Christ Church Life – Excerpts from the Magazine.
Your Father in heaven cares for you.
We’ve got a few new message posters for our church notice boards. They aim to point us to God. The majority have a Bible text addressing everyday concerns. In June we’ve got a slightly different approach, giving a nod to Father’s day. It’s the wording used for this article: your Father in heaven cares for you.
We hope that for many Father’s day can be a day of gratitude for good memories and a healthy relationship. We are all too aware that for others it might be a day to grin and bear it in view of an altogether different set of experiences.
The message on our poster directs us back to God’s Fatherly care. Jesus taught his followers to pray to ‘our Father in heaven’. What a great privilege to be able to talk to God as his children! In one of the New Testament letters we are exhorted: ‘Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you’ (1 Peter 5v7). This is a great truth in a world that can often seem stress-full and comfort lite!
In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount he repeatedly referred to what life looks like when lived in relation to God. As our Father in heaven we can trust him to never let us down. We can also trust him to provide what we need. Jesus made his point by giving illustrations from everyday life. He spoke about how life is more than food or clothing (Mathew 6v25), so we are not to be anxious about them. He spoke about how we are more valuable than the birds that God feeds (Mt 6v26), so we are to trust him to provide for us. He drew attention to the grass that God clothes with flowers that last just a day, but as his people’s souls are so much more valuable they too will be clothed (6v28-30). To sum it all up Jesus reminds us that our Father in heaven knows what we need (6v32), so we are not to be anxious but trust in his care and provision for us.
We can all celebrate knowing God as our Father in heaven. This is the essence of Christian faith. So, I hope that during this month you take time to consider this privilege which is the gospel truth.
Paul Kingman
June 2019