Thought for Friday, March 9th

March 9, 2012

Honoring Our Father

My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.

Proverbs 3:11-12

For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

Matthtew 15:4-8

Quote of the Day

“It is a wise father that knows his own child.” – William Shakespeare

Today’s Thoughts and Insights

Today is my Father’s birthday.  So to honor him, I thought I would write about honoring our fathers:  of course before I’m done I’m going to be addressing the honoring of our Heavenly Father: but our earthly fathers deserve honor too.

I will not divulge how old my father is, least I be accused of being dishonoring by insinuating that he is old, which obviously, I am not doing.

So then, what does it mean to honor our fathers?  Does honoring mean agreeing with them all the time?  Does it require doing everything they ever tell us to do to show them honor?  Or dies it mean respecting and revering them: listening to their counsel and appreciating them for the place they have in our lives to fulfill the role God has given them to play in our lives.

Of course, just like there are no perfect earthly fathers:  there are no perfect earthly children:  And in truth we, by-in-large do not always give the proper honor to our dads.  So Dad here’s to you, your special day and my awareness that I am blessed to have you in my life.

But what about our Heavenly Father:  how well do we honor Him?  Often not much better than our earthly fathers; For you see to fail to give honor to our earthly fathers, also means to fail to give honor to our Heavenly Father.  For God’s has instructed us to do such: and He reminds us if we truly love Him – we will keep His commandments.

Now God, unlike earthly fathers, is perfect and His wisdom is never flawed and He never makes a mistake or misdirects us – so it is safe to say we should do everything our Heavenly Father tells us.

And furthermore we need to do more than honor Him with our words, we need to honor Him with our deeds.

None of us who have fathers, or who have become fathers is as flawless and amazing as Our Heavenly Father: yet both are deserving and due honor.

So have you honored your Father’s today?

Today’s Prayer

Father you are loyal, dependable, honorable, glorious, flawless and amazing and I am so blessed to be allowed the privilege of being your child.  Thank you for honoring me with such an opportunity and may I be faithful to always honor you.

“It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters who I remember him to be.”

– Anne Sexton

“Let the poor man say
I am rich in Him
Let the lost man say
I am found in Him
Let the blind man say
I can see again
Let the dead man say
I am born again 
Holy Spirit come
Move in power“

- from ‘Let The River Flow’ by Darrell Evans