“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us…” (1 John 3:1)
Part One
Religion that fails to acknowledge God’s fatherhood is spiritually bankrupt. It was only the Lord Jesus who fully understood His Father’s holiness, so He could teach us. He instructed us to pray, “…Our Father in heaven, Your name be honored as holy…” (Matthew 6:9) He set the Christian faith on a uniquely different path from all the religions across history when he declared, “…no one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6) His emphasis was steadfastly on His Father.
The authoritative teaching of Jesus revealed that all the world’s non-Hebrew religions had been impoverished because of their glaring failure to understand God’s Fatherhood. As current examples of this same unending problem, in Islam, it is still considered a sin to call God – Father! They simply do not understand or know Him. In Buddhism, Hinduism, Baha’i, New Age, and most other little-known religions, the concept of personally knowing and loving an eternal, living, and forgiving Father remains a foreign concept.
Stop now to thoughtfully consider – that God’s Fatherhood theologically separates Christianity from the other major non-Jewish religions in the world!
Part Two
To mistakenly think of Christianity as a religion that shares strong similarities with other world religions is to unknowingly disregard Jesus’ Biblical teachings. He emphatically spoke about His vital relationship with His Father. That also relates to what Paul later wrote, “Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 8:6)
Neither karma nor reincarnation had any place in Jesus’ teaching, so you may ask, Why? It is because the Father banished any need for us to pay for our sin or to repeatedly live in order to hopefully earn enough forgiveness to enter heaven. Instead, the role of God the Father was supreme in all that was progressively revealed to us across the ages. The prophet Isaiah said, “You Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, and You are the Potter; we are the work of Your hands.” (Isaiah 64:8)
Part Three
Nothing in the world’s religious system is more universally flawed than its highly impersonal fatherless misconception of our Creator. Only a Christian’s close, personal relationship with our living God makes our faith truly meaningful. That undeniable relationship defines eternal reality. For that reason, may our testimony always affirm that we are members of His adopted family!
The One and only Person who ever called Jesus – Son – was His Father! Listen to His words, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 17:5)
God’s fatherhood is unmistakably understood by true believers and was the example and teaching of our Savior. In His humanity, He humbly declared, “My Father is greater than I.” (John 14:28b) Pause to consider the depth of love which Jesus’ Father has “…bestowed upon us.” (1 John 3:1)
By Billie Hanks Jr.