The love of A Father, A husband, and a son

With Father’s Day right around the corner, I thought it would be a good time to talk about what it means to be a loving father, husband, and son. Believe it or not, they are, or should be, woven from the same moral fabric. If a man is truly a loving father, he will also be a loving husband and a loving son, and vice versa. As a man, we should look to the perfect example of all three and imitate Him. Yes, I am speaking about God. There is God the Father, God the Son, God the Husband of the Bride of Christ, and the Spirit of God who dwells within men who love and obey God. The secret is to be willing to let God live in us, so He might live through us. Like Jesus, we are also sons of the Father, and therefore, we should be like the Father just as Jesus is like Him. This is possible because we can have His Spirit living in us.

Jesus describes our Father in Luke 18:19 as being the only “good” Father, but He also says in Matthew 5:48 that we should be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. Many scholars have debated what He meant by being “perfect,” but regardless of what He meant by the word “perfect,” it is pretty clear He wants us to be like our Father in heaven. We should want to be exactly like Him. It is natural to look up to and imitate the man who raised you, especially if you believe he is a good father. How much more should we want to be like our perfect, good, and loving Father who created us and gave up His first-born Son for us? You might think that allowing your first-born son to die is not a sign of being a good father, but if you had the power to raise him from the dead and redeem your lost creation through adoption, it might bring you to a different conclusion. The Father sacrificed His only Son, so we might all become His children and be close to His heart.

When the Son of God died for us, we were elevated into a position as coheirs with Jesus because the life of the Son of God is worth so much more than the life of man. At our very best, man was only His creation before Christ died on the cross. Hebrews 2:9 says the Son had to be “made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.” Without becoming as low as the created man, the Son would not be able to die. Even as man, Christ could not be killed. He gave up His life freely on the cross. He did not die until He decided to commit His Spirit into the Father’s hands. He wanted to do the Father’s will because He loved the Father with all His heart, mind, soul, and strength. He and the Father were one, and He loved us as the Father loved us. He died for us because the Father asked Him to become the sacrifice that we needed to be able to come to the Father. Jesus died for us so that we could also be close to the Father.

When Christ died for us, the Father gave Him a gift. He took His redeemed children and formed us into the Bride of Christ. He did this as a gift to His Son. He married us to His Son, so we could experience the intimacy that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit experience with each other. Jesus Christ is the bridegroom, and we are His bride. As a husband in the natural, we should imitate Christ in the way that He gave Himself up for us. Ephesians 5:25-27 says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.” What did He do for His bride? He sacrificed Himself for her, so she might be sanctified and brought close to God. What does that mean for us earthly husbands? We should love our wives in a manner that brings them closer to the Father. We must die to our own fleshly desires in order to love her as Jesus loves us. This does not mean that I just cave into every demand that she makes of me just as Christ does not give us everything that we ask of Him, but if we have an opportunity to give of our own selfish desires in order to bring her closer to the Father then we should take hold of that opportunity whole heartedly. As the bridegroom, Jesus gives freely of His Spirit to His bride allowing her closeness to the Father. As a Christlike husband, I should do the same. I should allow the Spirit of Christ who lives in me to make my wife’s relationship to the Father a priority over my own fleshly desires. What does that practically look like? If my wife wants me to go to a prayer meeting with her instead of having me stay home to watch a football game while she goes to church alone, I should go with her. If she wants me to spend time with the family instead of me playing video games, I should do as she requests. If she wants me to eat the liver she has lovingly cooked for me, I should do everything I can to show my appreciation of her loving efforts and eat it. The bible says when we are sharing the love of God with others, we should eat anything placed before us does it not? We do these things to help our wife be closer to the heart of the Father by showing her His heart living in us.

What do all three of these manly positions have in common? In all of these positions, we are to help others grow closer to the Father. We are to love the Father with our whole being and love others as Jesus loves us. We should be godly men who seek the face of God, and we should try to help others seek Him as well. That is what it means to be a godly man. We are to love righteousness, live holy, and help others to do the same. We should serve others, and treat others as being more important than ourselves. We should abide in the love of Christ with all humility. If all men would take on this challenge, we would not have the problems we see in the world today because perfect love casts out all fear, and the light of Christ and darkness cannot exist together. Let us be godly fathers, husbands, and sons, and show the rest of the world what it means to love others and He loves us.

You can read more about this and other truths by obtaining a copy of “Prodigal to Prince” by Beau Walsh at BarnesandNoble.com or Amazon.com.