One way we refocus ourselves on the true God is by discovering how Jesus presents Him to us through his teaching.

Throughout his teaching, Jesus was turning the world upside down: “Blessed are the poor in spirit… those who mourn… the meek… who hunger and thirst for righteousness…” (Matthew 5:2-6). The world values strength and independence; Jesus values weakness and dependence. The world values ambition and achievement; Jesus values the pursuit of humility and goodness.

But when he began to teach on prayer, he didn’t flip us upside down. No, he taught us to, through prayer, turn our hearts right-side up.

When you pray, Jesus told them, don’t pray to impress others. Instead, pray simply: Our Father in Heaven…

Did you catch that? Jesus gives us permission to approach God directly and as our Father! Having God as our Father means that we as his children, get regular, uninhibited access to him.

Imagine if you to get immediate access to the President. Unless you are a high-ranking government official, you most likely couldn’t get an appointment. And if you didn’t have an appointment, the Secret Service would certainly stop you if you got too close on your own. But the President’s children don’t need an official position in the Cabinet; they don’t need an appointment; they don’t even need a good reason to see him. They can simply walk right up to him, jump on his lap, distract him from his work, and enjoy his company. They are his children! Children have regular, complete, uninhibited access to their father.

How great it is to be a child of the Most High God! How wonderful to have regular, complete, uninhibited access to the most powerful, most patient, most loving Being in the cosmos. Simply put, we can approach him wherever we are, no matter what we’ve done, with no hint of fear. He is our Father.

When we realize who God is and how much he loves us, our whole lives can be reordered around his life-giving presence.

God has lavished his love on us by calling us his own sons and daughters. But John also tells us that God’s love is most fully visible not in receiving us, but in how much he had to give to receive us back. Since every one of us has broken God’s law and broken our relationship with God, the Father had to make a way for us to be restored – he had to give his own beloved Son up to death.