I have been learning of the Father and building a relationship with him as far back as 1990. And I am not just speaking of acknowledging him as the Father of Jesus, and then beginning my prayers with our Father which art in heaven, as is the map given to the Apostles by Jesus to give them proper foundation as they were his first new members, and soon to be leaders of the Body of Christ: Matthew 6:9, “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” The prayer in its entirety can be read in the verses following verse 9, but it’s not even a guess to say that all of the fatherview2u readers have known the “Lord’s Prayer” for ever; however, there is always a great chance in which the post should be ready to accommodate someone who is new to it all! I can remember the year, and even the season when the relationship for me with the Father became much much more than I would have ever thought to think about. I grew up from my childhood unto being a young adult in the Baptist denomination, and I have thanked God over and over throughout my ongoing life for the foundation that was laid in my soul: emotions, mind, and will, through out those most vulnerable years of my life. Things were a lot different back when I was growing up, like limited exposure to many spiritual concepts and facts taught by other God fearing denominations. The spiritual concepts, and facts put in placed that I learned growing up as a Baptist from the Bible through Sunday school, through the vacation Bible schools, up to the yearly district conventions, and much much more, really served to help build me into a well rounded young adult having faith in the Lord Jesus. I finished high school in the top ten percent of my class while receiving a few academic scholarships, and one of those were a full ride scholarship. So I left home as a young adult off to the college of my dreams, off to a great start some would say. And I did graduate in four years with my Economics Professor telling me that she wanted to submit my name for a MBA scholarship. My point in this small brief history? It seems that the foundation I grew up on, was a formula that one may want to run on over and over again. And it wasn’t just me, but other young adults like myself from the community, with the same foundation as mine, they were also able to go off to fulfill their dreams right after high school during a trying period of time in our lives. And both of my younger siblings as young adults were also able to go straight on off to college right after they finished their time in high school; so again, same foundation formula as mine seem to be working again and again with more great starts some would say.

The relationship with the Father was off and running quite well one would say, but there was one thing about it that I did not realize. I had been praying all of my prayers to our Father which art in heaven as I should, and still do today, with regards to the substance of my prayer, but My relationship to the degree that I had one with God, was not with the Father, but it was with his Son Jesus. The one thing that carried me through high school, and especially through college, was the righteousness of Jesus that I had been taught from Sunday school and Church while growing up. It is this one belief that I had about Jesus which gave me a foundation to build a strong relationship with him. Anytime that I would come across a situation in which I needed more clarity to get out of a gray area, I would simply ask my self what would Jesus do here, right now, with this situation that I have in front of me? And as a young person trying to make God proud, that would be my go to move to keep me on the right path because there is no gray area in Jesus. So when I would ask my self if Jesus would do this or that, and I had to ask quite a few times, I would actually be building a relationship with Jesus by believing and then doing that which he would do. This was relationship building because Jesus knew that I was banking on his righteousness to bring me through the situation, and I knew from all of my early training, and now along with regular experience, that his righteousness would bring me through the situation. The thing that I needed from him to rely on, and the thing that he need from me to rely on, became the thing that built our relationship: his righteousness. I would even tell the Father in prayer when I was in college that I was going to treat the young ladies right so that when my daughters came to college one day, after I had a daughter, that my daughter would be treated right as I reaped what I sewed. And again, the faith to do many things that lined up with the Will of God came from the relationship that I had with Jesus through his righteousness. Although this was more of a relationship with Jesus, more than it was with the Father, but it was the start to my upcoming relationship with the Father. I didn’t know that this is how you get to a relationship with the Father to be able to use it for all practical purposes of life; for you have to first come to relationship with the Son, before you get to come to relationship with the Father: John 14:6, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

I now know that my strong relationship with Jesus allowed him to give me opportunity to come to the Father to have an opportunity for relationship with the Father: something that I thought was already happening, but had no clue on what was about to come my way, or should I say, who was about to come my way. I was now working for Xerox, the number one company to work at in my mind at that time, and I am thinking that not only would some say that I was continuing to be off to a good start now two years out of college, but that most were saying that I was moving right along quite well. So one day I was out at a park getting my run in, something that I have consistently done since the age of seventeen, and this Pastor who I did not know, stopped me to talk for a minute. And those of you who know a dedicated runner, well, you know that we don’t like to stop our run until it is over. I did stop and talk to him, and I found out that he was Pentecostal Pastor, and he wanted to invite me to come and visit his church. I told him my affiliation, and he just said to come by to check out his services if I had a chance. He did tell me that the services would be somewhat different from the services in which I was accustomed to attending. I did go one Sunday, and it became the next step to the relationship that would be coming up with the Father later. Ok, here I will pick up with tomorrow’s post, as the relationship with the Father will require that I process line upon line, and percept upon percept.

The Father Still Does Love To Do The Body Good.

Adopted son,