Following the Father – Like

A few years ago while taking a group of high school students to Africa a group of them thought I needed to be on the social network Instagram, so I could stay updated with what was going on in their lives. Most of you know how it works, but just in case you don’t, the whole idea is to post a picture and message on Instagram and then it goes out to anyone who has this app and has requested to follow you. Through this communication you are able to peer into the lives of the people you follow, see where they have vacationed, people they hang with, and whatever interesting and sometimes crazy things they want to reveal. Once you “see it” you have the opportunity to tap a little red heart that indicates you “like it!”

Instagram is just one of the many ways social media keeps people connected or in some cases addicted :). We live in a society that spends hours a day looking down at their phone not wanting to lose touch with their social network of friends and certainly don’t want to miss out on any relevant posts, all this got me wondering what if God the Father had an Instagram to communicate His heart to us, how many of us would follow Him or like what He posted? I would hope He would have around 2 billion followers adding to it daily and at least a billion likes each post.

But in all reality He has given us something better to communicate His heart and that is His Son Jesus. The Bible says He is the very image of the invisible God:

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being sustaining all things by His powerful word (Heb. 1:3).

Jesus is the Father’s Instagram post to communicate His heart of love to each of His followers. For the next several blogs I want to remind you how Abba Father communicates through Jesus to us and how Jesus shows us how to hear the Father’s voice. Those who pay attention to the voice of the Father as Jesus did will experience the Father’s Spirit, which leads to a glorious transformation.

As a pre-teen Jesus made knowing the Father His number 1 passion. In Luke 2:41ff we read about the 12 year old Jesus leaving his mom and Joseph to spend time at His Father’s house right after the Passover. In fact it took the family 3 days to find Jesus after they realized He wasn’t with them on the journey back home to Nazareth. You can imagine their anger and relief when they found Jesus at the temple. An upset Mary likely was quite upset as you can imagine but notice Jesus’ reply:

“Why were you searching for me?” He asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (vs. 49).

At an early age Jesus made hearing and knowing the Father His consuming passion. We too should adjust our hearing so that it begins with an all out search for the Father, a search that places all else secondary compared to finding and following the voice of the Father and claiming His heart for us. My prayer is that you will join me on this journey of Following the Father!