Prayer

"Prayer is in one sense an expression of a Christian's unbroken relationship with the Father" (Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 67).

Gift

"Our relationship to God - that we can boldly come to God saying "Our Father" - is due to God's choice of us, rather than our choice of God. God's choice of us is a gift that we often speak of in the church as "grace" - amazing grace. It's amazing particularly in a culture in which we are taught to believe that anything important is earned, achieved, worked for. Yet faith in Jesus as Lord can only come as a gift" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 26).

On God Being "Our" Father

"We say 'Our' because of the astounding recognition that this God, the one who created the universe and flung the planets into their courses, the great God of heaven and earth, has willed to become our God. Before we reached out to God, God reached out to us and claimed us, promised to be our God, promised to make us God's people. Thus, not because of what we are or what we have done, but rather because of what God in Jesus Christ has done, we are privileged to say, 'Our Father'" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 25).

Family Resemblance: Sanctification and Holiness

"If men have no likeness to the Father in heaven, it is vain to talk of their being His "sons." If we know nothing of holiness we may flatter ourselves as we please, but we have not got the Holy Spirit dwelling in us: we are dead, and must be brought to life again--we are lost, and must be found. "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they," and they only, "are the sons of God." (Rom. viii. 14.) We must show by our lives the family we belong to.--We must let men see by our good conversation that we are indeed the children of the Holy One, or our son-ship is but an empty name" (J. C. Ryle, Holiness, 42).

ClearNote Fellowship 2012 Conference

Our family returned late yesterday evening from attending ClearNote Fellowship's summer conference in Bloomington, Indiana. The conference title was "I Believe in God the Father Almighty" and you can follow the link for additional information on the speakers and topics from the various plenary and breakout session. I believe eventually they will post conference audio; if so, then I will add a follow-up post.

The conference was fun, Christian fellowship was rich, and our family fed well upon God's Word. Many thanks to ClearNote Fellowship for putting this on and I highly recommend next year's conference to anyone that might be interested and/or able to attend--2013 conference is "She [the Church] is Our Mother."

Pastors: Reminding Members – God is Father and Church is Mother

“I will begin with the Church, into whose bosom God is pleased to collect his children, not only that by her aid and ministry they may be nourished so long as they are babes and children, but may also be guided by her maternal care until they grow up to manhood, and, finally, attain to the perfection of faith. What God has thus joined, let not man put asunder (Mark x. 9): to those to whom he is a Father, the Church must also be a Mother" (John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), Book IV.I.1.).