Honor thy Father... The first commandment that has a promise attached to it. That's kind of exciting. I think this Father's Day (like all), we should really try to focus on honoring our fathers - pretty deep, huh?
I was thinking about 'fathers' in the Bible, and realized that we as Christians can be classified as being children of three different fathers. Hopefully everybody reading has been adopted OUT from the family of Satan to which we by nature are born. In John 8:44 Jesus clarifies that to the Pharisees that they were of their father the devil. 1 John 3 also identifies those that are the children of the devil - see vs. 10.
The first father I thought of was the father of our flesh, Adam. Adam, being the very first man, is the father of us all. Genesis 5:1 begins the story of the "generations of Adam." Adam was made in God's image, but Seth (Adam's third son) is said to be made in Adam's image (Gen 5:3). So, whereas Adam was born a son of God (see Luke 3 something), we are born sons of Adam. Now, we are told to honor our father after the flesh - our Adam. The thing is, Adam was a sinner. After the Fall in Genesis 3, just about all we know about Adam was that he had more children. And then, we only know the names of 3 of them. Yet, God still tells us to honor our fathers. The TV today makes out dads to be these bumbling idiots (which I confess, at times, I fit the mold that they make). However, regardless of the wisdom or idiocy of fathers, the commandment is to Honor them. 1 John speaks of a man that claims to love God that does not love his brethren. We can take that and apply it to our fathers as well. If I say I honor God whom I can't see, but don't honor my father who I can, I'm deceived. We can honor them by: Obeying (Eph. 6:1); Having Wisdom (Prov 10:1; 15:20); Speaking only good about him (Matthew 15:4)
The second father I thought of was the father of our faith, Abraham. Romans 4 tells us that Abraham is the father of all of us that have faith like he did. It makes me wonder about guys like Noah. If Abraham is the father of our faith, what was Noah and Enoch, etc. Anyway... how would we honor the father of our faith? Well, we could look at Romans 4:17-21 and follow his example of: Hearing the call of God (we do that in Scripture), by following God even when the call seemed ridiculous, by not considering our own flesh when listening to God, and by realizing Who it is we are to follow!
The third Father I thought of was the Father of all. (Ha! You all thought I was going to alliterate didn't you!) Again, the assumption is that you reading this have been born again, born into God's family. Not everybody is a child of God as we saw in John 8 and 1 John 3 (you know, John, the "love" apostle). We are commanded to honor our fathers as concerning the flesh, but God pleads with His people in Malachi 1:6: "A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour?..." We can honor God in the same ways we honor our fathers of the flesh: Obeying (if you love me, keep my commandments); being wise; speaking only good about Him! We are not to take the name of our God, calling ourselves Christian, and take it in vain. We need to represent well the God for Whom we are ambassadors. This Father's Day, I hope we don't neglect honoring our fathers of the flesh, but even more importantly, we need to honor "Our Father which art in Heaven."
"Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour
and glory for ever and ever. Amen." (1 Timothy 1:17)
Forgive me for the length of this post, but I had some free time at home yesterday!
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