Saturday March 24, 2012

Read Ephesians 6:1-4

 

Parenting in our world is left to mothers, if at all to anyone. Father’s are leaving their parenting responsibility behind as they abandon their families. In the United Kingdom there is now an unprecedented number of children living in homes without their fathers. Crime, violence, delinquency and anti-social behaviour are at an all time high.

 

Parenting is vital. It is the most important job in the world. But as we read the Bible we are prone to read out any gender specific language, opting for neutral language instead. Our society has brainwashed us to think like this. As we read vs 4 we are tempted to interpret the word ‘fathers’ as parents, including mothers as well.

 

In some sense that is ok at this point. However, the word is ‘fathers’ not parents. The verse is particularly written to the man of the house, the dad! It is dad’s who are more likely to be rough handed and to exasperate their children.

It is the dad who God is calling to take a lead role in teaching and rearing the children. God wants dads to be actively, even proactively involved in their parenting.

 

Statistics have proven time and time again that children with their own mum

and dad at home fare best in all avenues. Children with actively involved fathers are more confident, perform better and have a better self image. As we would expect there is no substitute for God’s way. There is no better way than the manufacturer’s way.

 

God designed a family to include dad, mum and the children.  But society at large is attacking this idea of the family unit. The world will present many fine sounding arguments about the key ingredient being love and happiness, not mums and dads together.

 

In particular, the world is attacking the role of fathers. Fathers in the media are, by and large, incompetent, uninvolved, lazy bozos that make it only through their errors and goof-ups. There are very few positive father role models in the media. Given that our children are media saturated, seeing up to 5,000 ads a day and watching up of 6-8 hours of media a day, we need to go on the offensive. And the best offensive is to have a biblically functioning family at home for all to see.

 

Prayer:

¥ Pray that all the fathers among us would see the God given importance in their role as dad. Pray that these dads would be loving, caring and gentle with their families, actively involved and deliberately teaching the family about the love and fear of our Lord and Saviour.

¥ Pray that God would protect our families from the attacks of the evil one.

¥ Pray that Christians would rise united against the attacks of families in society. Pray for a Jesus - voice to be raised up in all areas where such attacks are aimed.