Month: June 2026

Today is Father’s Day, a tradition that began in 1910 in Spokane, Washington. It is a day that honors fathers not only for “siring” children, but also for their sacrificial love and hard work raising those children. Good fathers provide for their families, protect them, and teach them – sometimes by words, some-times through discipline, and always as  role models of how men should live.

If both Karen’s father and my father were still alive, we would definitely honor them today, for they both were exemplary fathers who fulfilled their duties of raising their children to take their places in the world.

But the chief reason we are grateful to these men is that, in addition to the physical and social benefits they provided, was that they taught us and showed us what faith in Jesus Christ is all about. And in doing so, they told us about our other Father, the heavenly One.

For if we take a day to celebrate our earthly fathers, we certainly ought to spend time every day to honor our heavenly Father.

In fact, Jesus himself taught us how we should pray to God, calling him “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9). He also taught us that our heavenly Father . . .

• • • loves us so much he sent his Son to die for us: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
    • gives us good things when we ask “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11).
    • desires us to be one with him, even as Jesus is “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21).
    • showed us his nature and character in the person of Jesus,  “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”  (John 14:9).
    • seeks us like a Father who welcomes a lost son; “his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” (Luke 15:11-32, here verse 20).
    • sends his Holy Spirit as our guide and comforter, “the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me” (John 15:26).
    • speaks to us with words of truth, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).
    • does not want anyone to perish, “So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish” (Matthew 18:14).
    • judges the glory given the Son, “Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge” (John 8:50).

In addition, Jesus spoke of our being able to love the Father closely, not just as a distant judge. He called his heavenly Father, “Abba” (Mark 14:6), a term of endearment with the meaning of, “Daddy.” (Hence the title of this blog!” Later, Paul will tell us, “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:6, also in Romans 8:15.)

In the Ten Commandments, we are commanded to, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20:12). Paul referred to this commandment in Ephesians 6:2, where he said, “this is the first commandment with a promise.” The Church has always recognized that this commandment bridges the two “tables” of the law: the one loving God, and the other loving our neighbors. This is because our parents are not only our neighbors, but also authorities over us, acting on God’s behalf in our lives.

Part of the way our fathers perform a godly duty is to discipline their children, not as a punishment, but to teach them good conduct. Hebrews 12:6 teaches us, “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” Likewise, Hebrews 12:9 says, “Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?”

Unfortunately, many children grow up without their fathers being active in their lives. They miss the example of good fathers, they often lack discipline that shapes their values, and their families struggle with provision and safety.  It may be hard to love God as Father when a child grows up with an abusive or unloving earthly father, but God offers to be their “Abba” and supply all their needs.

In fact, God is Father of us all, so let us love and honor him, not only on “Daddy’s Day,” but every day, for we know that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Luke 15:11-32

 

 

 

 

 

Freedom is highly valued and sought in our country, and indeed around the world. In the US there are a number of events which are celebrated as the days on which varied amounts of freedom were achieved. The first event was when our forefathers declared independence from Great Britain, which was July 4th, 1776. We are about to celebrate the 250th anniversary of that milestone in our nation’s history. Then there is the day known officially as Freedom Day, which commemorates the event when President Abraham Lincoln signed the joint resolution of Congress which became the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, ending slavery in the US – a major victory for everyone who had been enslaved.

Another day, which has just recently been established as a national holiday, is known as Juneteenth, which commemorates the day in 1865 when the Union army enforced the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas following the end of the Civil War. This day was first marked in 1866 by various communities of freed people across the South.

Then there are other, more personal and subjective attainments of freedom, such as graduation from high school, moving out of one’s parents’ home, getting that first full-time paycheck, and retirement (and receiving the last full-time paycheck!).

Freedom is also desired and celebrated in the Bible.  The Book of Judges tells how God empowered judges to liberate his people from foreign oppressors. The Psalms speak of the Lord setting people free: Psalm 118:5 says, “Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free.” But the big event in the Old Testament was the freeing of Israel from bondage (slavery) in Egypt. This freedom was the basis of God’s commandments to the people of Israel; in the preamble to the Ten Commandments, God states, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery”  (Exodus 20:2). The Lord commanded that Israel celebrate that event every year in the Passover feast. Which Israel faithfully kept – even to the Last Supper which Jesus and his disciples ate.

But it was also Jesus who expanded the definition of true freedom from just a social or political situation, to being released from sin and death. His big discourse on freedom is found in John 8:31-36. This is what he said:

 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,  and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

As Jesus revealed, knowing the truth will set one free, but it’s not any truth, but the truth found in Jesus’ words. The truth found in Jesus is what sets us free, because he is the Son who frees us from bondage to sin. Without him, we cannot free ourselves; with him, we are free indeed. (Interestingly, John 8:32 is quoted on the wall in the lobby of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Obviously, they are using Jesus’ words out of context.)

Paul writes expansively about slavery and freedom in his letter to the Romans. His point is that we are all slaves to something. Inherently we are slaves to sin and death; but having died with Christ, we are set free from slavery to sin, and are now slaves to God’s righteousness. He writes, “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). And not only us, but all creation has been set free from its bondage to decay and death: Romans 8:21 says, “that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

Freedom sounds good, but what does it mean for Christ to set us free by his truth?

For many people, freedom means having no restrictions on our behavior. I can do whatever I want, free rein, no consequences. It means the absence of controlling authority. It is a teen telling his or her parents, “You can’t make me!” But that leads to chaos and not to any benefit. Freedom in Christ means we are free to be guided by his righteousness to blessings for us and for others. As Paul puts it in Romans 6:22, “the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.” In other words, we are free to experience the blessings that come from obedience to Christ and his Gospel.

I once heard an illustration of the difference between freedom in Christ and freedom by the world’s standards. Imagine a train – some massive, diesel beast that is turned loose on the rails between two cities. The train is constrained to run on those tracks, and when it does, it can complete its course, running powerfully and carry many tons of cargo to its destination. But now picture that same locomotive with no tracks. It has been set free from its restraining rails; it is now “free” to go wherever it wants. So where does it go? Well, about two feet into the soft ground, where it becomes hopelessly mired down and stuck. Now how free is it?

The same with us. When we are freed from God and his laws and Spirit, we get mired in sin and trouble and are unable to live to the potential that God desires for us. Our intellect, our desires betray us, thinking we are free; in reality we are free to fail. But in Christ, we are freed from sin which would control and destroy us.

We humans have had this problem from the very beginning. When God created us, what was the one restriction he gave our first parents? Don’t eat the fruit of one specific tree. So what did we do? We wanted to be free of that one command, so we ate, and suddenly we lost fellowship with God and each other, we lost access to the Garden and its plenty, and we lost our lives on earth with all its joys and beauties. In short, we lost our freedom to the best things life had to offer – all from one act of self-proclaimed “freedom.” And thanks to them, because we were all in Adam, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).

But fortunately, Christ came to set us free! Romans 5:17 promises, “For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”

That’s good new for all who desire to be free – truly free! So let us celebrate the true Freedom Day – Easter – when Christ rose victorious over sin and death, for that was the day when we too became free indeed!

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: John 8; Romans 5; 1 Corinthians 7.