So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” Romans 8:15
We were reminded during the weekend message that “the key to living a hope-filled life is not found in trying harder.” Instead, it is found in surrendering our lives and our will over to God. When we surrender to Him, we find hope, help, and healing that we cannot accomplish on our own. As we think about this call to surrender everything to God, the question we have to answer, which we asked during the weekend message, is, “Can God be trusted?” You see, the answer to this question will determine whether we surrender. If we do not believe that we can trust God, we will have a hard time surrendering to Him. If, on the other hand, we are convinced that God is, indeed, trustworthy, then we will naturally surrender to His will, believing that He can be trusted with everything. Today in our Bible study, we are going to discover one main reason God is, of course, trustworthy: He is our good Heavenly Father.
Jesus taught His disciples that God relates to us as our Heavenly Father and invites us to call Him “Father” in Luke 11. We learn in the very beginning of this chapter that after Jesus finished praying, one of His disciples came to Him and asked, “Lord, teach us to pray” (verse 1). Jesus honored this request and did exactly what this disciple asked. He taught them how to pray. He answered, “This is how you should pray; ‘Father, may Your name be kept holy…’” (verse 2). Now, the invitation to address God as Father does not likely surprise you today, but it was a groundbreaking teaching. Jesus was explaining that the God of the universe, who made the heavens and the earth and everything in it, and who holds all honor, glory, and power, relates to us as our Heavenly Father. As our perfect Heavenly Father, we can confidently conclude that He will take care of us and provide for us as any good father would for his children.
The apostle Paul reminds us that God is our Heavenly Father in Romans 8. In this passage of Scripture, he wrote about the new lives we have in the Spirit when we place our faith in Christ. He wrote in this passage of Scripture, “You have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s spirit when He adopted you as His own children” (verse 15). The truth that we are children of God makes all the difference. Because we are children of God, we do not have to live in fear, but instead we can walk confidently and boldly, trusting that our Heavenly Father is in control, taking care of us the entire time.
May you marvel in the remarkable truth today that if you have placed your faith in Christ, God is your Heavenly Father who is taking care of you and helping you each and every day. You are a child of God who is completely trustworthy. Will you live in light of this remarkable, life-changing, earth-shattering truth today?
Is there an area of your life right now where you are struggling to trust God? Maybe it's a relationship, your finances, or your future. Take a step toward trusting Him today by asking Him to help you trust Him, knowing He is your good Heavenly Father who works all things, the good, bad, and everything in between, for His glory and your good.
“God, as I look to You as my perfect Heavenly Father, I trust You because…”
Luke 11:1-13
1 Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
2 Jesus said, “This is how you should pray:
“Father, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. 3 Give us each day the food we need, 4 and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation.”
5 Then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this story: “Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, 6 ‘A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.’ 7 And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you.’ 8 But I tell you this—though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.
9 “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
11 “You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? 12 Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! 13 So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”
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