Who is A Father?
Most would agree that a prerequisite to any one being a father is that they first must be male. When God created humans, He made male and female; “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27 KJV). The dictionary defines the male as a person bearing an X and Y chromosome that produces a seed for the conception of a child[1] and a female is a person bearing two X chromosomes that produces the egg cells that allow for the conception of children. This is how God created the family; “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it…” (Genesis 1:28 KJV). The Creator created a perfect design for human relationships which started with His very own masterpiece called a family; “And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:22-24 KJV). Human beings were God’s own masterpiece; “For we are God’s masterpiece, created in the Messiah Jesus to perform good actions that God prepared long ago to be our way of life” (Ephesians 2:10 ISV). The Potter (Romans 9) took clay from the dust that He created and molded it into a work of art and breathed Himself into that clay and that which was formed from the dust of the earth became the progenitor of all that was human, male and female.
Ironically, the description of people remains male and female or man and woman until children are conceived. After the conception of children, the terms father and mother are given to those who conceived the children. Many ask, is that all that is required to be a father and a mother? Each year we set aside a special day to honor our fathers and our mothers. In this current day and age it is probably true that we should thank those parents who did allow us to be born into the world and to experience the breath of life when they could have so easily done what Margaret Sanger said on page 63 of her 1920 book titled ‘Woman and the New Race’, “The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it”[2].
When God created man, He created man in His own image; “ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26 KJV). If God left His throne in heaven and decide to walk among people, He would look like us with two hands, two feet, two eyes, etc. He would talk to us in a language that we could understand. We can easily surmise that if God made us in His own image, then we probably should not only look like Him, and that is to look like God who would look like a human being while walking on earth, but we should probably also try to act like Him. If we believe that God is our Creator, then it’s not difficult to understand that He should also be our example of what we should be. In the garden of Eden, God wanted to spend intimate time with His creation and that’s why He came back to the garden after Adam and Eve disobeyed His command. God was looking to spend time in the garden with them. The Apostle John says in John 1, that before the world began, the Word was already there. The Word was God in the form of the man named Jesus. He was with God, and everything was made through Him, and nothing was made without Him. Jesus calls God, His Father and when Jesus sacrificed His life on the cross, he allowed us to be adopted into God’s family, so that we now call God, our Father. What better example of a father than God Himself?
Who is God? God is love (1 John 4:8) . God should be our example of what a father should be. God adopted us as His children, and He’s been the best father that most of us have ever had. When children look at their own fathers, they should see the love of God (1 John 4:16). What is love? This is love – “For God So Loved the World, that He Gave His Only Begotten Son, that Whosoever Believeth in Him Should Not Perish But Have Everlasting Life” (John 3:16 KJV). What greater love is there than for a person to give up their only child to die for people that don’t know how to love back? Here’s true love – “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10 KJV). For those of us that want to know how we can love like that we first need to understand what Jesus did for us – “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20 KJV). Once we understand that then accepting the challenge of being a father doesn’t seem so impossible.
Being a father is not about being a sperm donor or getting a woman pregnant. Being a father is doing what God did for us and that is to demonstrate love for those that are around us. God is the epitome of love but for us, love is shown by what we do and the first thing that we should do is to love God and then let Him teach us how to love others. How do we love God? Loving God is shown by obedience to what He tells us to do in His Word – “ If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15 KJV). Loving others starts with loving God first (1 John 5:2-3). Who is a father? A father is a man who obeys God’s Word and allows the Lord to teach him how to love others. Love our wives, love our children, love our neighbors and then we can truly give honor to ‘Father’s Day’.
[1] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/male
[2] https://archive.org/details/womannewrace00sang/page/62/mode/2up?view=theater&q=kill