God is a family man. How does that sound in your ears? Right from creation, God's intention for mankind is to relate with man like a father.
Religion assent to the fact that there is God( though religion doesn't know Him) but it doesn't understand the fatherhood of God. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, he brought a new dimension to the issue of prayer that was alien to the legalistic Jews.
He started by saying: "OUR FATHER". His intention was to emphasize to them the fatherhood of God and teach them to relate with him as one.
One of the greatest revelation of God you can have is the revelation of His fatherhood.
Sin broke family relationship between God and man right from the garden of Eden. In fact, God sent our father (Adam) and mother(Eve) packing from the garden but God sought to find a way to restore that family relationship. He achieved it in Christ.
Through justification, the believer is fully accepted by God into His family. Hallelujah!!!
1 John 3:1 says: "Behold, what manner of alove the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the SONS OF GOD: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not". Read this text again.
God is my father because I'm His son. In every family, inheritance is a right of sons. Look at what Paul says in Romans8:17, "And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together".
Aside being in God's family, God made provision for friendship through Christ: "Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you"( John15:15).
Now that you are saved, you are God's friend and a bonafide member of His family. You're not a bastard. You can walk into his presence without fear, guilt or shame and relate with Him as your father.
Those who run from God and see Him as a distant being are those who do not understand His fatherhood.
In warfare, you can brag on God in the presence of demons&Satan that you stand on the authority of your father to confront them. Through justification, you've become a son and a friend of God.
