Calling on God as Our Father

Calling on God as Our Father

“There is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil.” Job. 1:8. This was the testimony that God gave Job. We can read further in the book of Job about the trials he had to endure and the divine training he received. He posed many questions during this time, and we can imagine that he thought that many of his questions went unanswered. Nevertheless, he did receive the answer to his questions, because the answer was contained in a deeper knowledge of God. After Job had learned to know God more, he acknowledged that he had uttered what he did not understand; things too wonderful for him which he did not know. Job 42:3. He says to the Lord, “I have [only] heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You.” Verse 5. As we can see, this godfearing and just man needed to learn to know God. He needed to be tested so that he—as he says in chapter 23:10—should come forth as gold.

From this we can learn that we are not to despise the chastening of the Lord, or be discouraged when we are rebuked by Him. Heb. 12:5. He chastens us for our profit, so that we may be partakers of His holiness. Verse 10. How foolish it is to “throw in the towel” or despair when we (by way of example) have to acknowledge—as Job did— that we have uttered things we did not understand or have not known how to make the right decision in a given situation. Then we despise the training which the Lord desires to give us; and become discouraged instead of being thankful for God’s fatherly love. Just imagine that we can be partakers of His holiness by means of His fatherly training!

In the parable of the talents, the servant who had received the one talent said, “Lord, I knew you to be a hard man.” Matt. 25:24. A hard man indeed! Where did he get that idea from? Would a hard man have entrusted him with the talent he had received? Not at all! It was his own hard heart that had caused him to think like that.

“And if you call on [Him as] the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your sojourning here in fear.” 1 Pet. 1:17. It is a great blessing to call on Him as our Father. Jesus revealed the Father. He revealed Him as a Father, as a caring Father. We also can call on the almighty and omniscient God as our Father! It is written that then we shall conduct ourselves in fear! For example, we must fear to have hard and unjust thoughts about Him and His fatherly care. When He has said, “For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable (Rom. 11:29), who are we to set that aside and say, “No, it will not succeed for me?” God says to Job’s friends, “You have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.”

The fear that is mentioned in this context is not the fear that is in the spirit of bondage, but in “the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’” Rom. 8:15. We should rather fear to doubt God’s fatherly love for us and His election according to grace—predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. Rom. 8:29.

It is possible that earthly fathers can behave like the strict guardians of the law, and as the “long arm of the law” and be unreasonable in the things they prohibit. Life can become quite heavy for the children who grow up in such families. But is this the image of our heavenly Father and His fatherly care? Far from it! Let us rejoice and be glad that it has been granted to us to call on Him as our Father, and that Jesus, who is the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, has begun a good work in us which He will also finish until the day of Jesus Christ.