“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
Matthew 6:9 NIV

Our Father. Such grace! Faith in Jesus opens us up to a new relationship with the Almighty God – a Father-Child relationship. Before Jesus, the Jews worshipped and honoured God but never related with Him as their Father. To them, that would be laying a claim to Divinity. That claim to Divinity is what Jesus has, and offers to everyone who believes in Him – the right to be a child of God.

In teaching His disciples to pray, Jesus starts by addressing a fundamental issue: what is our basis for approaching God? Are we servants, angels or just a part of His massive creation? Jesus dares us to call Him Father, to step out of our confines and approach God with boldness and confidence. Knowing God as our Father begins with believing that Jesus is the Son of God. Only the Son can offer sonship to another.

Relating with God as our Father not only changes our perspective in life, it also changes our expectation in prayer. We have confidence that all things work together for our good in life and that we will receive the things we ask for in prayer, if we ask according to His will. So our prority is understanding and aligning with His will because that guarantees everything else.

I encourage you to pause and reflect on what it means to have God as your Father – security, guidance, protection, deliverance and so much more locked into that relationship. Having God as a Father means everything. However, the question is: is He your Father? How do you know? If He is, do you understand what this means? Are you living as His child? Or you are living as though fatherless? Think about these things!