Our Relationship with our Heavenly Father……….

“Do not gather and heap up and store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust and worm consume and destroy, and where thieves break through and steal.

But gather and heap up and store for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust nor worm consume and destroy, and where thieves do not break through and steal;

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

The eye is the lamp of the body.  So if your eye is sound, your entire body will be full of light.

But if your eye is unsound, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If then the very light in you [your conscience] is darkened, how dense is that darkness!

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will stand by and be devoted to the one and despise and be against the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (deceitful riches, money, possessions, or whatever is trusted in).   Matt. 6:19-24 AMP

In Matthew 6, one of the main points, if not the main point, is our relationship to our heavenly Father.  In this chapter alone, Jesus mentions the term “Father” 11 times, showing the significance and importance of that relationship (verses: 1, 3, 6, 8, 9, 14, 15, 18, 26, 32). Our relationship to the Father as His children is the most remarkable and incredible relationship.  We have been bought with a price, so that we can be called “children of God.”

“So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children.  Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”  For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.   And since we are his children, we are his heirs.  In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.”    Romans 8:15-17 NLT

What a powerful thing it is to know that we are the Father’s children and that we can go before Him and cry to Him, “Abba, Father.”   The great secret of life is to see ourselves always as children of our heavenly Father.  So many things distract and pull us away from the significance of that relationship and demand our attention.

In Matthew 6, Jesus brings up two big temptations we all face as believers that is a hindrance and distracts us from the importance and the satisfaction that we can have in our relationship with God the Father.  The first temptation evident in chapter 6 is the religious man doing his works before man to receive the praise of man instead of doing them in SECRET, where only God the Father knows.

Jesus says that if we seek the praise of men, we have our reward, but if we seek to glorify God, the Father will reward us openly. The examples given are charitable deeds, prayer, and fasting.

The temptation is to seek to be noticed, to be put on a high pedestal as one who is religious, and to gain the praise of men.  The second temptation we face as believers is the temptation of being like the world in seeking treasures on this earth.  So often, we look at the things of this earth and say to ourselves, “If only I had that………...”  

 We seek to find security and satisfaction in temporary things and people instead of what we already have in our relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  Both of these temptations want our attention, and both distract us from what truly matters – our relationship with God.