Dwelling in God’s Heart – The Father’s Mirror

Dwelling in God’s Heart – The Father’s Mirror.

“Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.”  (James 4:8).

“I am inside My Father, and you are inside Me, and I am inside you.” (John 14:20).

Even though the phrase “accept Jesus into our heart” is not in Scripture, we get the picture. Accepting Jesus into our hearts means we receive Him into the very core of our being, into the centerpiece of who we are, affecting everything about us. When we receive Jesus into our heart-home, our identity becomes His, the essence of our personhood is intimately wrapped into the essence of Christ’s Personhood. When we make our home in His home, He miraculously become a resident inside each of us as well. And when we experience that Double Union with Jesus Christ, we discover that our spiritual location is inside of the very heart of God. In other words, if the Son is inside the Father, and we are inside the Son, then logically we are inside the Father! By dwelling in the Son’s heart, we dwell in the Father’s heart as well. By living inside the “Person after God’s own heart,” we find ourselves inside God’s heart! As Paul claims in Colossians 3:3, believers are “hidden within Christ, inside of God.”

Way back in 1954 there was a creative little evangelistic tract produced by Inter-Varsity Press, written by a pastor named Robert Boyd Munger. He entitled his brief tract, “My Heart – God’s Home.” I recommend it if you find it. Following up on Revelation 3:20, Pastor Munger imagined a believer opening his door and escorting Jesus through the home of his heart, now that Jesus has taken up residence in him. Now that Jesus dwells in him, and He has moved into his heart, what will Jesus see there? So the believer in the tract proceeds to give a tour of his heart-home with Jesus as he welcomes Christ into his heart. Together they tour the person’s study, dining room, living room, workroom, recreation room, bedroom and hall closet. I thought this was an engaging idea, but now I would like to give the other side of the story. Jesus lives within us, to be sure. But we also live within Jesus, hence inside the very heart of God. So if the Father was to give us a guided tour of His heart, what would we find? What will be waiting for us to discover in the many rooms of God’s heart? We could easily entitle this, “God’s Heart -My Home.”

Like anyone’s home, God’s heart will reflect His attitudes, motivations, personality, character traits, His heavenly “tastes” in interior décor. God’s deeply held convictions will be revealed in His heart-home, as they are in our own hearts. Using Scripture as our guide, we will explore God’s heart as we make ourselves at home and abide in Him. We will explore everything from the front porch to the front door, the living room to the dining room, from the kitchen to the study to the chapel. And many more rooms as well, like the bedroom, the bathroom, and the nursery. There may even be a sneak peek at the family room, the children’s playroom, and the school room.

THE FATHER’S MIRROR. We know that God is a Spirit, which means there is no literal image of God in heaven like there was an image of Him here on earth in the form of His Son Jesus. There is no literal picture of God, and so it’s impossible to imagine what He might look like. But His Son made a point of describing the Father in clear, unmistakable ways, so that we can indeed start to picture the character of the Father, His attributes, His actions, His words in Scripture. Through Scripture, we can to some degree read God’s mind, as much as He wants to reveal of His mind. But of course He remains incomprehensible to us mere humans in many profound ways. So what is a Father’s Mirror doing in the house of His heart if there is no image that will be reflected? This particular mirror gives us instead a picture of what kind of Person God is, His character traits, His inclinations, his desires. Jesus, God’s image on earth, went out of His way to present a picture of the Father, even though there is no mirror expansive enough to picture the whole Person of the Father. But with Jesus providing the Father’s Mirror, we can at least start to get a pretty good idea, if not a complete idea.

Abba: an Aramaic word that is a child’s affectionate term for father; a title that directly addresses the father in a familiar family setting, much like Dad or Papa; a word that assumes a profound personal relationship between child and father; a believer’s term of honor and intimacy that refers to God as Beloved Father. 

We can’t forget the poignancy of Jesus’ most desperate prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He addressed God as “Abba, Father,” asking Him to take away the cup of suffering from Him. Jesus closed His agonizing prayer with the heartfelt words of the obedient Son, “Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” (Mark 14:36). We get strong hints like this of their uniquely intimate relationship all through the Gospels. Indeed, “No one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son.” (Matt. 11:27). Only Jesus truly knows the Father’s motives, His intentions, His character, His reasoning, the mystery of His innermost Being. Jesus knows the Father, and their shared limitless love is somehow the engine of the world.

So when Jesus instructs His followers to boldly pray “Our Father,” what kind of Father was He thinking of? What image of Father did Jesus want to communicate? If Jesus wanted His description of the Father to match up with His experience of the Father, wouldn’t it help us if Jesus defined what He meant by Father? If Jesus wants to unpack the Father for us, it’s time to drop whatever we’re doing and take heed. True to form, Jesus did leave us His picture of the Father by building on the Hebrew Bible and then expanding on OT Scripture in His words in the Gospel.

Father God in the Hebrew Bible. The term Father is used about a dozen times in the OT in connection with God, but only through comparisons and God’s self-descriptions. God is never directly addressed as Father, person-to-Person. Father was not used as a title in personally addressing God. Biblical scholar Kenneth Bailey said, “To say ‘You care for us like a father,’ or even ‘You are a father,’ is one thing. But to say, ‘Good morning, Father’ is quite different.” In addressing God as Abba, Jesus seemed to be building on those pieces of Scripture that implied a tender, compassionate, approachable God the Father. Scriptures like these:

1. “Even to old age and gray hairs I am He. I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” (Isaiah 46:4).
2. “You saw how the LORD your God cared for you all along the way as you traveled through the wilderness, just as a father cares for his child.” ( 1:31).
3. “When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms. But they did not realize it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them. How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? I can’t bear to even think such thoughts. My insides churn in protest. All my compassion is aroused. For I am God, and not human – the Holy One among you.” (Hosea 11:1-9, NIV and MSG).

The Old Testament clearly does not portray God the Father as simply cruel, indifferent, unforgiving, or overbearing. Jesus knew this truth intimately, and so He uses the words of the Hebrew Bible to help form His picture of His heavenly Father. Interestingly enough, Jesus expands on this in the context of a gospel story, a parable intended to teach a lesson to the Pharisees.

The Father in the Prodigal Story. It has been suggested that Jesus wanted to communicate the nature of His Father in this pivotal parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. Jesus here shares His own experience with Abba Father. He in effect described the character and substance of the Father in this parable. In Jesus’ mind, this is what His Father looks like. He in fact is redefining the inaccurate picture of the Father as an overbearing ogre full of power and authority, who loves to punish and threaten, who at times is distant and indifferent and other times a cruel taskmaster. Jesus paints a picture of the Father that contrasts with all that, a Father as Abba, a kind and forgiving God who wants what’s best for each person, a Father who genuinely cares for each person in the human family with an eternal love, who desires an intimate personal relationship with His children. Doesn’t Jesus’ picture of the Father here make you want to be His child? Consider the actions and attitude of the father in this parable:

1. A father who didn’t take offense when personally rejected by his son and asked to split his inheritance before the father even dies;
2. A father who patiently endured humiliation at having his own son waste his inheritance;
3. A father who responded with compassion when his wayward son returns home penniless;
4. A father who was actively waiting for his son to return, on a continual lookout for his defeated son, a father who seemed poised to show mercy;
5. A father who publicly degraded himself by running, which fathers aren’t supposed to do, to meet his son;
6. A father who physically embraced his wastral son, saving him from the eventual village gauntlet;
7. A father who continued to pour out grace and compassion by repeatedly kissing his renegade son. This is a reversal of the typical scenario in which the repentant son is expected to kiss the father’s hands or feet;
8. A father who restores the prodigal son to full family status, giving him the father’s feasting robe, the family signet ring, and a pair of sandals that would distinguish the son from hired servants;
9. A father who threw a huge village feast with a fatted calf, feeding at least 100 people. Instead of rejection, the father threw a celebration;
10. A father who would absorb another public insult by leaving his post as the host at the feast in order to search for his ungrateful elder son;
11. A father who patiently accepts the elder son’s unwarranted insult and bitter attitude.

This is how the Son pictures the Father. Who wouldn’t want to join His family?