The Nature of the Father’s Love
Greetings and good morning, brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series
where we seek to explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years,
the heavenly Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them
with you. This morning we seek to understand the nature of Father’’s love.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Nature of Father’’s Love
““Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons
of God." First John, Chapter 3, Verse 1
Brothers and sisters, in today’’s broadcast, we examine the nature of the Father’’s love. As we
continue with our struggles of time and space, our trials and tribulations, it is essential that we
recognize the Father’’s love in all of it if we want to feel secure in the face of insecurity. We must
not be tempted to doubt the Father’’s love for us. At some point in our struggles, we may be tempted
to doubt the love of the Father. This occurs because we do not understand the spiritual love of the
Father and refuse to faith accept it. This lack of understanding usually surfaces when we enter a
difficult emotionally trying or physical painful experience, where our inadequate concepts of divine
love are exposed.
When we think of the word, love, we often think of its human definition and its associated emotional
component. The concept of human love is a good starting point, that being the only concept that even
comes close to the concept of divine love. But the human concept of divine love fails ultimately
because of its associated selfishness and its often unwise bestowal. But let us see if we may purify
this concept somewhat and arrive at a position where we reach the threshold of what divine love is.
Divine love is not romantic love. It is not brotherly love, nor motherly love, nor is it emotional or
erotic love.
Divine love is fatherly love, and we must look to our highest concepts of the human father before
we can begin to appreciate fully the divine affection. What is a human father and how does a human
father express his love for his children? First the human father is partner in procreating his children.
Unlike the mother, he does not carry the developing child, and is therefore one step removed from
the child emotionally. The mother-child relationship is natural, instinctive, but not so with the father.
From a strictly biological point of view, the child can proceed without the presence of the father and
many families have demonstrated this. We shall shortly see how these families are handicapped
without the father influence.
In these unsettled spiritual times, the role and necessity of the father has been blurred and minimized.
In this age where only material things are considered necessary for the development and guidance
of the child, fathers have lost a tremendous amount of influence. Some of this is the fault of the
fathers, who have turned their backs on their offspring because of their moral failure. But there is
another factor at work here: the liberation of the female. In previous times, the female with her
helpless child was materially dependent upon the male to support, defend, and provide for her and
her child. Now with the economic liberation of the female, she no longer has to abide in a
relationship that has often been characterized by unfairness by the male in the relationship with her.
So she is not being coerced to stay in the relationship because of necessity, and she refuses to accept
the unfairness of the relationship; therefore she leaves the partnership. Since new laws designed to
protect her have emerged, she is just about completely liberated from the male in the marriage
relationship. Some have gone so far as to exclude the personal service of the male altogether by
using the services of sperm banks and in vitro fertilization to reproduce.
Although the male is sometimes minimized in relationships, the need for the male still exists as the
head of the family unit. God is not wasteful, nor is he given to the creation of superfluous functions.
The fact that the reproductive process requires male and female to proceed is proof of the need for
the male in the family units, and this is true notwithstanding the male’’s absence in the participation
of rearing the offspring of certain of the lower life forms. The lower life forms don’’t have a spiritual
nature and are therefore not involved in the ascending process of finding God, a process that requires
the father concept in order to be successful. The human father is designed to be the head of the
family. His primary functions are as provider of the resources of the family, setter and enforcer of
standards, protector of his family, and co-partner with the procreation of additional children, role
model for both his male offsprings and female offsprings. The human Father also has a desire to
provide for the educational training of his children. He cares for them.
His male children need the example of the father so that they can see how a father conducts himself,
and the female that is handicapped by maternal emotions needs the same example, so that she can
select an appropriate male for her husband. This failure of the human father to be present with his
developing children has lead to some real tragedies in both his male and female offsprings. And it
is a well-known fact that, all other things being equal, the male will copy his father’’s example when
he becomes a father, and usually the female will marry someone very similar to her father. And this
is not strange. Children learn the values of adulthood by imitating and copying the values of their
parents. Thus a child who has an abusive and alcoholic father is likely to marry someone with the
same character defects. And there are still other examples.
Now we are in a position to approach the understanding of the spiritual Father. The spiritual Father
is the creator of the souls of his mortal children. The spiritual Father provides guidance and direction
for his mortal children. He also provides the spiritual nutrients for his children. He provides the
environment for the growth of his children. The spiritual Father wants his children to grow up and
be responsible, dependable, and loyal adults who can carry on the affairs of spiritual adulthood. He
provides the security, discipline, and spiritual education for his children. He encourages them, spends
time with them, and is always available to help them with their spiritual difficulties, even as the
earthly human father is available to help his children with their material difficulties. He shares the
ups and downs of their lives. He provides the model for character development. The Father gives the
child the sense of security. Spiritual character development eventually allows the child to grow up
and recognize the Father on Paradise. This recognition is possible because s/he has become just like
He is morally and spiritually.
The spiritual Father cares for his spiritual children and desires the best for them. And all of these
caring factors, the growth environment designed to bring out the potential of his children, the
revelations of truth, beauty, goodness, his unceasing presence, and his endless mercy constitute the
love of the heavenly Father. Fatherly love is the desire to do good to others.
This concludes today's message on understanding the Father’’s love. We hope you find something
in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day.
Until next time, this is Dr. James Perry.
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The Nature of the Father’s Love
