To Know the Father

I want to build on the idea that Eternal Life comes from knowing the Father.

Do you know the Father? I think this is an important idea here that is mostly missed. We sometimes know Jesus and the Spirit, but think of the Father as the far off person of God that cannot be known, yet our Eternal Life rests in Him as much as it does Jesus. I’d say that of the Persons of the Trinity, while they are all equal, He’s the Person at the top, so in a way it is even more important to know Him. But to know the Father, we must know Jesus.

Jesus said that the work of God was to believe in the One whom was sent (Jn 6:29), yet no one can come to Him unless the Father has enabled them (Jn 6:65).

So how do we know the Father?

I believe it starts by knowing yourself, your heart, the things you crave, the barrenness of who you are. When you realize down deep from the tips of your hair to the end of your toes and down into your bones that you are but dust, then you can hear Him calling in the Garden, Where are you? Until then, we keep on hiding – longing for more and afraid to come to the healing hope of Jesus.

He is love – the kind that was moved to death for you. I don’t think we ponder enough what suffering it was for God to be man, not just the suffering on the cross, but the suffering to be God in a man’s body, to be limited by time and place, to become nothing.

Jesus was/is a perfect reflection of the Father.

I keep thinking about Jesus and the message he gave in John 6 – he called himself the bread of life and exhorted people to eat of His flesh and drink of His blood. It was a difficult teaching, and some fell away in confusion.

To eat the flesh and drink the blood is to give yourself to suffering in Jesus as well as glorification in Jesus. This indeed is a hard teaching.

There are holes in my faith where I think about falling away. What if this is not real? Why doesn’t God do for me what He does for others? Why is life hard?

I don’t want to fall away when the teaching is difficult – when I am confused or when I cannot understand the answers or the questions.

Through Jesus I see that the Father was willing to allow His Son to suffer even unto death, to suffer the daily bits of humanity, because His love for me was great. Through Jesus, I see the Father persevere, because of course, He is God – the Great I Am. He keeps on – He allows Jesus to suffer the cup of wrath.

Through my suffering, I come to know more and more the Father and grow in the depth of His love. His suffering was my gain, but my suffering is also my gain, because what could be more treasured that knowing, deeply, the God of the Universe who so desperately cares for me and you?

My friend, Rebekah, said over lunch one day she’d heard that suffering does one of two things – draws you deeper into your faith or turns you away. May we be those who stay.

Don’t run from tests and hardships, brothers and sisters. As difficult as they are, you will ultimately find joy in them; if you embrace them, your faith will blossom under pressure and teach you true patience as you endure. And true patience brought on by endurance will equip you to complete the long journey and cross the finish line—mature, complete, and wanting nothing. Happy is the person who can hold up under the trials of life. At the right time, he’ll know God’s sweet approval and will be crowned with life. As God has promised, the crown awaits all who love Him. James 1:2-4,12 (the Voice)

The Father is longing to draw you close to bring you into His presence where Jesus sits at the right hand, where we are and will be crowned with life and given sweet approval. Stay strong, and when you are weak – stay steadfast, because your God, who loves you so much, stays tethered steadfast to you in Love, strengthening your weak heart and calling faithfully, “Where are you? Come home.”