7 Teachings of Jesus About the Father

If you want to learn what intimacy with Father God can be like, observing the life and message of Jesus is the best place to start. His life demonstrates what a powerful connection with Father God can be.

In fact, the work that Christ brought, paved the way for us to have a ongoing relationship with the Father that satisfies our need to be loved and our longing for identity.

But are we connecting to that which is available for us?

The best place to start is to look to Jesus. He’s the model, example and message that we ought to be drawn into so that we can experience the connection available to Father God.

Here are seven key truths about relationship with Father God can help you and I grow more:

1. Jesus Taught to Pray to the Father

In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father . . . Matthew 6:9 (NKJV)

One of the habits that astounded the disciples was the prayer life of Jesus. Watching Him prayed elicited a response where they exclaimed, “teach us how to do that!”

To this request, Jesus taught them to begin their dialogue with God by saying, “Our Father.” (Matthew 6:9) This brought a whole new revolution to what a relationship with God is like. Jesus brought in the revelation that the Kingdom of God involves a family. God is our Father and we are His children.

Cultivating intimacy with Father God starts with the simplest things. Addressing Him as your Father and becoming acquainted with who He is as a Father is what Jesus wants to lead you into.

Talking to the Father as His Child

Connecting to God as Your Father will help you learn to cultivate the simplicity of relationship. You are His loved child and He is your Father.

I find one of the key things that keep many Christians from being able to go to the deeper level is really understanding the depth and intimacy, not just of our Lord Jesus Christ, but of God the Father. I believe we have missed one of the key foundational precepts Jesus came to lead us into–a personal connection with the Father.

When you accept Christ, He wants to lead you to intimacy with the Father. Jesus Christ gives you the ability to be able to access your Father, your heavenly Father, without hindrance or interference.

And yet this is the place where Christians often struggle the most. They’re struggling with having a sense of intimacy with the Father. They believe in Jesus, they’ve received Him, they’ve accepted Him but they are struggling with going to what Jesus wanted to bridge the gap to.

When the disciples were amazed at Jesus prayer connection to God, the first line of communication laid the foundation of relationship . . . our Father.

How often can you find yourself in prayer moving away from addressing the Father? Yet this can be a critical shift, especially if you want to grow in what love means.

As a believer, God gave us the right to be children of God. You are His son. You are His daughter. When you receive that work of Christ you are now a child who can talk to your Father in the name of Jesus with full access to all that He has.

You can speak and share with Him. You can interact with Him. Jesus showed us that this is normal Christianity–to have a comfortable prayer life with Father.

2. Jesus is the Way to the Father.

Jesus said to him, “ I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. John 14:6 (NKJV)

Jesus is the way, the only way, but to who? Many times, believers accept Christ, but never make the step into connection with Father God.

Jesus is creating an invitation here. He’s saying, I’m the way to the Father. I’m the way. If you want to know Father God, you have to go through the pathway of Me.

Jesus is not only the way to the Father, His life of demonstration shows us how to live in the ways of the Father.

Jesus is the truth. This truth points you to a healthy relationship with the Father. The truth keeps you from listening to the father of lies and it keeps you resting in Father God’s love for you.

Jesus is the truth that will gird you so that what you think about, your perception in interacting with Father God is going to be based on what is true. Many people avoid the Father because of lies they have believed. Their father lens is broken. Jesus as the truth, seeks to invade those lies so that you can interact without hindrance to the Father.

3. Jesus Demonstrated the Father’s Heart.

He who has seen Me has seen the Father . . . John 14:9 (NKJV)

You cannot live the Christian life without connecting to God’s heart in matters. Otherwise, cynicism, legalism and Pharisaical arrogance will penetrate the heart. Many believers are seeking to follow the ways of God without understanding the Father’s heart towards us.

When you get the heart of the Father towards this world–everything changes.

When you see Jesus, you see the Father’s heart. You witness how the Father actually sees people and situations. Watching Jesus tells you what the Father is like, because He operated in oneness with the Father’s heart.

All of our theology and spiritual perspectives need to run through the lens of who Jesus Christ is. And everything He is points back to the heart of the Father. When you watch Him, you can say, “That’s what our Father is like.”

4. Jesus Lived out of Intimacy with the Father.

Then Jesus answered and said to them, “ Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel. John 5:19-20 (NKJV)

Jesus demonstrated what ongoing intimacy and connection with the Father is like.  He didn’t act unless He connected to what He “saw” the Father doing. This cannot be understood if we still approach God as a taskmaster. It only comes out of getting God’s fathering heart for humanity. When you see mankind with a lens of a Father, it leads you into the blueprint and timing of His workings.

Jesus recognized the Father’s love for Him and showed us that God is love. Many people want the deep ongoing intimacy with the Father, but they are still trying to find it through performance and religious perfectionism. We interact with God as an office administrator, rather than a Dad who first wants to connect with His children.

Even as a young man, Jesus was aware of the heart and agenda of the Father that was needed to manifest on the earth:

. . . Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” Luke 2:49 (NKJV)

If you are going to understand intimacy with the Father like Jesus did, you must get comfortable with what a perfect and loving Father is like. You will have to get more used to receiving His love, rather than spending your days trying to earn His love.

5. Jesus Always Sought to Glorify the Father.

I am going to the Father, for My Father is greater than I. John 14:28 (NKJV) 

Jesus sought in all things to glorify the Father. Although glory belongs to Jesus, He directs it up to the Father. Jesus is the cornerstone, the model. He is the epitome of the Godhead. You can see all things in His nature. You can understand the Godhead through Him. Yet in all things, He directs the end glory to the Father.

Even at the moment where every knee bows to the name of Jesus, He gives glory to the Father:

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:10-11 (NKJV)

At the end of days, when Jesus establishes His rule and reign, He delivers it to the Father:

Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. 1 Corinthians 15:24 (NKJV) 

6. Jesus Pointed to the Goodness of the Father.

So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. Mark 10:18 (NKJV)

Jesus lived a sinless life, so to me, it would seem worthy to call the perfect Lamb of God, “good.” Yet in this context, Jesus redirects the focus of people off of Himself and to the goodness of the Father.

That’s a stunning example left for us to walk in.

In this day and age, no subject is more controversial in the world than the subject of the goodness of God. An absolute spiritual war wages over the subject, “Is God really good?”

Jesus left us the model of how to combat this. Let every good work that flows through you direct people to Jesus and the heart of the Father. For in Him, all goodness dwells.

7. Jesus Taught the Importance of Going to the Father.

And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. John 16:23-24 (NKJV) 

In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you . . . John 16:26-27a (NKJV) 

I spend a lot of my work helping people to get comfortable with the Father. So many have deep father wounds that they do not know how to relate to a perfect and loving heavenly Father.

All the teachings of Jesus points us to go to the Father. Jesus even says, “You will ask me nothing.” That’s a strong statement. He’s teaching us the importance of going to the Father, in His name.

He said, “that your joy may be full.” Are we missing out on joy because we have not learned to connect to the Father?

Let me just ask you a simple question. In your prayer life, when you talk to God, who are you asking to work in your life?

A lot of Christians, when I listen to them pray and talk, they say, “Jesus, I come before You” or “Lord I pray today . . .”

It’s great and ok to talk to Jesus. That is perfectly normal. But the Bible speaks of a deeper level. We need to go to the Father. The Name of Jesus is the access. Relationship with Jesus is access to the Father.

How many people are praying to Jesus while avoiding the Father? The depth of prayer is speaking and interacting and listening to the Father in Jesus’ Name. Many are hoping Jesus will go to the Father for them, when our Lord is saying, “You go to your Father. Go to Dad yourself. You can go freely in My name. Go with boldness.”

Transformation accelerated the moment I realized that I needed to know my Father in a deeper way. I pray that you receive His love for you, that your joy may be full as well.