I stole the title from our pastor. Yeah, I admit it, but you will see why.
When we pray Our Father who are in heaven what are we saying? Another Lutheran way to say this is what does this mean?
With these words God tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father and that we are His true children, so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him and dear children ask their dear father. (Luther's Small Catechism)
A small child will confidently run up to their father and call out, "Daddy, Daddy". The father will then sweep up the child into his safe arms and comfort the child. Once when I was a teen we experienced a earth quake. At the time we were living in Germany and the quake was very tiny, but something that I had never experienced before. The quake woke up me and my sister and we were both frightened. In that moment of fright we did not call out for our mother, but for our father. I remember looking back thinking how funny it was that we called out to him without any thought, both of us at the same time. At our moment of fear we went to our father.
We have the confidence to call out to our Father in heaven the same way. In our fear, despair, joy, happiness and all other emotions we can call on God, our Father Heaven. He is our daddy in heaven, our Papa who's lap we can crawl into and find peace. He loves us, cares for us, provides for us, and forgives us. We pray to our Father because he has promised to hear us. Psalm 65:2
He has given us this perfect prayer, The Lord's Prayer, for us to pray. In this prayer we call on him, and ask him for all things. In this Lord's prayer he gives us forgiveness of our sins, and reminds us of how he provides for us.
We are poor sinful beings and have been forgiven for all of our sins, the ones we know of, the ones we are unaware of and the ones we have yet to commit. Our Father in Heaven gave us his Son to die for our sins. We have been washed clean and do not need to fear our Father. Jesus Christ, His only Son, has made it possible to approach our Father and confidently pray to him.
1 comment:
It is amazing how we instinctively call out for our Heavenly father when things are not going as well as we had hoped for. But what do we do when they are going well. Do we still call out to him and talk with him? Often Our Heavenly Father is cast aside or put away until a moment of need arises. However, I believe that Our Heavenly Father wants to be the center of our lives even when things are going well. He wants to rejoice with us and celebrate with us just like our earthly fathers do when things are going well. Let us all remember to Keep God up to date with all parts of our lives not just the bad or troublesome ones. Yes he already knows about it but he wants to hear it from us.
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