If we will simply stick with God's Word and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us, then we can come to know our Father in the same way that Jesus knows Him. The Apostle Paul spoke to the Colossian Church about this in Colossians 1:9-10 saying, "For this reason we also, from the day we heard of it (their) love in the (Holy) Spirit have not ceased to pray and make (special) request for you, (asking) that you may be filled with the full (deep and clear) knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom (in comprehensive might into the ways and purposes of God) and in understanding and discernment of spiritual things." Verse 10 goes on, "That you may walk (live and conduct yourselves) in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him and desiring to please Him in all things, bearing fruit in every good work and steadily growing and increasing in and by the knowledge of God (with fuller, deeper, and clearer oinsight, acquaintance, and recognition)."
It is God's will that we know Him in His Love and grace and that we understand Him. His intent was that we could now (through Jesus) be reconciled back to Him as His family. He desires to talk and walk with us like any other Father would with their own children. Despite everything He's done to restore us back to Himself, man made doctrines still keep us separate from Him. Through religion and lies of satan, man continues acting like his sin still separates him from God.
Despite what we read in God's Word, without the Holy Spirit revealing it to us, we still hold back from our Father. Colossians 1:21-22 (Amplified) says, "And although you at one time were estranged and alienated from Him and were of hostile attitude of mind. Verse 22 says, "Yet now has Christ (the Messiah) reconciled (you to God) in the body of His flesh through death, in order to present you holy and faultless and irreproachable in His (the Father's) presence."
By not learning to actually knowing the Father as "Father," we have not only robbed Him of the joy of His family." We act like sin is still a problem and that God is still "just God." We act like that in spite of Jesus, we're unworthy of His love. All of these things come from not knowing God as Father.
He is so ready and willing to bless and reveal Himself to us, yet we continue to insist on being separated from God in an attempt to appear humble and pious. What would be the purpose of Jesus' sacrifice if we are still in the same state we were in before His coming? Why send a Savior Who didn't save? Or a deliverer Who didn't deliver? Jesus did everything needed to reconcile us back to the Father. All that is needed for us to do is receive what He has done by grace.
We should make it priority #1 to learn the heart, will and love of our Father. He has revealed Himself to us in so many ways that only the lying devil could cause us to miss it. If God didn't want us to know about Him (like some doctrines insist), then all He had to do was...nothing. We would never know Him if He didn't reveal Himself to us.
We search online to sites like FamilyTree.com for our ancestory, but we won't go to the Holy Spirit or God's Word in search of our Father. As the Church, we've so poorly misrepresented Him in our own lives and the eyes of the world, that the people don't know what to believe. It's difficult for them to see God when they see us. Jesus said that, "When you see Me, you have seen the Father."In John 17:26 (Amplified) Jesus said, "I have made Your name known to them (the name Father) and revealed Your character and Your very self, and I will continue to make You known, that the love which You have bestowed upon Me May be in them (felt in their hearts) and that I (Myself) may be in them."
Jesus preached a "New Covenant Father" to an old covenant people and many saw a very different kind of person in God. As they watched Jesus, they not only saw Jesus, but God in entirely new light. Jesus preached grace to a people under Law. On the other hand, we have preached Law to a people under grace.
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