One of the questions my kids asked when they’re young and I’m sure yours, When you talk to them about God is what does he look like? A good question and one that had been asked down through the ages. what is God like?

When Jesus came, he came to reveal to us just what God is like.

John 1:18  No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.

Jesus most revealing descriptor of God is as God the loving and caring Father.

Have you ever wondered why God chose to have us enter the world as helpless babies?
Could have had as born some way as young adults, physically complete like Adam and Eve.

Just maybe his purpose was that in growing and developing in the context of family, we would grow up experiencing a setting in which his love would be modelled. That we would get a glimpse of the love of God through the love and commitment of our mother and father.
That each child would grow up feeling unconditional love, be understood and accepted in a secure and encouraging environment environment.

No wonder Satan is so bent on destroying the image of the father and the family. The more it is distorted, The more it alienates people from the reality of a loving and caring heavenly father.

In a 1997 the U.S. Center for Mental Health Services provided national demographic data on children enrolled in state schools. They found that “on the whole, children living in single-parent families are more likely to experience poverty than children living in two-parent homes.” Further, “of those children living in poverty, 73 percent were living in families maintained by mothers, as compared to 22 percent of those children living with both parents, and 5 percent living with their fathers.”

In a study on the developmental roots of rape (in Criminal Justice & Behavior, Volume 14, 1987) undertaken for the American Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology, researchers found that 80 percent of those rapists motivated by displaced anger came from fatherless homes. Those with other motivations also had a high incidence of fatherlessness.

Study Into Hispanic Youth Culture- 1997

“Gang kids predominantly come from broken homes where the father is absent. They generally fail to develop a self-identity. The gang becomes a substitute family, and gang affiliation becomes a substitute identity. Young Hispanic gang members develop a group identity where their identification with the gang and its ethos replaces the core of their self-identity. It amounts to an anti-identity, in that it is predominantly built on negative dysfunctional traits such as toughness and crime.”
1. Studies on a father’s influence on his child’s pro-social behavior reveals that:  Even in high-crime, inner-city neighborhoods, well over 90 percent of children from safe, stable, two-parent homes do not become delinquents.

The care and security of a loving home, with a mum and a dad was intended by God to prepare you for his love.
But because it is a fallen world, many people don’t grow up in a family environment reflecting God’s love, but have suffered hurt and rejection. These experiences can effect us to know God as he truly is and hinder us from trusting him.

• A father who wasn’t there
• Feelings of neglect
• Or broken promises

3 misconceptions about God the father that Jesus exposes

1. Authority
The abuse of authority in our past taints our view of God. We can see him as a punisher, school master, as abuser. But Jesus reveals him as the loving father. The tender nurturer. He even encourages us to pray Our Father in heaven. Even use the word Abba Father.

Matt 19:13 One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could lay his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. But Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.”  And he placed his hands on their heads and blessed them before he left.

If your father failed to clearly display God’s loving authority  and no dad is perfect and we all make mistakes, you need to recognise that fact, forgive him, and go on to receive The Father’s love. He waits even now, with outstretched arms.

• When Ben comes running in to the house covered in mud. I will take him outside and washoff the mud. I reject the mud, but not my Son.
• When Ben excitedly brings home artwork from pre-school, I always stick it on the fridge. Why because it’s great art? Or because it is an expression of the heart of the son I love.

Yes we have sinned, yes we have broken God’s heart, but we are still the centre of his desire.

2. Trust
Charles Blondin was a 19th century French acrobat, famous for his tightrope act 160 feet above Niagra Falls on a rope which was over a thousand feet long.

In 1860 a Royal party from Britain saw Blondin cross the tightrope on stilts, and again blindfolded. After that he stopped halfway and cooked and ate an omelette. Next he wheeled a wheelbarrow from one side to the other, and returned with a sack of potatoes in it.

Then Blondin approached the Royal party. He asked the Duke of Newcastle, “do you believe I could take a man across the tightrope in this wheelbarrow?”
“Yes, I do” , said the Duke.
“Hop in, then” , replied Blondin.

If we have had our trust abused, by someone who we should be able to trust, then we can find it very difficult to trust God no matter how safe he appears in scripture.
Or maybe we grew up with religion and religious practises, but no God. So we have assumed managerial responsibility for our life.

Only love restores trust. And the more we experience God’s unconditional love in our lives the more willing we become to risk everything on Jesus. To walk into the dark only holding his hand.
Prov 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;  in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight

And just like a child can never paint a bad finger painting, you can never pray a bad prayer. Whenever you express your heart to God he hears you.

3. Forgiveness

The parable of prodigal son reveals a father desperate for relationship and union with those who are away from him. When the younger son returned home, expecting punishment he received grace and forgiveness.

A rumour began to spread that a certain catholic woman was seeing visions of Jesus. The report reached the Arch bishop. He decided to check her out. There is a fine line between an authentic mystic and the lunatic fringe.
Is it true Jesus is appearing to you in visions and answering your questions?
Yes Sir?
I don’t believe you. Next time he appears, I want you to ask him to tell you the last sins I confessed.

10 days later she sent someone to tell him to come. She had had a vision.
He came, and said, did you do as I asked. Yes Bishop, Just as you asked. He lean’t forward toward her and his eyes narrowed, and what did he say?

She gazed into his eyes and she said. These were his exact words” I cant remember”.

No Matter what you have done, God, the loving father, will forgive you. Not only that, he will come into your life and empower you to live in way that you were purposed and designed