Father Knows Best

Hebr 12:9 (NIV) ... we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live!

“Father Knows Best” was the name of a sitcom that aired long ago, when I was a child. It was about a father doing his earthly best to raise his children with a little help from mom. It was very funny because earthly fathers sometimes make funny mistakes!  But the Father I am writing about today is the perfect parent. He is the Father of our spirits, who is also Creator of heaven and earth. He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world and has been working throughout history to bring to fruition His plans for each of His children, both to save our souls and to build His kingdom.

Therefore, my dear friends… work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. (Phil 2:12-13)

Are you good at mechanical things?  Work diligently to develop those skills. You are acting according to God’s good purpose for you. Are you good at math and science? Study diligently. You are thinking God’s thoughts after Him. He created the physical order science discovers in the world and He delights in showing you what He has done.  Are you artistic or musical? Practice your gift. God gave you natural talents as He was knitting you together in your mother’s womb.  Use them to build and beautify God’s Kingdom.

Are you a parent? Pray! God is the perfect parent and He wants to help you raise your child to bring glory to His name.  Our heavenly Father really does know what’s best for each of us.

The Works God Requires

Jesus, speaking to a crowd of seekers, said: Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."  Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." John 6:27-29.

This teaching by our Lord is startling to the modern ear because it runs counter to our secular culture, which says it doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you are a law-abiding citizen doing some kind of productive work. But the work they speak of does not produce “food that endures to eternal life.” Jesus, the sent one, was saying that the only way to be productive, really productive, is to believe in Him. The belief Jesus spoke of was no half-hearted thing. He was saying that our faith in Him, expressing itself in a determined seeking to know Him better is the work God requires. Centuries earlier, speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, God had said, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”(Jer 29:13).

Jesus told His disciples, his chosen ones, that there are rewards for those who believe in him.  He said, “…the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.”(John 15:16). What does it mean to ask in Christ’s name?  It means that we ask according to his character and will, and we can only do that if we know him.  How do we know him? By paying attention to the two ways he has revealed himself to us: his creation and his word, the Bible. When we meditate on his creation and his word, with a heart full of desire for him, asking him to show us more of his glorious character, he gives us what we ask because we are asking for the things God wants with all His heart to give us. He gives us himself. His Holy Spirit indwells us, we are born again.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” (2 Cor. 4:7). We need never fear that we cannot do work that has eternal consequences.  Why?  Because God himself is doing the good works, through us, that he prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph. 2:10).

Our Eternal Destiny

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. John 15:16

I once worked for Pan Am, America’s Airline to the World.  Though the airline was floundering financially I remember thinking, “ There will always be a Pan Am.”  I was wrong! The airline went out of business in 1991.  The fruit I bore for Pan Am did not last. But in the passage quoted above Jesus says he has appointed me, and all of his followers to bear fruit that will last. He was talking about work that advances his eternal kingdom, starting right now.  What an awesome destiny – to do work that has eternal consequences!  If I had been there when Jesus spoke those words I think my response might have been, “Not me, I can’t do anything that important!”  But now, as I reflect on Jesus’ next statement I am humbled. Jesus was not talking about something his followers would do because of their own natural strength and wisdom, but something the Father would give them if they would just ask in faith, believing!  Then I think of that other scripture by the apostle Paul, “… we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph 2:10). If God himself has prepared each of us uniquely to do something good that has eternal consequences, then I am just being faithless if I say I can’t do the things He prepared for me to do.

But how can I know what God has prepared me to do?  True wisdom has been the topic of some of my earlier meditations and now it comes up again.  In general the way any of us know what God has been preparing us to do is by knowing God and knowing ourselves in Christ. But I must be more specific than that. To be continued…

Our Unique Destiny

“… we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  Ephesians 2:10

This scripture speaks of the unique destiny God has prepared for each of his children.  My destiny is not yours, yours is not mine. It’s an awesome fact of the diversity of God’s creative power that no two human destinies are exactly the same. God has been at work throughout our lives moving each one into his or her own destiny. No, not just during our lifetime but from the beginning of time. Remember, he chose us before the creation of the world.  He chose the period in human history when we would be born. He chose our parents. He chose all the circumstantial influences he would be using throughout our lives as instruments to mold us. As he was knitting us together in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13), he built into us natural talents that would be useful later as we started to do the good works he was preparing for us.  But alas!  We were born in iniquity, spiritually dead because of a congenital disease. We inherited a sin nature!

Then God called us. The time, place, and circumstances of that call differ for each of us, but it was our common destiny to be called. “Those he predestined he also called” (Romans 8:30). When you and I responded to that call, drawn by his irresistible grace, our choice to follow Christ simply reaffirmed the choice God had made long ago. Our common destiny was fulfilled. We became alive “in Christ.”  We began to move into the unique destiny God had planned for each of us. We began to bear fruit.  But that was only the beginning!  God isn’t finished with us yet. So much more lies ahead. God’s prophet says “… I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11). Next time I will have more to say about those plans for the future, and “the fruit that will last.”

Our Common Destiny

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.Ephesians1:3-4

What an awesome thought! Our heavenly Father had you and me (if you are a believer) in mind when he created the world. Our destiny from the very beginning was to be holy and blameless in the Father’s sight. But wait a minute…I have sinned! I don’t know about you but I am not holy and blameless! How can this be? How can weak, limited, mortal humans mess up the plans of almighty, all-knowing, immortal God?

The answer is, “We can’t!” That’s why the apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says that God chose us “in him” before the creation of the world. God knew we would sin even before it happened, and in His infinite wisdom put in place his plan to redeem his chosen ones by sending his Son into that fallen world. The only way anyone can be holy and blameless in the Father’s sight is to be “in Christ,” clothed in his righteousness.

When, in due time, Christ appeared he revealed God’s plan, formerly shrouded in mystery, to his chosen people. He told his disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last…” John 15:16.

This meditation has been about the common destiny of all God’s people…in love he predestined us to become his children. But our destiny does not end there. My next meditation will be about fruit bearing. God demonstrates the exquisite diversity of his creative power as he prepares each of his children for their very own unique destiny.