When Jesus taught us to pray to “our Father who is in heaven,” the relationship with God this implies gives us a huge advantage in prayer. Certainly we should always begin prayer with awe-filled thoughts of God. As He is “in heaven,” we should keep in mind His greatness and majesty. Yet at the same time, as He is “our Father,” we should fill our thoughts with His goodness and mercy. Thomas Manton (clerk to the Westminster Assembly) mentioned some of these points when he started discussing the Lord’s Prayer. In the following updated extract, Manton explains in more detail how God is a Father to His children in Christ, and what this means for us when we pray.

In what sense is God a Father?

The first person of the Godhead is called God the Father. He is Father either with relation to Christ, or to us.

With respect to us, the first person is not only the Father of Christ, but also our Father. “I go to my Father, and your Father” (John 20:17). Those who want to pray rightly must address themselves to God, as a Father, in Jesus Christ.

Our business is mainly with the first person, with whom Christ intercedes for us. “We have an Advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the Righteous” (1 John 2:1). Before whom does He appear? Before the Father. And it is the Father to whom we direct our prayers (though not excluding the other persons). “I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 3:14). Though it is not unlawful to pray to Christ, or to the Holy Spirit, usually Christian worship is terminated on God the Father, as being chief in the mystery of redemption. So it is said, “Through him, by one Spirit, we have access to the Father” (Eph. 2:18). We come to Him through Christ, as the meritorious cause (He has procured permission for us), and by the Spirit, as the efficient cause (He gives us a heart to come), and we come to the Father, as the ultimate object of Christian worship.

A Father by creation

There is another distinction to make. God is a Father to mankind, either, in a more general consideration, by creation, or in a more special regard, by adoption.
There is some advantage in prayer, to look on God as our Father by virtue of creation — to consider that we can come to Him as the work of His hands, and beseech Him that He will not allow us to perish (Isa. 64:8). There is a general mercy that God has for all His creatures, and therefore, as He gave us rational souls, and fashioned us in the womb, we may come to Him, and say, “Lord, thou hast made us, do us good, do not forsake us.” It gives us confidence in the power of God. He who made us out of nothing is able to keep, preserve, and supply us, when all things fail, and in the midst of all dangers. Believers are able to make use of this common relationship (see 1 Pet. 4:19; also Psa. 124:8).

A Father by adoption

More especially, there is a particular sort of people to whom God is a Father in Christ, that is, to believers (John 1:12). In their natural state and condition they were children of wrath, and slaves to sin and Satan, yet when they are willing to welcome and receive Christ into their hearts, they are allowed to call God “Father.”

They are permitted to have child-like communion with Him, and run to Him in all difficulties, and lay open their needs to Him. When we are ill at ease, and in any difficulty, this is the privilege of our adoption, that we have a God to go to — we may go to our Father, and plead with Him.

Adoption is an act of free grace, by which we who were aliens and strangers, servants to sin and Satan, are, in and by Christ, made sons and daughters of God, and reckoned and treated accordingly, to all intents and purposes. This is a great and special privilege, given to God’s own children, by virtue of their relationship with Christ.

“Our Father” gives us confidence in prayer

“Our Father” is not an empty title, or a mere technicality. It is the basis of all the favour and grace which we stand in need of, and receive, from God. He will really perform all the parts of a Father to us. There is no Father like God! The reality of fatherhood is in God; none is so fatherly and kind as He (Matt. 7:11)

But how will God treat us as a Father?

He allows us to come to him in all our needs

“Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 1:6). Those who are sons shall have the spirit of sons, and God will incline their hearts to come and call to Him for supply. This is a great advantage. When He gives a spirit of prayer, then He will be ready to hear and grant our requests. “How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13) — when we come and importunately ask for the highest blessing, and will not take no for an answer.

He supplies all that we lack

“Your Father which is in heaven knoweth you have need of these things” (Matt. 6:32). A father will not let his child starve, and certainly no one is so fatherly as God. You do not have a Father who is ignorant of your condition, or who disregards it. He takes exact notice of all your needs and pressures. He says, “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands” (Isa. 49:16), just as we might tie a knot in a handkerchief, or write a note on the back of our hands, to make sure we remember something. In fact, the hairs of their heads are numbered (Matt. 10:30). And Jesus Christ acts as His reminder, one who continually appears before Him to represent their needs (Heb. 9:24).

He pities our miseries

“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him” (Psa. 103:13). In fact, He will pardon their sins. Earthly fathers may exhaust all their pity after meeting with multitudes of provocations. But God will spare us, as a man spares his only son, and not only his only son, but his dutiful son (Matt. 3:17). Many times we forget the duty of children, but God will not forget the mercy of a father.

He trains us up

He disciplines us, and treats us with much indulgence, and wisdom, and care. A father takes a great deal of pains in bringing up his child, and shaping his or her habits and behaviour. That’s what God does with His children. If He afflicts them, it is as a father, only with purposes of good, and not even as an earthly father (Heb. 12:10). They mingle a great deal of bad temper with their corrections, when they get fired up, but God never mingles bad temper with His rod. When He gives a bitter cup, He is a Father still (John 18:11).

He lays up an inheritance for us

The apostle says, “Children ought not to lay up for their parents, but parents for their children” (2 Cor. 12:14). Now, God has laid things up for us, as well as laid out much on us. “Fear not, little flock, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). He has a kingdom, a glorious inheritance to bestow on us. And we are kept for that happy state. Though He already has an heir, Jesus Christ, the heir of all things, yet God has made us co-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17).

“Our Father” helps us in our duty

As it encourages us to pray, so “Our Father” helps us in our duty in prayer, encouraging us to behave appropriately towards Him.

With reverence

“If then I be a father, where is mine honour? And if I be a master, where is my fear?” (Mal. 1:6). 1. We should pray with a child-like reverence and affection. If we expect the supplies of children, we must perform the duty of children. God wants to be acknowledged as a Father, not with a matey familiarity, but humbly, and with an awe of His majesty.

With love

Our love to God is mainly seen by subjection and obedience to His laws. Christ wants us to think of God in the relationship of our Father so that we would remember our duty to Him. “If ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear” (1 Pet. 1:17).

We never pray right, except when we pray resolving to cast off all sin. How can we call Him “Father,” when we do not care about continually displeasing Him from day to day? That is what the Lord accuses His people of doing: “Thou hast said, Thou art my father: Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest” (Jer. 3:5–6). God takes it to be an insult and reproach to Himself when we do evil, yet come and call Him Father. He takes it badly, when people come with empty compliments, and flatter Him with lying lips, and do not walk as children in holy obedience. Calling God “our Father” expresses that we are committed to serving God with holiness.

With gratitude

When we come to pray, we must remember not only what we lack, but what we have already received, acknowledging that we have everything from Him. He is our Father. “Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people, and unwise? Is not he thy father that hath bought thee? Hath he not made thee and established thee?” (Deut. 32:6). We must acknowledge the good we have from Him, as well as the good we expect to come from Him.

Therefore, if we want to have a praying heart, and be relieved of the anxious care which is a disparagement to providence, it is good to think of God as our Father. This makes us rest on Him for all things. “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on —” why? “For your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need of all these things” (Matt. 6:25).

You who are fathers would be most insulted if your children were to filch and steal for their living, and go from door to door begging, instead of trusting to your care and provision. A believer, who knows he has a heavenly Father, will not be negligent in his calling, but active and industrious, and will use the lawful means which by the providence of God he has been brought up in. Then, he will “be careful for nothing,” as the apostle’s advice is (Phil. 4:6), “and in every thing, by prayer and supplication, make your request known unto God.”

If we could only turn our worries into prayer, and run to our Father, how happy it would be for us! Care, and diligence, and necessary provision is our work and labour, but for the success and outcomes of things, leave it to God. When we are fretting in the world with such anxiousness, and troubled with restless thoughts — how we will be provided for in old age, what will become of us and ours — we take God’s work out of His hands. This is a disparagement to our heavenly Father, and a reproach to His providence and fatherly care.

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