Background on God As Father

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To Be A Child of God Means Access

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 8:4

To be a child of God means access. We know God is attentively listening to us and watching us. Think about what it takes to get in to see the president of the United States. Only people who merit his ...

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A Trinitarian Deficit Disorder

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

John 14:9, Colossians 1:15, John 10:30, 1 John 4:8-16, Romans 8:32

A student of mine, Josiah Brown, oversees the student outreach team. He and some of our students go to youth groups to teach the youth about Christian spiritual formation. They talk about what formati...

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Goliath on the Beach

Author

John Ortberg

Keywords

A few weeks ago, when I was out surfing, there was no one else in the water. In fact, there was no one around at all, except a guy the size of Goliath doing tae kwon do on the beach. After I’d been ou...

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The Mystery of the Trinity

Author

Billy Graham

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:1-2 , Isaiah 11:1-2, Ezekiel 36:26-27, Matthew 3:16-17 , Psalm 51:10-12 , John 14:16-17

The Bible teaches us that the Holy Spirit is a living being. He is one of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. To explain and illustrate the Trinity is one of the most difficult assignments to a Chr...

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Considering His Wonderful Goodness Towards Us

Author

John Calvin

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 6:26, Acts 17:24-25, Job 12:10, Matthew 10:29-31, James 1:17

We ought in the very order of things [in creation] diligently to contemplate God’s fatherly love . . . [for as] a foreseeing and diligent father of the family he shows his wonderful goodness toward us...

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All His Ways are Beautifully Fatherly

Author

Michael Reeves

Keywords

Fathers

Since God is, before all things, a Father, and not primarily Creator or Ruler, all his ways are beautifully fatherly. It is not that this God “does” being Father as a day job, only to kick back in the...

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The Test of Spiritual Integrity

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

The infallible test of spiritual integrity, Jesus says, is your private prayer life. Many people will pray when they are required by cultural or social expectations, or perhaps by the anxiety caused b...

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Understanding God as Father

Author

James I. Packer

Keywords

Scripture

John 1:12-13, Romans 8:14-16, Galatians 4:4-7, 1 John 3:1, 2 Corinthians 6:18, Isaiah 64:8

If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts a...

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A Trinitarian Deficit Disorder

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

John 14:9, Colossians 1:15, Hebrews 1:3, 2 Corinthians 4:4-6, Luke 19:10

A student of mine, Josiah Brown, oversees the student outreach team. He and some of our students go to youth groups to teach the youth about Christian spiritual formation. They talk about what formati...

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When “Father” Is A Bad Thing

Author

Michael Reeves

Keywords

Not everyone instinctively warms to the idea that God is a Father. There are many for whom their own experiences of overbearing, indifferent or abusive fathers make their very guts squirm when they he...

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The Holy Spirit’s Literary Genre Of Choice

Author

Eugene H. Peterson

Keywords

Story is the primary way in which the revelation of God is given to us. The Holy Spirit’s literary genre of choice is story. Story isn’t a simple or naive form of speech from which we graduate to the ...

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Where our Growth in Grace Comes From

Author

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Keywords

Scripture

1 John 2:13

In a November 1882 sermon on 1 John 2, the renowned pastor and preacher C. H. Spurgeon offers a profound insight into the nature of Christian maturity. His remarks come as part of his exposition on th...

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Knowing Someone Magnetically Kind & Gracious

Author

Michael Reeves

Keywords

Have you ever known someone so magnetically kind and gracious, so warm and generous of spirit that just a little time spent with them affects how you think, feel and behave? Someone whose very presenc...

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Remaining a Little Child Of God

Author

Simon Tugwell

Keywords

It is recognizing one’s nothingness, expecting everything from the good God, just as a little child expects everything from its father; it is not getting anxious about anything, not trying to make one...

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Papa God

Author

Gary Thomas

Keywords

Parenting

In his book_, Sacred Parenting _, Gary Thomas shares a story from his own parenting life. A story that illustrates this truth: when our children are young, they look at their earthly fathers and assu...

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A Change of Priority

Author

N. T. Wright

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 6:9-11, Luke 11:2-3, Romans 8:15, Hebrews 4:16, Philippians 4:6-7

The Lord’s Prayer is designed to help us make this change: a change of priority, not a change of content. This prayer doesn’t pretend that pain and hunger aren’t real. Some religions say that; Jesus d...

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God Forsaken by God

Author

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 22:null, Mark 15:34, Matthew 27:46

Psalm 22:1 was on our Savior’s lips on the cross, and it is in that context a mystery: God forsaken by God! Christians have been trying to unravel this mystery for centuries, without reaching consensu...

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Signatures of the Trinity

Author

Andrew Arndt

Keywords

The Trinity

Everything that is exists by and through and unto the relationship between God the Father and Jesus, his Son. One of the great teachers of the ancient church, St. Augustine, had a very helpful way of ...

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Baptism: A New Beginning out of the Watery Chaos

Author

Rowan Williams

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:1-2, Genesis 8:6-12 , Isaiah 32:14-17, Matthew 3:13-17, John 3:5-8, Romans 6:3-4

At the very beginning of creation, the book of Genesis tells us, there was watery chaos. And over that watery chaos there was, depending on how you read the Hebrew, the Holy Spirit hovering or a great...

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The Hearts of the Two Brothers

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 15:

In his excellent book, The Prodigal God , Timothy Keller corrects the notion that this classic parable (The Parable of the Prodigal Son, Lk. 15) is not only about the lostness of the younger ...

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The Covenants of Scripture

Author

Merrill F. Unger

Keywords

Covenant

Scripture

Hebrews 13:20, Genesis 1:26-28, Genesis 1:26, Genesis 3:14-19, Genesis 3:14, Genesis 8:20-9, Genesis 9:5-6, Genesis 12:1-3, Galatians 3:16, John 8:56-58, 2 Corinthians 3:7-9, Deuteronomy 30:1-10, Deuteronomy 30:1, 2 Samuel 7:4-17, Luke 1:31-33, Acts 1:6, Revelation 19:16, Matthew 26:28, Mark 14:24, Luke 22:20, Hebrews 8:8-12, Galatians 3:13-20

Eternal covenant, Heb 13:20—The redemptive covenant before time began, between the Father and the Son. By this covenant we have eternal redemption, an eternal peace from the ‘God of peace’, through th...

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Seeking Integration Between Faith and Politics

Author

Kristen Deede Johnson

Keywords

I grew up near Washington D.C. surrounded by politics…I helped with the campaign of a friend’s father as he ran for state office, watched our friendly county supervisor become a US congressman, and le...

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Kenōsis and Perichōrēsis

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:6-7, Galatians 2:20, John 10:30, Ephesians 5:21, Colossians 1:19-20, John 15:13, Matthew 20:28

There are two wonderful Greek words that the early church theologians used to describe the Trinity: kenōsis and perichōrēsis. Kenosis is the act of self-giving for the good of another. It is found in ...

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The Problem of Communicating the Trinity to Children

Author

Paul S. Fiddes

Keywords

The festival celebrated in the church calendar as Trinity Sunday always poses some problems when there is ‘Family Church’, and the preacher wants to give a talk to the children on the theme of the day...

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The Earliest Known Uses of the Trinity

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Many of us are aware that the Trinity is not specifically referred to in scripture, though it would eventually become accepted among all major branches of the Christian faith as an authentic interpret...

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Which “World” Are we Talking About?

Author

C. J. Mahaney

Keywords

World

Scripture

John 2:15, Genesis 1:31, John 3:16

The “world” of 1 John 2:15 doesn’t refer to the created order or to the blessings that come from living in a modern society, such as modern conveniences or medical and scientific advances. For God cre...

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The Parable of the Two Servants

Author

Alan Fadling

Keywords

In this modern day parable, Alan Fadling describes a king and his two servants. Each of the servants desires to do the will of the king, but they approach their work very differently: One of the serv...

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The Father Accepts the Payment

Author

R. C. Sproul

Keywords

Imagine that I go to a friend and say: “Don, I’m in trouble. I need to borrow $10,000. Would you lend me $10,000?” And Don says, “Sure. He lends me $10,000 and I understand that I now owe him $10,000....

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Trust: That Rare & Priceless Treasure

Author

Paul de Jaegher

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 22:1-14 , Exodus 14:13-14, Proverbs 3:5-6 , Matthew 8:23-27, Philippians 4:6-7, Psalm 37:3-5

Trust is that rare and priceless treasure that wins us the affection of our heavenly Father. For him it has both charm and fascination. Among his countless children, whom he so greatly loves and whom ...

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“He Stood For The Trinitarian Doctrine”

Author

Michael Reeves

Keywords

The Trinity

At the beginning of the fourth century, in Alexandria in the north of Egypt, a theologian named Arius began teaching that the Son was a created being, and not truly God. He did so because he believed ...

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