Teaching Resources International

The Love of God the Father (June 2023 Update) 

A father’s love is absolutely essential for raising children. While single mothers can and do compensate when a father is not at home, nothing gives more stability to a household than having a loving father around. In fact, recent studies have shown that we cannot underestimate the importance of a father in the home. For example, 80% of those in prison grew up in homes where a father was not present. And 71% of all High School dropouts and 90% of homeless and runaway children had absentee fathers.  

Mothers provide the nurture and care that children need. Fathers provide the stability that they need. In fact, children look to their fathers to lay down the rules and enforce them. While children look to their mothers for love and affection, they look to their fathers for strength and stability. And when these characteristics come from a loving father, children have the strength and love they need to navigate life. 

What does the Bible say about God as our Father? The Old Testament says surprisingly little. Though the Old Testament clearly calls God “Father” a few times (for example, Isa. 63:16; 64:8; Jer. 3:19; Mal. 2:10), the writers of the Old Testament lay greater emphasis on our distance from God and the reverence we should feel for Him. God is revealed more as separate from us and beyond us, and He is seen less as intimate and close to us. The Old Testament view of God is a true and important reminder that God is holy and deserves our worship. 

But when we come to the New Testament, the reverse is true. The New Testament refers to God as Father more than any other term.  Jesus used the term “Father” more than any other term whenever he spoke about God. God is described as our Father to show that He is personally, emotionally, and even sacrificially involved with us. In fact, Jesus even used the term “Abba” or “Daddy” to refer to God. This especially offended the Pharisees. And when he was teaching on prayer in Matthew 7:11, Jesus said, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” In other words, while fathers are not perfect and some are not even good, God as our Father always gives His children what is best for them. 

The Love of God … (May 2023 Update) 

Nothing compares to a mother’s love. A mother’s love is amazing. Mothers protect their children from harm, nurse them while they are sick, and provide a loving environment to grow up in. While the role of a father is important (mostly in being an example), a mother’s love is one of the most powerful influences on a child’s life. 

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “it is the mother, and the mother only, who is a better citizen than the soldier who fights for his country. The successful mother, the mother who does her part in rearing and training aright the boys and girls who are to be the men and women of the next generation, is of greater use to the community, and occupies, if she would only realize it, a more honorable as well as a more important position than any man in it. The mother is the one supreme asset of the national life. She is more important, by far, than the successful statesman, or businessman, or artist, or scientist.” Certainly nothing compares to a mother’s love – Except the love of God. 

Interestingly, when the Bible speaks about God’s love for His people, it is most frequently in terms of a mother’s love. While God is usually called “Father,” the most intimate expressions of His love for His children are in motherly terms. Here are just a few examples: Many passages speak of God giving us birth: “You have forgotten the Rock who bore you and put out of mind the God who gave you birth” (Deut. 32:18). Also in Deuteronomy 32:11-12, we are told that God cares for us like a mother eagle: “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions, the Lord alone guided him.” And in Psalm 57:1, the Psalmist tells us that God protects His children by covering us with His wings: “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, or in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings, I will take refuge, until the destroying storms pass by.” 

The Timing of God … (April 2023 Update) 

Timing is everything! It matters in sports – timing can be the difference between a touchdown pass and an interception. A split second in baseball can be the difference between a home run and a strike out. This is also true in life. Being in the right place at the right time can be the difference between being a success or being a failure. 

Our timing can be good or bad, but God’s timing is always perfect. Our timing often fails because we can’t see ahead – but God is omniscient. We miss critical events because we cannot control other events – but God is omnipotent and can do whatever He pleases. These are just a few of the reasons why we can trust God’s timing.  

The Justice of God …  (March 2023 Update) 

If there is no hell, then God is not just! Many Christians today shrink back from the doctrine of hell and from the justice of God. They often ask how a loving God could create a place like hell. Some atheists even use the doctrine of hell as an excuse for not believing in God. 

But God’s love demands that there be a hell with eternal punishment. If God is truly loving, completely loving, then He must punish sin or He would not be just. A truly loving God would not allow injustice to go unpunished. So, God’s love and God’s justice go together. They are like two sides to the same coin. You can’t have one without the other. 

However, the justice of God is almost completely ignored by many today. But this is not new to our age. At the beginning of the 20^th Century, A. W. Pink wrote: “It is scarcely surprising that far less has been written upon the justice of God—than upon some of the other Divine perfections. We are accustomed to turn our thoughts unto those objects and subjects which afford us the most pleasure, and to avoid those which render us uneasy.” But God’s justice should not make us uneasy – it should give us confidence that, even though evil might reign for a season, it will ultimately be judged by God. But, if there is no hell, then evil will have escaped any just punishment. And God would not be just. 

Good Theology … (February 2023 Update) 

Mention theology or doctrine among Christians and you are likely to get a variety of responses – mostly negative.  But theology is simply “the study of God.”  In that sense, everyone is a theologian, even the atheist!  The question is not whether we have a theology, but whether our theology is good or bad, and whether our theology is biblical or not! 

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis says, “[If] you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones— bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas.” That’s why the study of theology is so important.