Bleeding Edge

“What man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him”
—Matthew 7:9–11

If we claim to be God’s children, we should be reflecting God’s character in our lives. Jesus here shows us something of what our heavenly Father’s love is like.

Jesus asks two rhetorical questions.

The first asks what loving father would ever give his son a stone if he asked for a piece of bread?

Leading up to the second question, Jesus gives an example of a son asking his father for a fish:

The father wouldn’t give his son a snake, would he?

The obvious answer to both is that no father would do that.

No Good Father would do that, because it isn’t natural to ignore the physical or spiritual needs of his son.

In contrast to weak, sinful, human fathers — our divine, loving, merciful, gracious Father has no limit to what he can give from his limitless treasure trove, as he also has got no bounds to the Grace and the Goodness of his Heart.

So we now know that even the Fatherly love amongst humans, cannot even start to compare with God’s love for his children — that are all the humans encompassing his breath of life.

The truth Jesus proclaims here is that, if imperfect and sinful human fathers so willingly and freely give their children the basics of life, God will infinitely outdo them in measure and benefit.

And even if the hugely imperfect human fathers withhold of their love and their goodness towards all of their children — they should not be blamed for theirs is a hard path to learn how to be fathers from their own imperfect fathers of the past.

So…

If we want God to treat us with loving generosity as His children, we should so treat our children and all others, because we are those who bear his likeness, as we all are the children of God.

And when we go out of our way to screw up our own children by imbuing in them our own imperfections — perhaps we should remember that they should not be made as mirror images of ours but rather as mirror images of him who sits up high in heavens…

Something to look forward to…

Right?

Elevating children, instead of merely rearing them, or even abandoning them to their own fate.

Surely God will take care of them, but why should we feel that it is OK for us to abdicate our own responsibility towards them?

What a thought eh?

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

As always, our dealings with God are based on relationship — a relationship He has graciously established and continues to maintain.

So you’ve got to ask yourself this:

What is it that threatens your own ability to view the Heavenly Father in this light, rather than primarily relating to Him only in religious terms — that are distant and detached?

And why is it that you choose to deny that which you cannot see, and yet you so readily feel?

Please don’t limit yourself.

Carry on and come up with your own questions if you want to populate the answers here…