Knowing & Loving the TrinitySample

Prayer: Father God, thank you for being a kind, loving, and perfect Father. Please paint in my head a right picture of who you are and help me to grow deeply in my love for you as a result. 

Knowing and Loving the Father 

If you were to poll a room full of 100 people on the images, associations, and feelings that come to mind when they hear the word “father,” you could receive 100 remarkably different answers. Perhaps for you that word conjures up images of neglect, harsh parenting, or absence. Or maybe you think of the cultural image of the aloof, clumsy, Homer Simpson-type father. Or maybe you grew up with a great father who in many ways embodied the love of God the Father, and feelings of tenderness and love and affection warmly arise. 

All of us have some pre-established mental picture of what a father is, what a father does, and how a father operates, but the glorious reality is this: all of them pale in comparison to the full picture of who our perfect Heavenly Father really is. The task we have ahead is to properly repaint our mental picture of who God the Father truly is. 

Is he aloof and distant, or caring and near? 

Is he brash and wrathful, or tender and compassionate? 

Is he abusive and manipulative, or kind and truthful? 

Is he powerless and inadequate, or all-powerful and capable? 

Let’s ask him together to guide us to the truth by his Spirit and his Word. 

Look in the Word: 

1. Read Deuteronomy 1:30-31. What image does Moses, the speaker, paint of the Old Testament God?  
2. Read 1 Corinthians 8:6. What does this verse teach us about God the Father? 
3. Read Romans 8:14-17. What do these verses teach us about ourselves, once we are adopted into God’s family?  
4. Read James 1:17. What kind of Father does this verse depict? Wrathful and distant, or kind and giving? 

What’s Next?  

1. Think to yourself: in what ways have I been viewing God the Father wrongly? How do I need to shift my view of him as a “father?”  
2. Ask God to grow your love for him every day this week.