Whether you know it or not, your relationship with your father is significant because it influences your thoughts and feelings about God. Since God is our Eternal Father, nothing is more important than knowing Him. So, as a father, what is God like? How does He desire to relate to us? Is he the type of father who will abandon us? Is he the type of father who is distant? Is he the type of father that is around but not engaged in our lives? Or, is he the Perfect Father that never changes in his unconditional love for his children?
To understand what the perfect Father is like, first we must understand what we are like without Christ. Romans 3:10-11 and 23 says, “There is no one righteous, not even one; (11) there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. (23) For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 6:23a says, “For the wages of sin is death.” Because of our sin, all we deserve, and yes this includes every single one of us, is hell. This is important to comprehend, because without this understanding, we can not appreciate what God has done for us as the Perfect Father.
James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (18) He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of all he created.” One of the characteristics of a perfect Father is that he is a giver. Remember, the wages of sin is death. That is the bad news. However, the gospel is more about good news than bad news. The second part of Romans 6:23 says, “But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The greatest gift ever given in the history of humanity is Jesus Christ. Without this gift we would all burn in eternity forever. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Another characteristic of the perfect Father is that he loves unconditionally. The gift of his son Jesus Christ is the ultimate expression of the Father’s love. Romans 5:6-8 says, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. (7) Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. (8) But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Finally, our Perfect Father is compassionate and gracious. Psalm 103:8-13 says, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. (9) He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; (10) he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. (11) For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; (12) as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. (13) As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.”
God's grace is described with four characteristics in Psalm 103:8-13. Verse 8: God has a long fuse. Verse 9: God has a short memory. Verse 10: God has thick skin. Verses 1112: God has a big heart.
The Perfect Father’s heart, like the distance between east and west, cannot be measured. On a globe, if you go north, you'll eventually reach the North Pole, and if you keep walking in a straight line, you'll start heading south. Eventually, north meets south. Not so east and west. If you go east around the globe, you never reach west.
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