as our Father.

God reintroduced Himself as Father
through His incarnated spoken word, Jesus Christ.

Relating to God as Father

Jesus continually spoke of God as his Father, even calling the Temple in which they worshiped, his Father’s house (John 2:16). He came to demonstrate how we are to respond to God as children who learn to reflectively resemble Father’s heart. Jesus instructed everyone to begin to relate to God as our Father:

Pray, then, in this way: “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name” (Matthew 6:9-10).
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life (the way to truthful live); no one comes to the Father but through me (we know God as Father by coming as a son)” (John 14:6).

Amplifying Jesus’ instruction, the New Testament speaks of God as Father more than 250 times, to reveal God as our heavenly Father and His love for us as His own children. When we respond to God as Father, He becomes more than a Judge, King or Provider. Ever since the time Jesus walked among us as an example son, God comes to us as a Holy Spirit presence, not limited by a time or a place, to lead and guide us through our life journey.

The spirit of life born in each of us enables us to receive Father’s insightful guidance. It is our ongoing fellowship, our interaction with God that fuels our ability to grow into His image and likeness. Numerous scripture verses give us a visual understanding of the child-to-Father relationship by speaking of our call into God’s fellowship as an adoption.

In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will (Ephesians 1:4-5).
God sent forth His Son, born of a woman… that we might receive the adoption as sons (Galatians 4:4-5).
All who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For… you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:14-15).

In adoption we become more than offspring, we become children who learn to submit to Father’s guidance, embrace His attitude regarding life, and are disciplined in His way of living. Believers, who observe what the Father is saying and doing in our present times, tend to learn as children. We want to be attentive children who are paying attention, are sensitive to His voice, and stay attuned to His inspiration so we can partake of the full Abundant Life.

Active Fellowship with Father

“Hearing and seeing” God as a Presence with us can be a part of our daily life. God gave us a mind so we could learn and begin to more fully understand Him and His ways. Let’s not settle for what we already know. There is always more to understand for there is no end to our learning and our growing appreciation of God.

Because we are all just partial expressions of God, as children, we need to be in active fellowship with Father, so we can absorb more of His perceptions about life. Our human design (spirit, soul and body) enables us to sense and receive insight from Father, to learn of His ways.

This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent (John 17:3).

God does not want us to see Him as a boss whose favor depends on our performance. Nor does He want us to think of Him so much as our King and Judge, although He is; He functions in these roles with the heart of a devoted Father. Above all, we want to see God as our loving Father, for God “is” love. We further elaborate on these thoughts in my book Created to Relate.

Receptive to Father’s Guidance

When we approach Father as a child seeking His insightful guidance, we are more receptive to the insight He desires to give. God is always ready to respond and assist when we truly desire to know and understand Him better. The level of our response to His insightful Presence enables us to become more intimate with Him.

Let’s fully experience Father’s fellowship! We want to know God beyond miraculous interventions and beyond serving Him as Lord. Father’s greatest desire is that everyone will partake of His Abundant Life today. This is not difficult. He invites and enables all of us to do so. Let’s earnestly ask, seek, and knock.

  • We start by trusting Him as our personal Father, following the example given to us in Jesus Christ.
  • Then we acknowledge Father’s abiding Presence and seek to draw from His perspective and learn of His ways.
  • As we apply what we are sensing He is teaching us, we grow into better expressions of His heart and naturally share His transforming insights with others.

Accept God’s invitation to be your Father. Partaking of the fellowship of His Presence today is not merely possible, it is life-transforming.

Join us on this journey with God as we share clarifying insights on Scripture to bring rich simplicity to your faith walk. Grab your copy of The Fellowship of His Presence. Get a few copies to bless your friends and family. We’ve even prepared a Guide to assist group discussions.

Keith Carroll, The Relationship Guy
Relational Gospel Founder

How to Know God as Your Personal Father

Relational Gospel – We help you draw closer to God as your loving Father.

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