The Growing Father-h

The pathway to effective “fathering” is to know the Father. (v. “. . . forget not all his benefits . . .)

James Packer, in his excellent book, Knowing God, writes:

Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives. As it would be cruel to an Amazonian tribesman to fly him to London, put him down without explanation in Trafalgar Square and leave him, as one who knew nothing of English or England, to fend for himself, so we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it. The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life with it a disappointing and unpleasant business, for those who do not know God. Disregard the study of God and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul.

In the midst of this great coldness toward God there are some, I rejoice to acknowledge, who will not be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument, and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, "O God, show me thy glory." They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God.

I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.

-- From Pursuing the Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer

Moses knew God differently than the children of Israel. Growing relationships move away from fear and formality to intimacy. (v. 7 “He made known His ways to Moses and his deeds to the people of Israel.”)

A person can be a Christian for many years yet remain spiritually immature. Therefore it's possible for a new believer to be far more grown up in the Lord than someone who has been saved for 40 years.

A good example of this is found in an incident described by Ethel Barrett in her book It Only Hurts When I Laugh. She said that when D.L. Moody became a Christian, he developed such a hunger for God's Word, spent so much time reading it, and was so quick to obey it that he became a "menace" to some believers. His rapid spiritual growth was an embarrassment to certain people who, though they had been saved for years, never grew up in Christ. Week after week in the church Moody attended, he would share a new experience he had with the Lord. Finally, some of the older saints who just couldn't stand feeling humiliated by his exemplary life, went to Moody's uncle and urged him to quiet down his nephew.

Ethel Barrett drew this conclusion about Moody: "His robust spiritual health and bounding energy disturbed their napping; he was just too much. So, while they were sucking their thumbs, he was growing until he left them far behind; he grew more in a few years than they did in thirty."

See: 1 Cor 3:2-3; Heb 5:12-6:3

The true Christian never has to give up anything (of course I am not speaking of sins), but there are a lot of things that will give him up. They will go one by one. There will be no grief. It will be the way childish occupations are abandoned. I never had to give up playing with tops and marbles. I never had to come to the place where I said, "Oh I am a big boy now, and big boys shouldn't play marbles. So I will make a great effort to give up playing marbles." It did not happen that way. One day I was playing marbles with a group of small boys and some older boys came by. They looked at me and said, "Hey, kid, can you field a ball?" "Sure I can," I replied with more vigor than accuracy. "Well," they said, "we are short a fielder. Get out there and see what you can do." I went out and was ready to play my head off to keep up with the older fellows. When it was my turn to bat I was ready to swing till I burst, and to run till I dropped, and do all that I could to keep up with the bigger company I was in. And when the game was over and we older boys, as I then classed myself, walked down the street past the little fellows who were playing marbles, I did not go back to marbles. I had graduated. I did not give up marbles, marbles gave me up.

-- The Epistle to the Romans, Donald Grey Barnhouse

See: 1 Cor 13:11; Eph 4:11-16; Heb 6:1-2

High in the Alps is a monument raised in honor of a faithful guide who perished while ascending a peak to rescue a stranded tourist. Inscribed on that memorial stone are these words: HE DIED CLIMBING. A maturing, growing Christian should have the same kind of attitude, right up to the end of life.

See: Eph 4:15; Phil 3:12-14; 2 Tim 4:6-7

I love you, not only for what you are -- but for what I am when I am with you.

I love you, not only for what you have made of yourself -- but for what you are making of me.

I love you, for the part of me that you bring out.

I love you, for putting your hand into my heaped-up heart and passing over all the foolish, weak things that you can't help dimly seeing there, and for drawing out into the light all the beautiful belongings that no one else had looked quite far enough to find.

I love you, because you are helping me to make of the lumber of my life, not a tavern, but a temple; out of works of my every day -- not a reproach, but a song.

-- Roy Croft

We never become truly spiritual by sitting down and wishing to become so. You must undertake something so great that you cannot accomplish it unaided.

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

We understand the heavenly Father through our own experience as fathers. (v. 13 – “as a father . . . so the Lord . . . .”)

J. Wilbur Chapman often told of the testimony given by a certain man in one of his meetings:

"I got off at the Pennsylvania depot as a tramp, and for a year I begged on the streets for a living. One day I touched a man on the shoulder and said, "Hey, mister, can you give me a dime?" As soon as I saw his face I was shocked to see that it was my own father. I said, "Father, Father, do you know me?" Throwing his arms around me and with tears in his eyes, he said, "Oh my son, at last I've found you! I've found you. You want a dime? Everything I have is yours." Think of it. I was a tramp. I stood begging my own father for ten cents, when for 18 years he had been looking for me to give me all that he had."

What a wonderful illustration of the way God longs to treat us, if we will only let Him.

See: Psa 84:11; John 16:15; Eph 1:4-8; Eph 3:16; Phil 4:19

We love our own like we love no others. Although he loves all men there are certain graces reserved for those who know are in relationship with him. (v. 13 “As a father has compassion, . . . so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.”)

q He knows where we come from.

q He knows what we’re made of.

How do I grow in relationship to God?

q Maintain a current relationship with God. He needs to be God today and to have permission to involve himself in your life.

q Become deliberate about the process. It does not happen accidentally.

q Discover the elements of spirituality that you respond to more readily than others.

q Demonstrate and teach – become the priest of your home.

q Find a place of service

PRACTICE THE "REPLACEMENT PRINCIPLE"

Here is one of the most unusual illustrations that Jesus ever gave:

When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, I will return to the house I left. When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first (Luke

11: 24-26).

It almost sounds like it is an exercise in futility to get rid of evil spirits. The enemy certainly will not give up trying to control your mind, and when he sees you are serious about cleaning out the wrong thoughts, he will redouble his efforts to come back and occupy your renewed mind with even more evil thoughts. But when he returns and finds your mind is occupied and filled with the right kind of thoughts, he is prevented from moving in again. This is known as the replacement principle.

It is not enough to know that a particular thought pattern is wrong; you must also make a fast decision to replace it with a thought pattern that is right.

You can replace untrue thoughts. A great many of your untrue thoughts are fearful thoughts; worrying and wondering about what might happen, what tragedy could descend upon you, or what could go wrong. Quote Psalm 27:1-3 when those thoughts enter your mind: The Lord is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear... Or read Matthew 10:28-31, Is. 35:33-4, or Hebrews 12:3.

You can replace thoughts that are not noble. Thoughts that criticize and judge others are never noble. Keep reminding yourself that the critical things that come out of your mouth begin in your mind. If you stop the thinking, you'll stop the words. Often the thing you criticize others for is an area in which you frequently fail yourself. Read Romans 14:10-13 and Matthew 7:1-2.

You can replace impure thoughts. Impure and immoral thinking is so common place in society that all of us need to be cautious in this area. Think about the second coming of Jesus Christ. We know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure (1 John 3:2-3).

You can replace unlovely thoughts. When you start to feel sorry for yourself and organize a pity party, your thoughts are immediately in the unlovely category. Thankfulness is a sure cure for self-pity. Start reciting all you have to be thankful for. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus (1 Thes. 5:18).

You can replace thoughts that are not admirable. Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you (Rom. 12:3). Let Jesus be your example of humility, servanthood, thinking the best of people, and always focusing on our Father in heaven. Read Philippians 2:5-8, and 1 Corinthians 4:7.

A moment of decision: it's not easy to replace wrong thoughts. The moment of abandoning the wrong thought and forcing yourself to think correctly is a moment of struggle in most minds. And sometimes it's necessary to replace wrong thoughts every minute or two. But don't let that discourage you. Keep applying this principle. Just keep replacing. You're changing habits that are ingrained, and you're in a warfare with your enemy. So don't give up; just replace the wrong thought with the right thought as many times as necessary.

Mary Whelchel is founder and host of the radio program The Christian Working Woman, heard on more than 500 stations across the country and internationally. She is also director of Women's Ministries for The Moody Church in Chicago. She is a frequent speaker at retreats and has authored several books, including If You Only Knew, How to Thrive from 9 to 5, and The Christian Working Woman.