God the Father

Grace and peace to you from God our Father (Romans 1:7).

Who is God?

God is our Father who rules from heaven. We call Him Father because He commanded all things into existence by His power and will.

When you think of birth, you think of a mother. When you think of being nurtured from infancy, you think of a woman’s tender words and soothing touch. So it’s not surprising that many religions honor a feminine goddess. This imagery has become part of our everyday speech—meteorologists refer to Mother Earth in their weather forecasts, and immigrants speak fondly of the far-off motherland where they grew up.

God is spirit, yet He always refers to Himself in masculine terms. It is the woman who gives birth, but it is the man who makes her pregnant. God the Father is the maker of all things, the author of life in all its variety. A woman nurtures the life growing within her; there is a two-way connection between mother and child through the umbilical cord. God is our Father, not our mother; we are not little godlings who share in His nature through a physical connection, nor do our sins reach out and touch Him in any way. Yet although God is separate from His creation, He loves everything He has made with an affection that no human father can approach.

That great love was put to the test when humankind chose love of selfishness over love for God. Our rejection of the Father wounded His heart and stirred Him to anger. God had created hell as a prison for Satan and his demonic horde; by rejecting God’s love and authority, the people of earth chose hell over the Father’s home when life ends. But God’s great love moved Him to send His one and only Son to join us in our humanity. God the Father sent His beloved Son to suffer the repercussion for our sins. Although it broke His heart, God the Father accepted Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement, a gift of bloody death that made up for mankind’s wickedness so that we might be forgiven.

No Father has loved so deeply, put up with such terrible behavior, or given so much to make things right, as has our Father who dwells in heaven. That wonderful Father is your God and mine.