PARENTING – GOD’S WAY OR THE HIGHWAY Saturday, December 27, 2014 EPHESIANS 6:1-4 Ephesians 6:2 tells our young folks to “Honor your father and mother”, which is the first commandment with promise. We all are guilty of telling our young folks at one time or another, “Now son (daughter), you must realize that if you want to live a long life, you had better heed what Eph. 6:2 tells you because God promises that you honoring your parents has a lot to do with how long He will allow you to live on this earth. Many of us often learn this lesson later in life after we have reached some degree of maturity. Have we ever asked ourselves WHY it is so hard for young folks to pick up on this “promise of God?” Well, we have to visit the FOURTH VERSE which we often leave out of our recollection. This EQUALLY RELEVANT INSTRUCTION reads, “Fathers, DO NOT provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord”. OOPS! We now have a two-way street. It reminds us of what God has to say about the wife honoring her husband as the head of the house and that the husband is admonished to “love his wife as Christ loved the Church and gave His life for it”. Our ladies are just naturally wired to allow their husbands to be the head of the home IF… IF… that husband will demonstrate to her the LOVE that CHRIST demonstrated to the church, even to the point of giving His life for the church. Wives will gladly allow us to lead IF we will flush all of the carnal JUNK that we accumulate at the feet of the WRONG TEACHER in life while yielding OUR OWN LIVES to the leadership of Christ’s perfect example. While children should always seek to respect their parents, the PARENTS THEMSELVES must strive to be mothers and fathers worthy of that respect. This can be accomplished by PLACING GOD AS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF OUR FAMILY AND OUR PRIVATE LIVES. Honestly, most of us get SO WRAPPED UP in “doing our own thing” while justifying it with the fact that we are – after all – making a living for the family and they should be satisfied with that while leaving us alone to have our “own time with the boys. We often fail to recognize that we should be constantly including the Name and acts of Jesus in all of our interactions with our wives and kids. Hey! Are there areas of our lives about which we do not want our children to know about? Does our language, demeanor, or morality change in the presence of our kids? Children not only need to hear God’s instruction, they need to see it as well. Our kids see this dramatically displayed in how we live our lives. One of the most grievous shortcomings of our Nation today lies in the deterioration of the FAMILY UNIT that God, Himself, ordained and instituted, along with marriage between one wife and one husband so that HIS DESIGN FOR THE FAMILY UNIT can be carried out in a God- ordained kind of way. YES, this 4th verse is often left out of our thinking and then we scratch our heads and ponder over WHY our kids are so rebellious, why they leave the church as soon as they leave home, and show total disdain to anything that relates to the Bible. Lord, we have often failed as a parent. Help us to be an example to our children and all other children to whom we serve as an example. Yes, Father, we do realize that our failures are even now yielding many “wild oats” in our kids, much of which directly relates to the failure in example by us when they were growing up. But, we also recognize Your willingness to FORGIVE US and allow us to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and walk that narrow path once again. We trust that You will bless our renewed efforts to correct past mistakes while drawing a line in the sand, declaring that, from this day forward – as for me and my house – WE WILL SERVE THE LORD!... and trust God for the results.”
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 14:20:23 +0000
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