Morning, January 26, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“Your heavenly Father.” — Matthew 6:26

God’s people are also his children; they are his offspring by creation, and they are his sons by adoption in Christ. Consequently, they are privileged to call him, “Our Father who is in heaven.” Father! Oh, what precious word is that. Here is authority: “If I am a Father, where is my honor?” If you are sons, where is your obedience? Here is affection mingled with authority; an authority which does not provoke rebellion; an obedience demanded which is most cheerfully rendered—which would not be withheld even if it might. The obedience which God’s children yield to him must be loving obedience. Do not go about the service of God as slaves to their taskmaster’s toil, but follow in the way of his commands because it is your Father’s way. Yield your bodies as instruments of righteousness, because righteousness is your Father’s will, and his will should be the will of his child.

Father! — Here is a kingly attribute so pleasantly veiled in love, that the King’s crown is forgotten in the King’s face, and his scepter becomes not a rod of iron, but a silver scepter of mercy—the scepter indeed seems to be forgotten in the tender hand of him who wields it.

Father! — Here is honor and love. How great a Father’s love is to his children! That which friendship cannot do, and mere compassion will not attempt, a father’s heart and hand must do for his children. They are his offspring, he must bless them; they are his children, he must show himself strong in their defense. If an earthly father watches over his children with unceasing love and care, how much more does our heavenly Father? Abba, Father! He who can say this, has uttered better music than cherubim or seraphim can reach. There is heaven in the depth of that word — Father! There is all I can ask; all my necessities can demand; all my wishes can desire. I have all in all, to all eternity, when I can say, “Father.”