“Father’s Day” is the perfect time to talk about the relationship God has with those who believe in Jesus Christ! “American Christianity” seems obsessed with the idea that GOD is in a relationship of love with EVERYBODY, even if they aren’t in a relationship with Him. Disregarding the holiness of God and His sovereignty over all things, many picture God as the longing father, waiting for His children to come home. “God loves everyone,” they proclaim from the mountaintops. “Jesus died for everyone,” they insist. Of course, this is not what GOD says in His Word, nor is it what Jesus taught during His ministry on the earth. From the beginning of His Covenant of Grace, all the way back in Genesis 12, God revealed that He would enter into a relationship only with those whom He Himself would save and draw to Himself. “Salvation,” as it turns out, is GOD’s work, from beginning to end. God SAVES every one whom He LOVES. He begins the work and He completes the work, so that Jesus could say, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37). And Paul would write to the Romans, “All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. … you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!!’” (Romans 8:14-15). God has no relationship with those who do not come to Him through faith in Jesus Christ! Jesus said, “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27). What a privilege it is to know God as “Father,” and to respond in love to HIS love for us in Christ Jesus! Truly, “We love because He FIRST loved us!” (I John 4:19). On this “Father’s Day,” are you in a relationship of love with God? Do you know Him as YOUR “Father in heaven”? May His Spirit bear witness with your spirit that you ARE a child of God!!