Our Motherly Father

Joseph Prince made an interesting observation when he asked the question - "We know Him as Heavenly Father. But are we familiar with His Motherly or maternal ways.

God is both father and mother to us. 

It's a given that children relate to fathers differently than to mothers. Children looks to their mothers for affection and their tender touch. Whereas, they views fathers as defender, builder, hunter,and protecter. 

 

God's paternal qualities show Him as strong and powerful. He is revealed as shield and protecter of His children. 

 

His motherly qualities, on the  other hand, show His tenderness, love and compassion. He's a God who cares for and provides for His children, showering them with blessing. 

 How we view God determines greatly how we approach Him. 

 The word of God tells us "to draw near to him and he will draw near to us..." The maternal nature of God makes Him very approachable.

 

The maternal / motherly qualities of God seen in the beautiful story of baby Moses. 

 Exodus 2:1-10 

"Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months."

It says "the mother looked at the child". It wasn't just a mere look or a natural motherly look. It was an intent look one with with inspect. She looked with eyes of revelation and saw that this child was special and ordained of God. "he was a fine child" 

This is how God looks upon His children. You are not just any child...you are sons and daughter of God. You're not viewed a burden to Him but you're looked upon as one ordain of God, chosen and elected. 

Who gives a child his identity? It the mother. It's the mother who influences the father in how he see his new born son. It's the mother who points out the unique qualities of the child.

It says, "when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months"...she moves quickly and discreetly to provide protection from the threat of Pharoah's intent to kill him. 

When she could no longer hide him any more she builds him a basket of bulrushes and then places her baby in it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. She takes every necessary precaution to preserve her son's life. 

 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. 

Look at God's wonderful provision in this story. Look at how God provides for His children and how He looks after you. 

 

Let's keep reading this beautiful story of our God's gracious provision. 

Read verses 5- 8.

Pharaoh's daughter recognized baby Moses aas one of the "Hebrew babies." How did she know that? The baby was circumsized. He is marked as one of God's little children.  

Miriam is then instruct by Pharoah's daughter to return home to get a Hebrew woman to nurse the child. And so she returned with a Hebrew woman who happens to be the mother of the baby. 

 Now get a hold of this: Pharoah's daughter said to her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you." 

The mother of this child is now paid from the treasury of Egypt for nursing her own son.

Now. tell me if our God is not a good God...a loving and compassionate God! This baby is now a prince of Egypt..raised with godly values in the palace of Egypt.

What can this mean for us, in such troubling times, when the media snarl and hiss with deadly poison of threats of an  imploding economy, rumblings of a potential wide spread war in the Middle East, at a time when there are Islamic terrorist cells embedded in more than 60 countries around the world, We can know in a deep sense, that we are cared for by our Heavenly Father. 

Psalm 91: 4-7

"He will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You wil not fear the terror of night, nor the arror that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand but it will not come near you. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. If you say, "The Lord is my refuge," and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent, For he will command hs angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands..." 

That God's promise! He's our defender and protector!

 

And He is El-Saddai! He is our Provider! 

The 14th Century English Christian mystic, Dames Julian of Norwich, wrote down her powerful vision of Christ. In her revelations she penned these word:

 "And so I saw that God rejoices that he is our Father, and that God rejoices that He is our Mother...as truly as God is our Father, so truly He is God our Mother. What do you wish to know your Lord's meaning in this way? Know it well, Love was His meaning..."

The maternal love and care of our Father comes through in Isaiah 66: 10-13 

"Rejoice with Jersulem and be glad for her, all who mourn over her, For you will nurse and be satisfied at her comforting breasts; you will drink deeply and delight in her overflowing abundance. For this is what the LORD say: 'I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream; you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees. As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; and you will comfort over Jersulem. (10-13)

Isn't this our need, to be comforted in a troubling world? We need this kind of mothering! "As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you, thus says The Lord." 

Manifest Presence of God

A.W. Tozer distingished between the universal presence of God and pantheism. He pointed out that nature and God are not one. God is not the sum total of all created things. Though God dwells in His creation and present in all of His works...He is transcendent above all His works even while He is present within them. God is here. Wherever we are, God is here. There is no place, where He is not. There can be no place where He is not. No one is further from or nearer to God than any other person is.

When Adam sinned he tried to do the impossible. He tried to hide from the presence of God. When David sinned he also intertained the idea of escaping from the presence of God and then considered it an impossibility.

He wrote, "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend up into heaven, you are there: If I make my bed in hell, behold you are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the most distant parts of the sea; even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me."

If God is present everywhere and if we cannot be where He is not, why then is His presence unrecognized in the world?

The patriach Jacob answered this question after seeing  a vision of God and cried out in wonder, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. That was his problem, and it's ours. Men do not know that God is here.

The presence of God and His Manifest presence are not the same.

There can be one without the other. God is here even when we are completely unaware of it. He is manifest only when and as we are aware of His presence. He wants us to know when He is near so that we will see and hear Him when He is near. His presence is tangible.

Israel experienced the manifest presence of God "in the pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night." (Ex 13:21) The Ark of the Covenant was the living, breathing manifest presence of God in the midst of the Israelites.

When Moses said to God, "Show me your glory" he was expressing his desire to know Him. Moses was praying, "Father, reveal to me who you are." (Ex. 33:18)

The answered Moses' prayer. First, He instructed Moses to hide himself in the crevice of a rock. Yet, when Moses waited for the glory of to appear, he heard no thunder, saw no lightening, felt no shaking of the earth. Rather, God's manifest presence came to him in a simple revelation. God allowed Moses to see His glory that he might be changed by the sight of it. That His faith and trust in Him might be increased and that he might lean more fully on His arm of strength.

Our need is the same. We, too, need His manifest presence.The more we come to know Him the more we will serve Him, love Him, worship Him, trust Him, read His Word and be filled with Holy Spirit.

 God still reveals His glory to us who love His presence, so that, by seeing, hearing and touching Him, we might be changed into His very image. The Apostle Paul understood the purpose of seeing the manifest presence of God. He saw it as an experience to change the beholder...to revolutionize the life of every follower of Jesus.

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthian 3:18)

There must be a yielding; a giving of ourselves to the Spirit of God, for His work is to show us the Father and the Son. If we co-operate with Him in loving obedience God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal (cultural Christian and a life radiant with the light of His face.