“My son, you are with me always, and all I have is yours,” says the father to his elder son in Luke 15:31.
“My daughter,” says Jesus to the woman with the hemorrhage in Luke 8:48.
“Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children; and that is what we are,” says John 3:1.
And when the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray, the way he has them address God is “father.”
You can’t be a father in a vacuum. You can be a man all by yourself, but you can’t be a father without the ones who are your sons and daughters. Your fatherhood is dependent on them. What you are is dependent on them. They are bound irremovably into your being. And God calls us sons and daughters.
He has claimed us as his sons and daughters, and who he is as father means we are bound forever to his heart. He holds us forever in his heart.
“My daughter.” “My son.” “You are with me always.”
