Our Father Almighty

Remember the old school-yard debate? “My dad could beat up your dad.” In a boy’s eyes, no one is stronger or mightier than their dad. It should be this way. Dads are strong and mighty. But though our earthly fathers wither and fade, God never can and never will. In fact, as time goes on, God grows mightier. The prophet Isaiah said of the coming Messiah, “Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.” In other words, the reign of Jesus, the Son of God, will, under the fatherhood of God, only increase forever. Time will not weaken him. As more people enter the world, as more governments create their kingdoms, as more tribes form their cultures, the ruler-ship of God only grows ever wider. In other words, God’s fatherhood capacity has no limit. The number of children he can take in has no end. He is boundless in fatherhood. He is almighty.

But we tend to think at some point, God will overlook us. Something will come into our lives—maybe some great sin—and he will be done with us. God knows that fear of separation remains in our hearts. What is his response? In Romans 8:31-39, we hear these comforting words from our Almighty Father.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If God turned the cross from an instrument of torture and death to an instrument of redemption and new life, can he not deal with your problems? You have no weak father. You have One sovereign over all, ruling and reigning on behalf of his children, and he’s bringing you to glory. He is, as the prophet Zephaniah says, “a mighty one who will save.” But not only that, “He will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17). The Father Almighty loves his children with all his almighty heart.