2 Corinthians 6:18 tells us that God says, ‘I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters’ (NIV). Maybe you’ve had a great relationship with your own father, and you can use that experience to try and grasp the immense love God has for us when He calls us His sons and daughters. Or maybe your relationship with your father hasn’t been a good one, and the idea of seeing God as a father is difficult for you. Wherever we are in our own relationships with our fathers, we can start to get a clear picture of God as a perfect father from the story in Mark’s Gospel, when Jesus healed a paralysed man. When the man was brought to Jesus for healing, before Jesus forgave and healed him, He called him ‘son’. That word ‘son’ was Jesus’ way of telling the man that he was precious and accepted. There were no conditions to fulfil, the man wasn’t shamed or condemned before Jesus would help him. Jesus didn’t say, ‘You’ve got to clean up your act,’ or ‘You must do things My way.’ Instead, He established a relationship with the man by showing him love, compassion and acceptance. And that’s what our heavenly Father wants to do with us – He wants to invite us into a relationship where we’re loved unconditionally, where we’re accepted and valued, and we don’t need to be afraid to come to Him just as we are, with all our flaws and weaknesses. When God calls you His son or His daughter, you’re being welcomed with open arms into His family.
