A God to Call Father

The relationship you have with your parents is the most formative in your life. The first voices you heard and the first faces you saw were theirs. You may have never benefited from that the rest of your life, but it doesn't change that they are your parents.

There are all kinds of dads:

• Amazing dads- encouraged and empowered you. He wasn't flawless, but was secure, confident, and a companion.

• Absent dads- due to death, divorce, distance, he may be in the same home but he's not present.

• Abusive dads- he didn't help you, he hurt you

• Performance-based dads- everything is earned you figure out young how to jump through hoops for approval

• Needy dad- you have to constantly support and take care of him

The enemy knows that our Heavenly Father is a perfect Father, so if he can crack the relationship we have with our earthly father, he will set us back. The gospel is powerful enough to reconcile us to God, to ourselves, and with our parents.

1. You have to come to know Jesus. When you do, He gives you a new identity. Your new identity is that you become something, you become a believer in Christ. You don't just believe it, you become it. You become a son or daughter. See John 1:10-13, 1 John 3:1.

2. God is not a bigger version of your earthly dad, He's the perfection of Him. You don't have to learn how to negotiate with Him to gain approval. He will not leave you nor forsake you. See Psalm 27:7-10.

3. You can either reinforce what's been broken or be a part of reversing the curse and leaning into what can be. When we have deficits in our lives, we tend to gravitate to the negative and repeat that story over and over. Jesus came to reverse every curse for us. He hung on a tree as a curse for us. See Galatians 3:13. You're the son and daughter of your parents, but more than that, you are a child of God. Every time we think "I am not going to be like that" we get pulled more and more to that exact thing, but through the power of Christ, we are able to reverse that. Think about being like Jesus. It's easier to deflect our shortcomings by defaulting to the people whose fault it is than it is to rise into the possibility and responsibility that we can be different people because we are a new creation in Christ. Leave behind the victim mentality.

4. The power of the gospel is that we can be the love of God to our parents even is they are not the reflection of the love of God to us. Ephesians 6:1 says to honor your father and mother, there is a promise for you in that. It will go well with you, it will give you freedom.

When God looks at you He sees someone He:

loves, is thankful for, a rare and beautiful treasure, forgave, created with purpose, holds to a higher standard, gave mercy and grace, believes in and cheers for.

Because of the Cross of Christ you can say those exact same things back to yourself. Your parents were also brought up by two broken people. Most people are doing the best they can with what they have been given, but they reflect what they believe and know. The gospel can change that. You can treat them how Jesus treats them and tell them how God sees them.