It is easy for us think of our omniscient God in a general sense. God knows the actual weight of the earth and measured the entire universe with the span of His hand (Isa. 40:12). We know that the heavens show this wisdom and glory to all men. However, sometimes it is not easy to think about what God knows about us individually. Let’s take time to look at what God knows about fathers, but each of us can make our own application to our lives even if we are not fathers.
God knows so much about fathers. He knew about Abraham as a father. “For I have known him in order that he may command his children and his household after him that the keep the way of the Lord” (Gen. 18:19). In His wisdom, God could see Isaac and Jacob having been taught by Abraham and their responsibility to God. Fathers, have you ever considered that God knows how you are teaching your children?
God gave Isaac to Abraham even at his old age. Abraham could look at Isaac and know that this son was truly a gift from God. God “owned” Isaac first and that is why he was a gift from God. This truth extends far beyond this father and reaches down to all fathers, even to those who are reading this right this moment.
As the Jews were being taken to Babylon, God reminded them of their neglect of their children in a remarkable way. “Moreover you took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore to Me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your acts of harlotry a small matter, that you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire?” (Ezek. 16:20-21). They took their sons and daughters and burned them as infant sacrifices to pagan gods. Read these verses again. It was not their children—God says that those children were His children. Fathers, your children are God’s gift to you, but they, in reality, are His children given to you.
God knew Abraham and that He would instruct his children. Have you considered that God knows you just as well? Does God know you and knows you will not instruct your children? The Jews were not simply neutral in failing to teach God’s children He had given to them, they actively taught their children, His children, to do wrong. Fathers, your failure to actively teach your children may actually be teaching them by your example to not put God first in their lives!
Fathers, God put one verse in the Bible especially for you. “Fathers…bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). Remember they are not your children, God says, “They are Mine!”