One of the most basic elements of the Christian faith, which distinguishes it from all the other religions, is that biblical concept that Jesus taught about the fatherhood of God.

There are a lot of people who go around and say, God is the father of everybody, in the sense that he's the creator of everybody, he is the father of everybody.

But he is uniquely the father of all of those who are brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ.

They alone can truly call him a father and know what that privilege is all about.

It is not just a word, Father in heaven, because to understand

the fatherhood of God for the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, it will absolutely revolutionize

your life. Now, the greatest challenge for understanding and comprehending the fatherhood of God,

and what it is like to call God Father,

is the wrong image that so many of us have because of our earthly fathers.

Those who have grown up with harsh, angry, hard earthly fathers inevitably transfer that image upon the fatherhood of God,

our Heavenly Father. Those who have grown up with fathers who are weak-willed and not

commanding respect from their children will be at some point transferring that image and apply it to the Heavenly Father.

That's a challenge. It's a challenge for all of us. And the challenge is this how to separate

these experiences from the true image of our Heavenly Father. Now, I grew up in a different country, in a different culture, and they talk about

how whacking a child can warp his personality. Now, I'm going to tell you, it warped another

part of my body, but not my personality. But even those who grew up in homes with fathers who are fair and honest and loving and generous and strong and gentle, at their best, our earthly fathers are a pale approximation of what our heavenly father is like.

Good as they may be. They can never be compared with our heavenly father is like. Good as they may be. They can never be

compared with our heavenly father. And I hope today will understand that. In fact, David Lewis,

who has done a major research on the verbalizing of love to children by fathers, he concluded that 84% of those children who grew up with fathers

able to verbalize their love to their children have a higher degree of spiritual maturity.

Of those who grew up in homes or fathers were unable to verbalize love toward them

about 39% of them have a spiritual maturity and it happened because somebody came along the way

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