Lesson 1: P – Parent

“Our Father in heaven”

Jesus taught His disciples how to pray in these few verses, and many people have memorized it without truly understanding what Jesus was teaching as a pattern for prayer.

Jesus’ first item in this prayer is to remind us whom we are talking to when we pray. God is our Father! He loves us and wants us to love Him. Those of us who have grown up with a loving father have experienced this kind of love and can better understand who God wants to be in our lives as a loving Father. Those of us who grew up with either an absent or an abusive father instinctively know what was bad and what should not have happened. God has placed His pattern of fatherhood into our hearts.

The best example of the type of Father God is in our lives is from a story Jesus told in Luke 15:11-32. Most of us read this story for the lessons we learn from the second son who was selfish and left home. But let’s looks at the father in this story.


First, the father loved his son enough to let him get hurt. Even though this father knew what would happen to his son if he would get what he asked, this father gave it and allowed the son to leave. We know it broke the father’s heart to do so because in verse 20 we read how the father must have been constantly watching for his son to return. He recognized his son, even though the change in him must have been great! He recognized his son from a long way away.

Second, the father loved his son enough to run to meet him. He did not wait at the door for the son to reach him. And he did not wait for the son to take a bath before he hugged and kissed him! He did not demand the son clean himself up and buy some new clothes. The father provided everything this son needed to be at home again.

Third, the father did not ignore his older son when he welcomed home his returning son. He took the time to seek a better relationship with this son too – because this older son now openly admitted that his relationship with his father was not what the father wanted to have.

God as Father to us is loving without spoiling us. He loves us enough to hold us accountable for our actions and to teach us through consequences resulting from our sin. He loves us enough to help us grow into being the person He created us to be – which means that He does not always give us everything we ask for. He gives us only good gifts (James 1:17).

*How do you see God as being a perfect Father in your life?