To all the dads reading this, happy Father’s Day! One of the many things that the Bible teaches us about God is that he is our Father. As our Father, God does many things for us. Christian fathers strive each day to be more godly and provide for his family and his church the things that God provides to his children. Here are three things that God gives us and that Christian fathers strive to give to their family.

First, God provides protection. While he does not shield us from every harm or inconvenience, he is nevertheless a shield around us (Ps. 3:3). He surrounds his people (Ps. 125:1-2) and we have the assurance that nothing that happens to us was a result of any inability on God’s part to protect us. He allows us to experience difficulties that we can overcome with his help, but he never gives us more than we can handle with the help of his strength (1 Cor. 10:13). Fathers, you reflect God when you take steps to protect your family from harm–physical, emotional, and most importantly, spiritual harm. Be the watchdog for your family and be on the lookout for things that threaten the spiritual health of your home, your family, and your marriage. 

Second, God provides affection. It may sound trite, but it is true: God loves YOU. The greatest expression of his love for the people he created is seen in the fact that he sent his Son to die and bear the punishment for your sin so that you can be reconciled with God (John 3:16). He spares no expense in showering love on us. Fathers, you reflect God when you show affection to your family. Your wife, your kids (even grown children) and your grandchildren–they all need and want your affection. Let them know how loved they are. And remember, by the way you self-sacrificially love your family, you are teaching them something about God and his love for them.

Third, God provides direction. God teaches us in the Bible about things that matter eternally. He gives us guidance on how to live life in a way that is holy and wholesome and that pleases him. Fathers, you reflect God when you provide guidance for your family. You give this to them from your own life experience, but more importantly you give them guidance by bringing them in contact with the word of God to benefit directly from his wisdom.

Protection, affection, and direction: fathers, the more you give these things to your family, the more you resemble God, who is the best Father there is. Your wife, your kids, your grandkids, and your church need these things from you. Our world desperately needs godly fathers. Will you step up to the plate? Will you answer the call?

Wisdom is an elusive thing. We live in an information-saturated world and we have greater and faster access to knowledge and facts than ever before. But wisdom is not nearly so prevalent. Where should we look for wisdom? Prestigious schools? Engaging life-coaches? Motivational speakers? Social media? The Bible teaches us that there is ultimately only one source of wisdom—God himself. God offers to give us his wisdom and he promises that if we search for it diligently we will find it. 

In Proverbs 2:1–8, Solomon tells his son, “My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come wisdom and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints.”

Wisdom can be found if we seek it in the right manner and seek it from the right source. According to these words of Solomon, the correct way to seek wisdom is with diligence. Wisdom is more valuable than many riches (vs. 4) and must be sought as such. We should seek wisdom with the same earnestness and zeal that we would search for a hidden treasure or a deposit of gold. In our day and age, knowledge (information) comes so easily and with such little sacrifice that wisdom by comparison seems all the more difficult to find. But things worth having seldom come easily, and wisdom is no exception. As we go through life, let us be diligent about pursuing wisdom.

In addition to seeking wisdom in the right manner (diligently) we must also seek it from the right source. Ultimately, wisdom only comes from God (vs. 6). He delights in giving his wisdom to the upright, to those who walk in integrity (vs. 7) and he watches over their way (vs. 8). Many people are looking for wisdom everywhere except God and his word. God’s word doesn’t answer every question we’ll ever have, but it does give us wisdom. It teaches us how we should live lives that honor and glorify God. It keeps us from going through life unreflectively and forces us to come to terms with the things that matter most in life: our brokenness, our need for Jesus, our mortality, and eternity. Turn to God for his wisdom and diligently seek it in his word. His wisdom will guard us from many harms in this life and lead us to eternal joy in the next life.

“I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.” (Psalm 145:1-3)

These are the opening lines to one of the greatest expressions of praise in all of Scripture. This Psalm is one long chorus of praise, a reflection on the greatness of our God. These opening three verses confront us with three truths about praising our God.

First, praise is personal. “I will extol you, my God and King…” When we praise God, we do not praise an impersonal force or Being. He is “my” God, and he is your God too. He is our God not in the sense that he belongs to us, but that we belong to him. He is our God in the same way that a man is a child’s father; not because the father belongs to the child but because the child belongs to the father who gave him life. In the same way, God brings us into existence and gives us life. We praise him as our personal God, to whom you and I belong. He is “my” God. He is your God. 

Second, praise is endless. Praise is not a one-and-done thing. It’s not something we do once as an initiation into the faith, after which we never praise again. We praise God “every day” and “forever and ever.” We wake up every morning to praise him with our words, our thoughts, and our actions. Praises for God should never be far from our thoughts and words. In the words of one hymn, “Every step we are breathing in Your grace; evermore we’ll be breathing out Your praise” (Never Once, Matt Redmon, 2012). May we constantly breathe out his praises.

Third, praise is inadequate. Somewhat ironically, praise can never fully express what it tries to describe: the greatness of God’s character and glory. He is “great” and “greatly to be praised” but his “greatness is unsearchable.” Nothing can ever fully or adequately praise God’s greatness. There is no human way to describe God’s greatness; it simply cannot be put into words. This is why praise is endless; we never finish praising God because we can never exhaustively describe his glory and splendor. Realizing that we can never fully praise God doesn’t discourage us and lead us to stop; it’s just one more reason to praise him all the more! If we could completely describe him, then we would be able to comprehend him and that would mean he is lesser than us. We praise him because he is great and his greatness is unsearchable. This week, use the words of Psalm 145 to give voice to your praise for God. Praise him personally and endlessly, rejoicing in the fact that our praise can never even begin to exhaust the greatness of our God.

God has always expected his people to hear, love, and obey his voice. Just like parents teach children to obey (for the children’s own safety and good) so God teaches his children to obey (for our own safety and good). Hearing, loving, and obeying God’s voice is foundational to having a relationship with him. To put it in other words, our relationship with God is built on his terms, not ours. We are not free to disregard his commands, even if we think we have a good reason for doing so.

King Saul learned this lesson the hard way in 1 Samuel 15. The Lord commanded him to go and destroy a wicked nation neighboring the Israelites. Saul was not to spare any of the people or their possessions. God’s words were very clear on this point: “Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them…” (1 Samuel 15:3). Saul fought against the Amalekites and defeated them, but he and the people under his leadership saved the Amalekite king alive and preserved the best of the livestock (15:8-9). Because of this disobedience, the Lord revealed to the prophet Samuel that King Saul was rejected from being King. When Saul met Samuel the next day, he tried to convince Samuel that he had obeyed the command of the Lord, but Samuel saw through Saul’s words and stopped him. He asked him, “Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord?” Saul protested, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. (…) But the people took the spoil… to sacrifice to the Lord your God.”

Saul failed to recognize that obeying the voice of the Lord is more important than sacrifices. Samuel said to him, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offering and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.” While we do not offer animal sacrifices any longer, the principle holds true. To obey God’s voice is better than any outward show of piety or devotion. God is after so much more than just worshippers who go through the motions. He is after your heart. He wants you to know his voice, to love his voice, and to obey his voice.

Are you listening to the voice of the Lord? Is his word your guide in life, the thing that— more than anything else—shapes your values, your priorities, and your life decisions? It is easy to fall into the rut of just going through the motions, going to church, and looking like a Christian without really loving and obeying the voice of God. As you go about your life this week, remember that God is after your heart, your obedience, your love, and not just external acts of religion.

Over the years, I have received some very thoughtful and generous gifts. When you are on the receiving end of a gift like that, it is so encouraging to realize that the gift-giver just wants to give generously and quietly and finds joy in meeting the needs of others. When they give in private, they may not be seen by men, but Jesus assures such people that their Father who sees in secret will himself reward them (Matt. 6:4). Paul was encouraged by the generosity of the Macedonian churches, and he told the Corinthians about the example that the Macedonian churches had set: “We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints—and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us” (2 Cor. 8:1-5). 

Paul was in the process of taking up a collection from the churches in Greece to take back to the churches in Jerusalem who were suffering from a severe famine. He praised the Macedonian Christians for the way they gave generously to the cause in the midst of their poverty. But their greatest act of giving was not financial and it happened before they had given any money at all: “they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us.” There is no amount of money we could give that could substitute for giving ourselves—our heart, our affections, our entire lives—to the Lord. But once we have given him our lives, then we find it easy to give in other ways too.

While he was on the topic of generosity, Paul did not miss the opportunity to point his readers to the greatest act of generosity ever: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). Christ left the glories of heaven for a time to come and suffer on our behalf so that we could be co-inheiritors with him. This is the greatest act of love, the greatest act of grace. Our giving is just one more way to be like Jesus, who gave us so much.

In the ancient kingdoms long ago, the king led a busy but luxurious life. Unlike many of his subjects, he did not work every daylight hour just to provide a meagre living for his family. He had the very rare opportunity in the ancient world to receive an education from world-class tutors and substantial collections of books. He lived in a spacious dwelling that had all the comforts money could buy—including hot water pipes to heat his house during the winter. He traveled quickly and more comfortably than anyone else in the kingdom. He dined on a variety of the finest foods that were brought to him from all over his kingdom—all prepared to suit his taste. I could go on and on describing his life, but the point is that kings of the past led very pampered lives, by all standards.

But in describing the life of ancient kings, we have described our own lives. We do not eke out a living by farming overworked land, and we have money in the bank to buy the things we need and a whole lot more. We have the opportunity to pursue education. We live in spacious homes that are way bigger than what the majority of humans in the past lived in. And our homes have amenities that could not have been imagined 150 years ago—like air conditioning! We travel faster and more comfortably than any other age in world history. At the store we can buy fresh food from all over the continent. If we don’t want to cook, we can go out to eat, and chefs will prepare our choice of food to our taste. The point is, we live lives of ease; we live like kings.

The temptation for us who have lives like I’ve just described is that we fall in love with the ease of our lives. We run the risk of slowly becoming so accustomed to having everything exactly the way we desire that we practically forget what it feels like to be denied. And as only kings could in bygone ages, we can control so nearly every aspect of our lives that we don’t have to be exposed to anything or anyone we don’t want to be exposed to. And therein lies the real danger: a life of ease and control means that we can isolate ourselves from anyone who is unlike us. Ask yourself, How often do I associate with people more than a few steps down the socio-economic ladder? How often do I get to know and befriend people who speak English as a second language or barely speak it at all? Am I taking the gospel to the nations right here in my neighborhood and in my city (Matt. 28:19)? Do I associate with people of low position (Romans 12:16)? And which will I choose to love: the comfort of my little kingdom or the glory and advancement of His kingdom?

Shortly after God brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, he promised them that he would reward their obedience and punish their disobedience. Sadly, their story was filled with much more of the latter than the former. God, being slow to anger, put up with their sinfulness for hundreds of years. He repeatedly sent them prophets to warn them of the coming punishment and to implore them to return to the Lord. Nevertheless, they did not listen. In the 7th century BC God used the Babylonians to take Judah and Jerusalem captive and exile many of the people for seventy years.

God was faithful to his word and brought the people back to their land after the seventy years were over. But the exile had not cured the people of their sinful ways. After the return to Jerusalem, the people of God continued to harden their hearts and continued in their sinful ways. Once again, God sent prophets to his people to teach them the right way to live in a covenant relationship with God so that they would receive his blessing and not his disfavor. One of those prophets God sent was Zechariah. This was the message God gave to Zechariah to speak to his people: “Thus says the LORD of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart” (Zech. 7:8-10). God had sent the same message through earlier prophets to his people but they had failed to listen. The people in Zechariah’s day, like their ancestors before them, “…refused to pay attention… They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets” (7:12).

Zechariah’s prophetic message is reiterated in the next chapter. The command of the Lord was to “Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace; do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the LORD” (Zech. 8:16-17).

God’s expectation for his people has always been that they conform their lives to his moral standards and character. God’s goodness, justice, love, and mercy are supposed to overflow into our lives and be worked out in everything we say and do, from our speech to our performance on the job and in school to our dealings with our neighbors and those that society rejects. But God’s expectation that our lives reflect his character is not a burdensome expectation. In fact, we are most truly human and most fully what God intends us to be when we mirror his character. What’s holding you back from displaying the character of God in your life?

All around us we are witnessing the rebirth of life. Every spring, the world comes back to life as flowers bloom, trees put out their leaves, and birds begin nesting. It is beautiful the way God designed the rhythms and seasons of the earth. We know that God is the true Giver of life and we get a beautiful reminder of that every spring. Spring is also significant because it is when we celebrate Easter. We celebrate the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus every Sunday with the communion, but very early in Christianity the church also began a yearly celebration of Jesus’ resurrection around the time of the Jewish Passover feast, when Christ was crucified.

And Jesus’ death and resurrection is truly something to be celebrated! But for those of us who have grown up knowing the facts about Jesus’ death and resurrection, it is so easy to forget the significance of those events. Because of how easily we forget its significance, we need frequent reminders of the gospel. We constantly need to be called back to marvel and wonder at God’s love for us seen in the fact that he would choose to send his Son to bear the punishment we deserved. We constantly need to be reminded of the significance of the resurrection for us—it is the only reason we can have salvation and it is the foundation of our hope in God. And we also need to be reminded that we are living with resurrection power.

Paul mentioned this resurrection power in Ephesians 1:17-21 in his prayer for the Ephesians. He prayed that “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places…” The power of God that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that is at work in believers today. No one and nothing can challenge God’s power—not even sin and death. You, Christian, are living with resurrection power working in you. There’s nothing that God’s resurrection power cannot overcome in you. So today, remember the resurrection of Jesus. Marvel and give thanks to God that the same power that raised Jesus from the grave for our salvation is the same power that is now at work in us.

The Psalms are full of beautiful songs and prayers that will fill our heart with worship and praise for our gracious heavenly Father. Psalm 103 is a song of praise to God that reminds us of two truths: the dreadful reality of my sin, and the extravagance of God’s love.

This Psalm does not shy away from calling out our sin for what it is. Our iniquity (vs. 3) is perverse and corrupt. And the effect of sin in our lives is dreadful—just look around at the wicked things that have been done and continue to be done. Sin is also willful. The word David uses in verse 12 (‘transgressions’) highlights the fact that when we lived in sin we were in active rebellion against God. Sin is not merely a “slip up” or a “mistake,” like missing a turn when we’re driving. It is much more sinister than that. Our sin is also terminal: sin leads us to “the pit” (vs. 4). The saying is true that “Sin will take you further than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.” As Paul said in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death…”  When we read and reflect on this Psalm, we cannot escape the fact that it reminds us how serious the sin problem is.

I’ve painted a pretty dark picture from this Psalm about the reality of our sin, but the Psalm reminds us of something else too—the extravagance of God’s love. The Psalm describes his extravagant love in at least three different ways. First, he is forgiving. “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities” (vs. 10). He removes our sins from us as far as the East is from the West! Second, he is gracious. “The Lord is merciful and gracious…” (vs. 8). God is not stingy with his grace. He has given us extravagant grace, grace that is greater than all our sins, as the hymn reminds us. Third, he is compassionate. He is gentle and tender with us, taking into account our weakness and human frailty. “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (vs. 14). When we read these descriptions of God’s forgiving, gracious, and compassionate love for us, we should be filled with love and worship for him.

When we have come to know and experience God’s extravagant love, we will also want to imitate him and be forgiving, gracious, and compassionate toward others. It is hard to be all those things, which is why we need constant reminders that God has been so good to us. This week, praise God for his extravagant love and ask him to help you show that same kind of love to someone in your life who could use a little forgiveness, grace, and compassion.

When we look back at the Old Covenant it can be easy to see all the rules and think that the covenant just amounted to rule keeping. We can even begin to think of the Old Covenant as if it were a matter of business-like transactions: ‘If I just do X, Y, and Z that is commanded in the covenant, then God will give me A, B, and C and I can go on with my life.’ We know that this is how God’s people began to view the covenant. Instead of being faithful and loyal exclusively to the Lord, they began to practice syncretism, which is to say they began to mix elements of pagan religion with their worship to the Lord. They never completely stopped worshipping the Lord, but they began worshipping other gods alongside him (for example, see Zeph. 1:4). They thought that if they performed the rituals of the law and external acts of obedience the Lord would still bless them.

In fact, it was not merely external acts of obedience that God wanted from his people. In the book of Deuteronomy, when Moses reestablished the covenant with the people of Israel, God made it clear that he demanded their full and undivided loyalty and their glad and willing obedience from the heart. God warned the people that if they were unfaithful to him, he would punish them for their wickedness. “All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you… Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything.” (Deut. 28:45-48, italics added).

The punishment for the stubborn and unfaithful Israelites who refused to serve the Lord with glad and joyful hearts was that they would serve cruel, foreign nations. How much better it would have been for them to serve the Lord who gave them an abundance of all things than to serve their wicked enemies. But they refused to listen to the Lord and love him with all their heart, soul and might. They did what was right in their own eyes instead of trusting that what the Lord commands is always best. They made a mockery of God by offering empty, hollow worship from hearts that were lifeless and devoid of love for their Lord who saved them. They did not give God the undivided loyalty he deserves. They did not serve him with glad and willing obedience from the heart. May we never forget that God wants our hearts, our love, our loyalty. May we always love him and serve him with joyfulness and gladness of heart!