A Month to Honor our Fathers

 

Dear Friend,

 

Praise the Name of The Lord Jesus Christ. I am confident that it is well with you and that you have continued to see the goodness of God in this land of the living. My wife and I are well and we continue to marvel at the Lord’s faithfulness. Thank you for all your prayers, condolences, emails and phone calls this past month. We felt your prayers and we are very grateful. Thank you again.

 

Friend, this Month will be to us, a Month to Honor our Fathers.

 

 

When God declared last month a Month of Favor, I did not fully know what He had in store for me and my family. Three days into the month I lost my father. It was one of the most painful times in my life. He was more than a father, he was a friend and it was always fun talking to him and being around him. He was liked by many; he never discriminated but was a generous and kind man. One very distinct revelation that kept coming to me during this period of loss is the fact that while God allows us to choose who to marry, where to live, what job to have; it is He and only He who chooses those who bring us into this world, our parents. That is why, it does not matter how you perceive them, you ought to honor them and pray for them. I miss my dad and mom; I thank God for having given me such wonderful parents and I pray to God to see them one glorious day.

 

 

In Exodus 20:12 and Ephesians 6:2 we are given the following command…

 

 "Honor your father and mother" which is the first commandment with a promise" that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.

 

Friend, many believers have seen their lives shortened while others have encountered one problem after the other with everything going wrong and nothing going well for them. In many of these cases, the problem has been the failure to honor their father and mother.  

 

This month, may God grant you the grace and the wisdom to honor your parents and more so your father. I pray that God will open avenues for you to be a blessing to them. I am focusing more on the Father because I believe in one of the coming months I will focus on the Mother.

 

 

When you listen to Jesus Christ, you will note that the title/name He used most for God was “Father”. Remember, in the Lord’s Prayer He says “Our Father”, later He says, “I and my Father are one” and even on the cross, He says “Father forgive them”. Our appreciation of our earthly fathers should be a reflection of our appreciation of Our Heavenly Father. Our earthly fathers may have shortcomings, but that should not be an excuse not to honor them and pray for them. Even hardened hearts are won by love. I pray that you and I will learn from our Lord Jesus Christ and nurture a relationship with our earthly fathers that will bring glory to our Heavenly Father.

 

 

 It is great if you have an earthly father. Honor him. In some cases, your father may no longer be alive but that is not to say that you should not honor any other father that the Lord may have brought into your life. You may have a father-in-law or a spiritual father. Do not judge them, honor them. Friend, this month, I admonish you to pray for those fathers that God has put in your life. Let us pray that they will bear the image of God the Father here on earth (2 Cor 3:18). That they will be loving, caring, forgiving, trusting and high priests of their homes. Let us ask God to transform our fathers to be model of admiration in their generation. Let us pray to God to touch their prayer lives, touch their giving, touch their talk and that the zeal of the house of God will consume them (John 2:17).

 

Jesus says in John 14:26 that the Holy Spirit will “teach you all things”. Let us pray that the Holy Spirit will teach our fathers to be the fathers they have been called to be and the children to be children unto them. In other words, that He will guide us in all things as we honor our parents. Let us pray that He will help us bring joy to them. The Bible says in Proverbs 10:1 that we bring joy to our father when we walk in wisdom. Proverbs 23:24 states that the father of a righteous man has great joy. Friend, may the Holy Spirit guide and direct you in every way necessary for you to be a joy to the fathers He has brought into your life.

 

 

Pastor Davies, a constant contributor to www.torchbearers-for-christ.org website showed us in his article “Them that honor me, I will honor” how to honor God by loving Him with our substance, through service, and by whole hearted trust. May God, by His Spirit, guide us this month as we honor HIM and those fathers that He has placed in our lives. I pray that God, by the power of the blood of Jesus, will destroy every spirit of unforgiveness, anger, bitterness and pain and that the cool breeze of the Holy Spirit will cause relationships to be mended and to flourish as we honor our Father in Heaven and our earthly fathers in Jesus Mighty Name, Amen.

 

Friend, God bless you and keep you and guide as you honor your fathers in Jesus Mighty Name, Amen.

 

Bro. Chester