You’ve Got the Perfect Father

David W Palmer

(John 14:18 AMPC) “I will not leave you as orphans [comfortless, desolate, bereaved, forlorn, helpless]; I will come [back] to you.”

An orphan is usually thought of as someone whose parents have died. This leaves them bereaved, helpless, and without comfort. Thankfully, just prior to his death, Jesus comforted his apprentices / friends with the promise that he would not leave them as orphans—forlorn and desolate. He said, “I will come back to you.”

His promise to return to them was fulfilled in his post-resurrection appearances to them, and from time to time, to us. And as we saw yesterday, it is also fulfilled in his being with us through his living word, his manifestations, and the one he called “another Comforter”—the Spirit of holiness.

However, Jesus implies another meaning when he uses the word “orphans”; he is assuring us that we have a Father—our own heavenly Father. What’s more, he showed very clearly that we have a very simple access-path to enjoy adoption into the family of this perfect Father:

(John 14:6 NKJV) Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

While in the upper room participating in the Last Supper, Jesus’s first explanation to his followers about the Father was that he [Jesus] is the way to him [Father]. Next, he assured his apprentices/friends of the Father’s love for them, but only if they remained humble, obedient followers of Jesus: 

(John 14:21 NKJV) “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”

Jesus then went a step further, making a promise to “anyone” who loves him that both he and his Father would “come … and make our home with him”:

(John 14:23 NKJV) Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.

On resurrection morning, Jesus instructed Mary Magdalene to go to his apprentices—now friends and brothers—and tell them that God was now their Father:

(John 20:17 NKJV) Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’”

The Holy Spirit confirmed in no uncertain terms that in Jesus, God is our very own Father:

(Romans 8:15 NLT) So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”

(1 John 3:2 NKJV) Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

Today in Jesus, you are God’s son or daughter—a child of the great king; you are a princess or prince, destined to “reign in life” through Jesus:

(Romans 5:17 NKJV) For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

So, what’s it like having the perfect Father? Obviously, he is unlike so many of the imperfect genetic parents of human society. Most of them do their best with their children, but fall far short of perfection due to sin and un-wholeness. Sadly, some are even abusive, manipulative, and destructive to their offspring. So what is the perfect father like?

We see the answer to this best in the relationship between Father God and his eternal Son, Jesus:

(John 5:19–20 NKJV) Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. {20} For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater wor