Who’s Your Daddy?

Do you know your real father?

On a recent morning at Camp Victory in Baghdad, Master Sgt. William McGraw approached 21-year-old Pfc. Logan McGraw, tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Logan, I am your father.” It was the first time they had seen each other in 12 years. If his dad hadn’t tapped him on the shoulder, Logan wouldn’t have known who he was.

Our hearts go out to a young man who didn’t know his dad for so many years. But is his experience all that different from ours?

How many people today don’t know who their real father is? And I’m not just talking biological. According to the Bible, you and I have a spiritual father, as well.

Maybe you’ve heard it said, “We’re all God’s children.” But if that were true then everyone should be full of love, life and truth because children are like their fathers. Instead we look at our world and see people full of hate, murder and deceit.

Well, hold on just a minute! What’s up with that?

Just this: Not everyone who claims God is their father is talking about the same god.

Some very religious people of Jesus’ day claimed to be God’s spiritual children. Jesus shocked them when he said they were of their father, the devil! He said that if they were truly God’s children, they would love him because he came from God and God was his father.

But they wanted to kill Jesus. That revealed the devil was their father because “he was a murderer from the beginning.” (So that’s who motivated Cain to kill Abel in Genesis 4!)

As children we must obey our fathers. When we mature, most of us try to please them. We want them to be proud of us. On top of that we often see a bit of our fathers reflected in the way we speak or work. “Like father, like son.” Some sons even work for their dads.

In the late 1970’s Bob Dylan wrote a song called, “Gotta Serve Somebody.” He observed, “It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody.”

Who do you listen to? Who do you please? Who do you serve? Who’s your daddy?

It was Jesus who first said that God wants to be our Father. Up until then people feared God but didn’t know how much he loved them. The Bible says, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and send his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

Here’s how the Bible says you become a child of God: “Yet to all who received him [Jesus], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” Jesus added, “Whoever comes to me I will never drive away.”

The message of the New Testament is clear: God wants to be your father and for you to be his child. He is a loving, forgiving father waiting for his errant children to return to him. No matter who you are or what you have done--if you repent you will find forgiveness.

This Sunday is going to be a tough Father’s Day for many. It’s been seven years since my dad died. I know he’s in Heaven but I still miss him and would love to hear his voice one more time. Maybe you feel the same about your dad.

Will you let God fill up that empty place in your heart? He can and he will. He loves you and promises to never leave you. And he has never made a promise he didn’t keep.

Jesus said that his followers would hear his voice and know him. Have you heard God’s voice? He is saying, “I love you. Come to me. Rest in me.”

Listen to the Bible; it’s good for your soul!