Heavenly Patriarchy


As a child of God I am to address my heavenly Father with reverence and trust.

  • Jesus commands me to address God as my Father.
  • God has adopted me as His child in Christ. 
  • He created me, cares for me, teaches me, and disciplines me as my Father. 
I must always remember that though God allows me to address Him as "my Father" He is not my buddy. 

  • He is the Holy God whom I revere. 
  • I must respect God with Holy reverence and not speak to Him with a rude familiarity.

From the Heidelberg:

Why did Christ command us to call God "Our Father"?

  • At the very beginning of our prayer Christ wants us to kindle in us what is basic to our prayer - 
  • the childlike awe and trust that God through Christ has become our Father.  
  • Our fathers do not refuse us the things of this life;
  • God our Father will even less refuse to give us what we ask in faith.

Why are we to add the words "in Heaven"?

  • Those words teach us not to think of God's heavenly majesty as something earthly 
  • and to expect everything for body and soul from His almighty power.

From the Scriptures: 

Luke 11:13 

  • If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, 
  • how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! 

Matthew 6:25 
  • Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. 

  • Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 
  • Look at the birds of the air: They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. 
  • Are you not of more value than they? 
Romans 8:32 
  • He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, 

  • will he not give us all things with Him? 
Galatians 5:6 

  • And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba, Father!"

Adapted Heidelberg Catechism Lord's Day 46

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