Our Father, the One in the Heavens

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God 

I wrote a book on the Lord’s Prayer. It came from a desire to not only learn how to pray, but also to pray. Does that make sense? That’s what the disciples asked Jesus. “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” (Luke 11:1)

When Jesus answered them, He said to pray like this, “Our Father, the One in the heavens…” That is an interesting opening remark to God because it points out two very important things. 1) We have an intimate relationship with the God who created everything, and 2) He is not like us, He is in the heavens. Why would Jesus teach His disciples to address God that way? I think it was to keep us from two false views of how we should think of, relate to, and pray to God.

The first false view is an overemphasis on God being high above and removed from us. Some see God as far and away. They think He is so far removed that the distance between us and Him is an unbridgeable gap. Most religions depict God this way and many people think that if there is a God we could not possibly know or relate to Him. 

This leads to despair because God cannot be known. He is so removed that we wonder if He cares. But in teaching us to pray to “Our father” Jesus is saying that God is willing and eager to hear and care for us. God enters into a personal relationship with us.

So if teaching us to pray to “our Father” saves us from the false view of God as unknowable, then...

The words “the One in the heavens” keep us from a second false view, namely, that God becomes too familiar.

Many people have a "dumbed down" God they know only as "Daddy" or "Papa." While addressing Him as "Daddy" and "Papa" may be well and good, it can also be dangerous if not tempered by "the One in the heavens". This God may have become the dumbed down God of the church. He has become the domesticated all-loving mushy god of culture who would never tell you how to live your life.

This false view of God leads to a small and pathetic god who is not powerful enough to help us, not holy enough to command us, and not magnificent enough to strike us with awe.

By praying to both “Our Father” and “the One in the heavens” we find God high and exalted, all powerful, sovereign, supreme. A God who we tremble before because He is so much greater than us.

The God Jeremiah prayed to and said, “Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth…nothing is too hard for you” (Jeremiah 32:17)

And yet we find that God has drawn near as a Father. He is not just able to help, he is willing. He is compassionate. He cares for His people. He fights for His people. He loves his children and will bring them into eternal relationship with Him.