My Father&our Father

3:16; Jeremiah 3:4 and 19, Hosea 11). In prayer, God is addressed as Lord, Lord God Almighty, My God and the like but not as Father. There is a dramatic change when Jesus came to earth to show us the Father.
On the night before His crucifixion, Jesus prays an amazing prayer for Himself, for His disciples, for all believers and especially for a unity among His followers that mirrors the unity in the Godhead. As you read through the prayer in John 17, ask yourself what it reveals of our Lord’s intimate relationship with God. What does Jesus call God?
Quite simply, Jesus calls God Father. That comes six times (vs 1, 5, 11, 21, 24, 25). Jesus speaks as a mature son to his Father and his prayer shows the unity and intimacy they enjoy as he prays for the unity of all believers.
Throughout all the gospels, Jesus referred to God as Father. Sometimes, He does speak of God and the Kingdom of God (e.g. Matthew 19:26; Luke 10:9) but far more often He speaks about God as the Father or as My Father, (Luke 2:49; John 6:44 & 46). In prayer, Jesus always addressed God as Father (e.g. Mark 14:36) except when He quoted Psalm 22 from the cross and cried out :’My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 14:34).
At Jesus’ baptism and at the transfiguration, God spoke from heaven calling Jesus His Son. “You are My Son, whom I love” (Luke 3:22) “This is My Son, whom I have chosen”. (Luke 9:35)
Jesus taught us to pray ‘Our Father’ (Matt. 6:9). As Christians we are comfortable to call God “Abba, Father”. We do not always realise that this is only because Jesus, the Son of God introduced God to us as Father. In the Old Testament ordinary people stood at a distance from God. Only the high priest was allowed into the presence of the Lord in the Holy of Holies once a year to represent the people.
When Jesus came he offended the religious leaders by his intimacy with God as Father (John 5:17-18).
We can easily miss the enormous difference Jesus made in our relationship with God the Father. So here is something else to thank our Lord Jesus for. We can call God ‘Our Father’ only because Jesus knew Him as ‘My Father’.
With that truth in our hearts and minds, we can look again at John 17 and ask what it says to us about our own families. Children should relate to their parents in a way that mirrors the relationship that Jesus enjoyed with His Father. Let us live, pray and work so that our relationships with our parents mature into a growing love and oneness.
If we are parents, we often fail in our relationships with our children. Yet we know how strong the emotional tie with our children is. We are happy to sacrifice so that they get a good education. We worry about them and for them. We suffer with them when they get into trouble. How wonderful is the love of a parent for a child.
Jesus shows us that this too comes from the image of God within us. In our families we are living out the love between the Father and the Son. We fail and our love can grow cold but God says: ‘Can a mother forget the baby at her breast And have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!’ (Isaiah 49:15)