There are many reasons believers don’t spend time in fellowship with God the Father. One of those reasons is the way they view God’s nature, especially if they had unfortunate experiences with their earthly fathers. Sadly, many fathers are harsh. They’re quick to correct but slow to comfort. Because of these experiences many believers view God the Father in the same ways. We’re more prone to see hardships than blessings. Countless Christians have concluded on the basis of their treatment by earthly fathers that God isn’t loving. Without an appropriate awareness of God’s loving nature, it’s no wonder we might be slow to seek fellowship with him.
Countless Christians conclude on the basis of earthly fathers that God the Father isn’t loving.
According to John Owen, in his remarkable book Communion With God, we tend to underestimate God the Father’s capacity to love. This affects our fellowship with him. As Owen writes, “it is misapprehension of God that makes any run from him, who have the least breathing wrought in them after him.” Ironically, those who view God as little more than aggressive are those who benefit the least from the fellowship in his love. Owen continues, “They fix their thoughts only on his terrible majesty, severity, and greatness; and so their spirits are not endeared.”
In other words, to get the most out the Father’s love in fellowship he must be viewed in accordance to that which makes him loving. That is the aim of this article.
1. God Is Love
Firstly, writes Owen, the believer must know that they are dealing with “the love of him who is in himself all-sufficient, infinitely satiated with himself and his own glorious excellencies and perfections, who hath no need to go forth with his love unto others, nor to seek an object of it without himself.” This means that, the believer must recognise that the Father has no internal need for fellowship with others. He doesn’t seek external objects for his affection and love because of any deficiency in himself. God is filled completely with his own love in himself and for himself. Unlike an earthly father, God is profoundly self-sufficient in love. Even the best fathers operate out of some sort of need. But God is love (1 John 4:8).
2. The Father Loves the Son, Eternally and Freely
Secondly, the above love is an aspect of the fellowship between God the Father and God the Son.
God’s love doesn’t change. It’s immutable. It isn’t determined by us.
Eternally, the Father has loved the Son. The Son “was constantly at his side, was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence” (Proverbs 8:30). This is why he could say, “as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love” (John 15:9). We cannot think of the love of God apart from the fellowship within the Godhead. We cannot understand it nor will we know it apart from the Son. Just as the Father’s love for the Son is eternal and free, so too is his love towards us. Put plainly, our fellowship with God the Father doesn’t originate with us. We aren’t its source. God is. Therefore our fellowship with God has an eternal wellspring: God’s fellowship within himself.
Being eternal and divine, this love doesn’t change. It’s immutable. It isn’t determined by us. Nor is it imaged on human loves or fathers, with all their shortcomings. God’s love doesn’t change. It is absolutely free. Therefore our fellowship with God has an indestructible base. Because of our redemption we enjoy God’s love relationally; we enjoy fellowship with him. Thankfully, though, we aren’t ultimately responsible for this love. It originates within God, eternally and freely.
3. Faith Is for Fellowship and Love
Thirdly, we must receive God the Father’s fellowship by faith. All of the above is inconsequential without that. As Owen writes, “we do not hold communion with him in any thing, until it be received by faith.” Faith combats our tendency to doubt God’s love.
Yet we know that this love is difficult to accept, just as it was for Adam and Eve. Even though Genesis tells us God walked in the garden with them, they were separated from fellowship by Satan’s lies and their own subsequent sin. So God must seek them out. “Where are you?” God asks (Genesis 3:9). Because they hid from God. They had misconceptions about his love and feared fellowship with God. Faith in Christ is the means by which we overcome those lies, misconceptions and indeed our sin. There can be no closeness with God apart from faith. To receive God the Father’s love by faith is critical for the believer’s ongoing fellowship with him.
There can be no closeness with God apart from faith.
Importantly, however, this faith is much more than mere belief. It’s more than believing that God is love and therefore loves people. “If the heart be once much taken up with this the eminency of the Father’s love,” says Owen, “it cannot choose but be overpowered, conquered, and endeared unto him.” Faith that clearly sees the Father’s love cannot but itself turn into love for God. True faith takes the shape of love. Fellowship in the Father’s love is an invitation to feel love toward him. To fellowship with the Father in love, the believer must press into who God truly is.
In order to do this we must abandon comparisons with our earthly fathers; we must stop seeing him simply as the rightful judge but also the gracious Lord; and we must refuse to think of faith is simple trust but rather the joyful reception of fellowship with God, completely undeserved. God’s love must conquer our deficient views of the Father.
Lean Into His Love, Learn It From Others
I’m a pastor. You might think that I constantly need to remind others that the Father loves me in Christ, which I do. But I also have to keep reminding myself. The Father loves me in Christ. This is wonderful news. A truth to base everything else on. Only with this in place am I able to guide others to that same love. The Father’s immeasurable love is a profound promise I hold on to; and it’s the good news I preach to God’s people.
Fundamental to our faith is learning just how superior God’s love is.
The fact is that many in the church only know the absence of their earthly father’s love. This means part of my task and something fundamental to our faith is learning just how superior God’s love is, even when compared with the best of dads. Let us lean into this love more intentionally, not just as a concept or belief but to feel God by faith in the way Christ makes possible.
