God Himself, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, wants to have a personal, intimate, and meaningful relationship with you. My relationship with my father was nonexistent. As I’ve related, I was severely abused and belittled by my father until I left home at the age of 17. I truly lacked a close and meaningful connection with him. One thing I’ve learned over the years since I came to know Jesus as Lord of my life and can without reservation assure you is this: You are God’s child! He gave you life.

The Bible says in Ephesians 1:4–5: “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” You and I are alive today for no other reason than because God has a Good Father’s loving heart. He wanted to have a family, so He adopted you, implanted you into His family. For what purpose were you born? For fellowship with God; He wants to communicate with you, His child. I want to show you just a few of the things the Bible tells us about the Good Father that will help you begin to understand the heart of God and His shepherd’s love for you:

✧ Our Father shows unconditional love. “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. (Psalm 103:8–10).

✧ He is integrity personified. “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19).

✧ He is compassionate. “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness” (Psalm 103:8).

✧ God has tremendous wisdom. “For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:25).

Remember the reason we exist: fellowship with the Good Father. But you will fail to find fellowship with God if you don’t understand His amazing love and care for you. God is love. First Corinthians 13:3 says: “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” In the Good Father, you will find trust, love, loyalty, commitment, protection, warmth, provision, tenderness, and intimacy. That is God’s heart. God wants to heal your hurts, and He wants desperately to be your Good Father. Allow Him to reveal Himself to you. He is the only One to whom you can go to find true love and acceptance. He is the only Good Shepherd.