Who’s Your Daddy?
When our first child was born, there were some complications and she had to spend a few days in a special care ward.
She was kept in an incubator and the only way I could touch her was by putting my hands through holes in the side of the incubator wall. She was only a few hours old when I came to her, stroked her, and asked her a question.
“Who’s your daddy?”
I didn’t expect her to answer, so I answered for her.
“I’m your daddy, and I love you.”
It thrilled me to tell her this again and again.
“Who’s your daddy? I am. It’s me. I’m that guy. I’m your father, you’re my baby, and I love you.”
The communication was all one-way but that was fine with me. I couldn’t shut up. I had just become a father and my heart was fit to burst.
This little girl belonged to me and I belonged to her.
There were many things I wanted to tell her, but the first and most important thing she needed to hear was that I was her daddy and I loved her.
The most important question
The most important question you will ever ask is, “Who is my father?” Your answer to this question will influence every other question of life.
Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here?
Get the father question wrong and you will miss it on every other issue. Your identity will be muddled, and you will have no lasting security.
In your legitimate desire to define yourself, you may settle for inferior choices such as career or ministry. “I am a doctor.” “I am a pastor.”
But the truth is you are much more than what you do. You are your father’s child.
But who is your father?
Jesus answers the most important question: “Who’s your Father? God is your Father!”
Our Father in heaven … (Matthew 6:9)
What is God’s name?
The saints of the Old Testament had many names for God, but Jesus gave us the best name of all:
Abba, Father. (Mark 14:36)
Abba is not the name of a distant and mysterious God. Abba is a word of familial intimacy, not unlike Papa (which is how the Message Bible translates it). Abba is your heavenly Father who cares for you and longs for you to know him.
Why did Jesus come?
Jesus came to reveal God the Father to you. He came so that you might know who you truly are. He came that you might experience the abundant life of living as the apple of your Father’s eye.
Your heavenly Father is for you. He has tilted the universe in your favor.
With a Father like this, how can you fail?
Jesus said, “Father, glorify your name!” (John 12:28). What is the name of God that Jesus wants to glorify? He just told us. It’s Father. He has other names, but this is the name he wants us to use when we talk to him.
Near the end of his life, Jesus prayed,
Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known … (John 17:25–26)
Jesus is in the business of making the Father known. Yet many don’t know God as their Father. Like the saints of old, they see him as Lord but not Abba.
It’s as if Jesus never came.
What is God like?
A.W. Tozer once said:
What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
Your picture of God is the single greatest influence on your life. Define God and you define yourself.
For instance, if you imagine God as a terrifying punisher, you’ll be fearful and guilt-ridden.
If you see him as a semi-deaf sky-Santa, you’ll be a superstitious worrier.
And if you believe God to be distant or dead, chances are you’ll act as a little god of your own little world.
Your view of God matters, but what is God the Father like?
He is exactly like the Son. Or the Son is exactly like the Father (Heb. 1:3). God is like Jesus. Not roughly so, but exactly so.
Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). If you ran into God the Father at a party you might mistake him for Jesus or vice versa. That’s how similar they are.
This similarity makes it easy for us to dismiss the silly caricatures of manmade religion. Since Jesus is not a semi-deaf sky-Santa, then neither is God. And since Jesus is not a terrifying punisher, neither is God. Your heavenly Father is exactly like Jesus.
A Father like the Son
God the Father and God the Son don’t have separate agendas. God is not in heaven recording your sins while Jesus is forgiving them. Nor is he giving you sicknesses so Jesus can heal you.
The Father and the Son are exactly alike, they’re on the same page, and they have the same heart.
I and the Father are one. (John 10:30)
The bad news of the orphaned life says, “You are on your own and nobody cares.” But the good news Jesus proclaimed says, “You are not alone and your heavenly Father cares about even the smallest details of your life” (see Matt. 6:31–32).
Perhaps you are asking questions like these: Who am I? Why am I here? Is God angry with me?
Good fathers love it when their children ask questions, but you will never get good answers unless you see God as your good Father.
Who am I? You are your Father’s dearly-loved child.
Why am I here? Because your Father loved you into existence. You are his dream come true.
Is God mad at me? Nope. He rejoices over you with singing.
Can he forgive me for the things I’ve done? He already did.
Does he love me for who I am? He thinks you’re great! You’re a one-of-a-kind special and he delights in you.
Will he disown me if I sin? Never. Would you disown your own children?
What does he expect from me? He expects you to settle in his love and flourish in his grace.
Whether you are in the pigpen of dead works or the special care ward for broken people, you need to know that your heavenly Father loves you like crazy. He reaches down with love in his eyes and healing in his hands to ask you one question:
Who’s your Daddy? I’m your Daddy, you’re my child, and I love you.
This is the good news an orphaned world most needs to hear.
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More articles about God.
Extracted from Paul’s book Who’s Your Daddy which you can get for free by signing up as a subscriber:
Escape to Reality 
Thank you for this, your blog is helping me so much. There are very few people like you who preach Grace correctly.
Thank you, Jennifer. I’m glad to hear that E2R is helping you.
How do you know God loves you? Are you supposed to just act like it because the Bible says so, even though you see no proof of it in your life? If I am His dream come true, why has He given me a lifetime of nightmares? For His entertainment? I’m sure no one reads these replies but who knows? Maybe God will answer it?
The proof of the Father’s love is all around us. It’s in the love we share with family and friends and the kindness of strangers. It’s in the miracle of new birth and the marvels of creation. It’s in the desires and dreams he gives us. The good things of this world testify to the good God who made them and wired us to enjoy them. He is the giver of all good gifts and there are no shadows or nightmares in him. But the chief way God demonstrates his love is through his Son and the sacrifice he made to rescue us from the sinking ship. I’m praying that you will know his love today.
Mark, I get you completely, I have had a lifetime of pain,heartache,hurt that only seemed to get worse after Jesus revealed Himself to me but I know more than not know that it is not coming from the Lord. If I had not felt His amazing love for me when He saved me then I would not be here now writing this else I would just assume that He was just like a bigger version of all the other abusers and bullies in my life.My parents,peers,ex partner and even my experience of church and fellowship have just only confirmed to me that I am unloveable so have to earn love fearing that I also.could be deemed unloveable and wrong so deserve to be punished,treated badly at any time. When I hear still people talk of Gods amazing love for them I still cry an internal long,primal OUCH and question why can’t I feel that and why is my journey so painful. I have spent years in therapy to no avail and I am still a walking wounded going OUCH.HOWEVER even though I do not understand it ,it is not the Lord,not His will,way or love for me.What has kept me going,saved and determined to trust that He loves me amazingly even when there “seems to be no evidence”??HE does,praying constantly that He will help me because I can’t. I refuse to let the devil win ,he has no right trying to keep,steal or destroy the revelation of Gods Love for me from me in Jesus’ name and that is what it boils down to.From one fellow sufferer to another I am praying for you
I am so sorry Sally, that you’re going through this. You are not unlovable. You are worth everything Jesus suffered, everything He endured He had you in mind…so you would be set free. I know it doesn’t feel like it, and I know it’s hard to be in the dark about what God is doing but I promise you, there is light. I’m praying that you get there. That you see the light that you so desperately long for. He will give it to you.
Blessings dear Sally. Be at peace.
I have a teacher I’m currently listening to called Pastor Hart Ramsey on YouTube, he teaches on grace, and he might be able to give you insights through the power of the Holy Spirit.
God bless you dear, may He answer all your heart’s prayers.
Sally, God definitely can show you if you let him. For me, it was getting Baptized by fire, and then I felt closer to God and able to hear him more clearly. I was also able to pray in tongues and can honestly say that praying like that breaks many bonds, and keeps you connected. Usually afterwards, I get an impression from God. One time I heard: “Let me love you”. I also heard “I love you” six to seven times. I am jealous of others experiences also but just keep asking God to tell you and to give you his thoughts.
@ marcking123, I love your questions. They ring of honesty and expresses quit well the magnitude of the problem of sin and the dilemma for which the Gospel is the answer. Religion has taught us that sin is when you do things you shouldn’t. However, the issue is much, much deeper than that. Sin is ultimately the darkness, the blindness that keeps us from being able to see or know that God loves us in the way the post above explains. This blindness (not seeing) perpetuates all manner of activity and behavior from us to try and create something we can see – kingdoms and empires of nonsense we can point to as proof of our worth. The evil one, the god of this world, as Jesus calls him, wants this charade of reality to persist so that we literally live our whole lives and eventually die trying to earn being loved. Jesus shattered those lies we believe about the nature of God’s love by loving us at our VERY WORST. The cross is God submitting himself to the hatred of our darkness and embracing us there – we couldn’t possibly get any lower or unworthy, yet here, in our gruesome rejection of the Son of man is where God establishes his bond with us and declares his love. There is no depth of twisted depravity we could fall into, hit rock bottom, and not discover Jesus there with us. He is not standing off to the side waiting for us to get our act together. He has entered into our darkness, and he is here with us in our calamitous state asking us to walk with him one step at a time – to take sides with him and let him show us the Father that he has always known. Jesus is here to give us sight… to abundantly answer your question, “How do you know God loves you?” God’s love and favor towards us is true long BEFORE we believe it. The love the Father has for Jesus is the same love he has always had for us. Our true reality is what Jesus came to show us, as a mirror for us to see who we really are. The post above is absolutely correct!!! Bravo, Paul!
Not sure if you get replies back to these emails, but your teachings have helped me greatly and reading this post makes me realize how much God does love me that he me to the truth through your teaching. I’m so grateful! Thank you for sharing your revelations.
So beautiful
I love the idea that God is our loving heavenly Father, or, better still, that God is love. However, I always feel discouraged by the idea that God is exactly like Jesus. To me, this implies:
(a) That God has limited time, and therefore concentrates on his preferred groups: he is mainly concerned with Jews, and barely notices Gentiles unless we pester him persistently; he is mainly concerned with social outcasts, and doesn’t care about saving me if I’m not criminal enough (of course, we’re all sinners and all need salvation, but if we aren’t wicked enough for our redemption to make a bestselling book, he doesn’t care about saving us); and he loves only the very poor, and condemns anyone who isn’t starving and destitute to hell.
(b) That God is emotionally vulnerable, and may hate and condemn us as he hates the Devil if we say something, however well-meant, that upsets him (like yelling at Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my path!’).
(c) That God, instead of being everywhere and someone we can talk to at any time, is someone who came to Earth only once for a few decades two thousand years ago, and won’t come back until it’s time to judge us and say to those of us who believed in him but hadn’t personally met him, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Everyone else loves Jesus, but I don’t, so how can I be a Christian?
You’re looking at it back to front. God is not like Jesus; Jesus is like God. He is the exact representation of his being (Heb. 1:3). God knew our little minds could not possibly fathom him, so he sent his Son. Jesus is God explaining himself to the human race. But it is a mistake to conclude that God is a puny human. He is the Creator.
It seems you may not understand what Christianity is. So many of us believe Christianity is something you do, which causes us to see God as only being concerned with our behavior and never really loving us because we just can’t get it right. Start at the cross where He demonstrated His love for us. We did nothing to deserve or earn what He did, He just reached out to us as we were and proved we have magnificent value/worthiness beyond our behavior. He didn’t just die for us, He was literally shredded and nailed to a cross. You may be at a point in your life where you are unable to feel love for Jesus, but a belief and an understanding in what He did should at least produce a sense of gratitude. As we believe He died our death and our burden away and rose into life that we share in with Him, we live by His grace; which is His divine influence. Christianity is living by His divine influence and not your ability.
Amen, Paul. So freeing, so healing. Thank you!
Thank you to mwhok 2020 and Jennifer Underwood for your words and prayers- that is the Fathers heart right there speaking through His kids!!.I do pray in tongues as am baptised in the Holy Spirit. I JUST want to reassure others out there who are born again and spirit filled or just starting to seek the Lord and are struggling or battling with this “love thing” for whatever reason that you are not alone and ABBA God understands,does not hate us ,is not mad at us us or is holding it against us because we struggle with His love for whatever reason .It is not Him,from Him or His will,way ordesire for us.It is not our fault. He has kept and will keep on keeping us in Him until “the penny has dropped”for us about the truth that He loves us.If it were up to me I would have walked away years ago because it has all been too hard,painful but the Lord will not let me and thank God that He has not because I trust Him enough to know that everything Jesus said about Him and demonstrated about Him was and is true that He is a good God, a good Father who is for us,not against us that He knows the plans He has for us,plans to prosper us and not to harm us,plans to give us hope and a future. For reasons I do not understand some of us go through this conflict but it is not the Lords doing.
Also thank you mwhok 2020 for mentioning pastor hart ramsey his sermons the good news about grace and the process was exactly what I needed to hear right this moment, it was enlightening,comforting,encouraging,gave me a much needed long deep true breath of air and clarity so thank You ABBA God in Jesus’ name
Wowww, that’s amazing! Glory to God! I’m so glad to hear that 🙂. God bless you dear, may you continue to get encouraged!
Thank you Paul. I have followed your blog for 7 plus years now but only commenting now. From the days I was a hot blooded young man (The Post “An open letter to….” really helped me. To now, a recent father asking my little boy, “Who’s your daddy?”. I blog when I can because of you. Thank you for opening my eyes to see God and his grace. Keep at it!
Hi Erick, that’s quite a journey! Thanks for the feedback.