Honor Your Father

 Guest Blog by Gary Riedel

S - SCRIPTURE: Ephesians 6:2,3  “Honor your father and mother (This is the first commandment with a promise), that it may go well with you and that you may live long upon the land.

O - OBSERVATION:This is an old text we learned as the fourth commandment, this begins the second table of duties, the first one being about our relationship with God and the second table is about our relationship with each other. I believe the Lord begins it this way because learning a proper relationship with our mother and father, the first humans we really get to know as a newborn is paramount to learning how to relate to others. God says we should honor our father and mother, but as it’s Father’s Day, today we will talk mostly about our earthly Fathers. The Father is set apart by God as the leader of the family- Ephesians 5:22 “Wives submit to you husband as unto the Lord”; However, in Ephesians 5:25 scripture tells man his role-“ Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up
for her”

A - APPLICATION: The last portion of verse 25 is probably the most important verse for men to learn if they wish to excel as a husband and a father. No wife can be expected to submit to a disrespectful tyrant, and every husband has an absolute obligation dictated by God’s Holy Word to treat his wife as Christ did the church, willing to give himself up for her. Such a husband will have the enduring love and respect of not only his wife, but his children and he will therefore be honored by both family and those around him. It seems to me that when we talk about honoring our earthly father, that father has a responsibility to be an adult and pattern his behavior to his wife and family to resemble Jesus as much as he can. Of course that is an impossible task and all of we men who have been blessed to be husbands and father’s need to daily rely on the abiding grace of our Heavenly Father as we hopefully grow a tiny bit more like Him as we mature. God’s grace is not a cop out but must be accompanied by repentance and a sincere desire to do better.

P - PRAYER: Gracious Father, when I read Ephesians 5:25, I encounter my sinfulness head on, forgive me and every other earthly father who comes to Your throne of grace for forgiveness and
renewal, and help us to be better husbands and father’s. In Jesus Name, Amen