How is your personal relationship with your dad? It probably will not be too hard to remember, since it recently was Father’s Day. Did you go over and spend some quality time with him? Did you buy him a gift? Did you tell him how much you loved him? Those things are all well and good. Some of us do not have earthly dads that are alive or do not have much of a relationship with him. For some of us it was a hard day. Was it hard for you? It was for me. Whether we have a father that is alive, left this world, or we are not close to our father, we still have a heavenly Papa.
I was contemplating the question from a book that I am reading, “The Art of Listening Prayer” by Seth Barnes about “What makes a relationship with you personal?” It was a question that was directed toward my Heavenly Father. The day before, I felt the need to know Jesus better (because when I know Jesus, I know the Father) and I felt impressed to start reading the Gospels and Acts. I felt led to start with Matthew.
Right now, The Passion Translation is my favorite translation and I like to read all the footnotes under the Scriptures. I came to Matthew 1:11 and it revealed, “. . . God pronounced a curse on Jeconiah’s family line, declaring that they were ineligible to sit on the throne as kings . . . So Joseph, as Jesus’ adoptive father, passes the right of David’s throne legally to Jesus and avoids the curse of Jeconiah through Mary’s ancestry. . .”
According to Jeremiah 22, Jeconiah built his palace with forced labor and made his neighbors work for nothing to build a lovely palace. The Lord said that a beautiful palace does not make a great king. He said that his father was a great king because he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and he was just and helped the poor and needy. Then he said, “’Isn’t that what it means to know me?’. . .” Wow! God led me to this answer: Doing what my Father asks me to do and being just and helping the poor and needy. Isn’t that what we are doing with Reformation at the CrossRoads?
You have heard the saying, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. I believe it is even more amazing when dealing with a woman, because when you teach a woman something vital, she teaches her family, her significant other, and the community is better for it. How life-changing is that? Now, we know what to do, help the poor and needy and do what is right in the eyes of our Heavenly Daddy. How are you relating with your Heavenly Papa?
