Close to the father

He was a little child, and he crawled up into his daddy's lap for the ride. They started laughing and playing together. And then the little boy reached up, took hold of his daddy's beard, and started shaking it kind of like a wet dog shakes, and he was saying, "Abba Abba Abba" --

Do you know what Abba means?
It's the Greek word for "Father."
It "approximates to a personal name," kind of like "Papa."


It is "the word framed by the lips of infants" and by older children "expressing their love and intelligent confidence" in their father.*

Jesus came, talking to God and about God.
But He didn't call Him Jehovah.
Or Elohim. Or Adonai.
Or El Shaddai.
Or any other of the names that the people called God.

No, Jesus came and called Him Abba, Papa, Daddy, Father.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus addresses God 43 times as Father. He took an awesome God,
a fearful God, an unapproachable God, a God who was known to strike out when He was not obeyed, the God of the Old Testament . . . and He introduced us to a loving Father.

How we have structured and formalized and banned the Father that Jesus wanted us to know!

For our conversation with Him to be "pleasing," we have been told we must "look just right," assume just the right posture, be in the right place at the right time, say just the right things, use the prerequisite Thee's and Thou's -- and that only then will He really consider honoring our prayers.

by lifetime daily devotions