Lesson 21: The Infinite Fatherliness of God, part 2
To see what this childlike living is, in which childlike asking and believing have their ground, we have only to notice what our Lord teaches in the Sermon on the Mount of the Father and His children. In it the prayer-promises are imbedded in the life-precepts; the two are inseparable. They form one whole. He alone can count on the fulfilment of the promise, who accepts too all that the Lord has connected with it. It is as if in speaking the word, “Ask, and you shall receive,” He says: I give these promises to those whom in the beatitudes I have pictured in their childlike poverty and purity, and of whom I have said, “They shall be called the children of God” (Mathew. 5:3-9); to children, who “let your light shine before men, so that they may glorify your Father in heaven;” to those who walk in love, “that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven,” and who seek to be perfect “even as your Father in heaven is perfect” (verse 45); to those whose fasting and praying and almsgiving (7:1-18) is not before men, but “before your Father who sees in secret;” who forgive “even as your Father forgives you” (7:15); who trust the heavenly Father in all earthly need, seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (7: 26-32); who not only say, Lord, Lord, but do the will of my Father who is in heaven (7:21). Such are the children of the Father, and such is the life in the Father’s love and service; in such a child-life answered prayers are certain and abundant.
But will not such teaching discourage the feeble one? If we are first to answer to this portrait of a child, must not many give up all hope of answers to prayer? The difficulty is removed if we think again of the blessed name of father and child. A child is weak; there is a great difference among children in age and gift. The Lord does not demand of us a perfect fulfilment of the law; no, but only the childlike and whole-hearted surrender to live as a child with Him in obedience and truth. Nothing more. But also, nothing less. The Father must have the whole heart. When this is given, and He sees the child with honest purpose and steady will seeking in everything to be and live as a child, then our prayer will count with Him as the prayer of a child. Let anyone simply and honestly begin to study the Sermon on the Mount and take it as his guide in life, and he will find, notwithstanding weakness and failure, an ever-growing liberty to claim the fulfilment of its promises regarding prayer. In the names of father and child he has the pledge that his petitions will be granted.
Prayer: Lord, teach us so to live with the Father that His love may be to us nearer, clearer, and dearer, than the love of any earthly father. And let the assurance of His hearing our prayer be as much greater than the confidence in an earthly parent, as the heavens are higher than earth, as God is infinitely greater than man. Lord, show us that it is only our unchildlike distance from the Father that hinders the answer to prayer, and lead us on to the true life of God’s children. Lord Jesus, it is father-like love that wakens childlike trust. Oh reveal to us the Father, and His tender, compassionate love, that we may become childlike, and experience how in the child-life lies the power of prayer.