“You are the child of God. He is your Father.” The word, Abba, points to the familiarity and intimacy God desires. That’s a term of closeness. It’s a term of love. Of affection. If God is our Father, then we should expect the kind of intimacy that ought to be a part of that relationship.

“Father is the Christian name for God” according to JI Packer. He goes on to say:

“’Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption. What makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective, something which catches our imagination and lays hold of our allegiance, and this the Christian has in a way that no other person has.”

Through Christ, God has brought us into His family. He has adopted us, and now the primary way in which we relate to Him is as our Father. As difficult as that might be for those who have had troubled and destructive relationships with their earthly fathers, it is nevertheless true that God desires to be in the kind of relationship where we know Him as Father. 

But beyond a way in which to address God, what does that name mean for us? What is it we can expect if God is our Father? Many things, but surely at least these three:

1.Intimacy

God is committed to making sure we understand the nature of the relationship we have with Him. In fact, He wants us to know Him as Father so much so that one of the primary functions of the Holy Spirit is to remind us of the reality of His closeness:

“All those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies together without spirit that we are God’s children” (Rom. 8:14-16).

The Holy Spirit of God that lives inside of us is there for many reasons, but a big part of His role is to rise up in us and remind us of our true identity.

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