My Father and Your Father

Posted on by Jennifer Arimborgo

Daddy ocean

“Go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father…’” (John 20:17, NKJV).

I think the disciples must have been in awe of the intimate way Jesus referred to God. Their Jewish upbringing had taught them to revere God, to be in awe of God, and to regard Him as supremely sacred, as “Other.” They had learned to love a God who dwelt in the Holy of Holies, unapproachable in Person except by the high priest once a year. They were raised to serve Him with fear and trembling. Crawling into His lap was not on their radar.

And then Jesus burst into their world. He came talking about God as Someone He felt, heard, and saw up close, all the time. He came modeling for them a brand new way to relate to God. When they asked Him to teach them to pray, He eagerly invited them into this intimacy. He explained the way to start out the conversation: “Our Father…” In other words, “Daddy, I’m here. Daddy, I’m drawing close to You.”

Every day, they watched Him lean into His Father with unspeakable closeness. They saw how He did not make one move, nor speak one word, except what He knew Daddy was doing and saying. They saw how this intimate knowledge flowed out of His unbreakable, indescribably profound communion with His Abba. When Jesus prayed out loud for them to listen, they could hear how sublimely familiar Jesus was with the Father’s heart. The conspicuousness of Their connection was achingly lovely.

When the day came for Jesus to physically depart from them, He earnestly explained to them it was better for Him to leave. If He left, He would send the Helper to them. Who was this Helper? The Spirit of Sonship. The Spirit of adoption, by whom they, too, would come to cry out “Abba, Father!” Jesus knew that with His death and resurrection, He was securing for them the exact same kind of intimate connection with Daddy… for them, and for you, and for me.

For this reason, when He rose on the third day, He uttered these beautiful words to Mary: “Go… and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father…’ He had won it for us. He had brought us into their inmost circle. His Daddy was now our Daddy. From that day onward, He has beckoned all of us in…

“No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” (John 1:18, RSV).

Will you join Him in Daddy’s bosom?

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Do you need God to heal your heart from past hurts, in order to enter into the freedom of knowing Him as a loving Daddy? Did you know that He can, and that He longs to? Have you asked Him to?

20 thoughts on “My Father and Your Father”

  5. Jennifer, Thank you for helping us all see this beautiful picture of our intimate God and Father.
    You also highlight the extreme importance of reading the Scriptures in their cultural context. As shocking as Jesus’ words about the Father were to His disciples, those same words are direct invitations for all of us to ‘crawl into our Heavenly Father’s arms.
    Blessings,
    Chuck

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  8. Thank you for the reminder of where true comfort lies: in the arms of the Father.

    I seem to be saying it a lot lately, but I seem to be hitting many crossroads where I know the right response is to turn to God. Yet I still turn the other way. I wrestle with things that bring me down, and know the only way is through Him. Thank you for encouraging me to draw near to God.

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    1. My brother, you are welcome. And you are in the best of company! The struggle between flesh and spirit is so real for all of us longing to serve Him. I take comfort in knowing that the super apostle Paul had the same struggle (as he described in Romans 7). Thank GOD for His enormous patience and mercy with us!

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