With esteem, dignity, distinction, and reverence are how we are to honor our mother and father. Nowhere are we instructed to like how they treat us as to how we are to treat them. No, it is regardless as to how they are to act towards. In other words though how they mistreat us is harmful and hurtful and cause us to be angry. We are to act towards them though we are angry with respect towards them as hard as it will seem.
This is not for their sakes this is for our lives. Every mother and every father is a child to every mother and every father somewhere. And there is a rippling effect in action here. What generational curse possibly could be in operation besides what most people see as being just a health problem? Maybe we need to investigate how we are towards our parents.
There are four Old Testament verses that instruct us about how to be towards our parents which should bring us to our attention. But for some reason, it does not. I want to work backward for a moment before bringing us to where we are today in the one New Testament.
JESUS said that we are to honor our father and mother not pick one over the other but to honor them both. I don’t know your parental situation, you know who poured into your life provisionally, emotionally and physically. You know who supported you in your endeavors and who sat up with you during your tough times like illnesses and such the things parents do. But even if your biological parents did not do any of these things for you and you know them and can be in a relationship with them they are to be honored because of them you have a life. For now, I just want us to just stop there at honoring our parents.
We are to honor this comes with respect, obey, and to care for our father and our mother. And this should be for the duration of their lives, not put them off in some home and forget about them. Now I understand if they may need to be placed in a home for round the clock care because you may not have the room in your home for a live-in nurse or there is no one to help because so many members of the family are employed. But you as the child should be visiting your parent on a daily basis. It breaks my heart to see so many people in nursing homes wasting away being forgotten by their children who are just waiting for them to die.
I thank my GOD that we serve a compassionate, grace-filled, loving and merciful GOD and FATHER. Why? Because in HIS Word GOD said that we should be put to death for dishonoring our parents. Put means action and death are past tense of the dead so imagine if that was still applicable today? This world would not have many inhabitants living because so many people dishonor their father and mother.
Now of the two Old Testament instructions that come from the Ten Commandments which are Mosaic Law that we are no longer under but if we were this is one I would make sure I would obey for my own health. So that your days on the earth may be prolonged and so that it may go well with you honor your father and mother. Duh, you don’t need an anvil to drop on your head to get you to understand that honoring your parents work out in your favor.
And because we are no longer under any type of law with the exception of the one to love which is the completion and fulfillment of all. And we can’t do this without CHRIST JESUS within us we are reminded to honor our father and mother again with the blessed promise.
- Esteem, value as precious your father and mother.
- Be respectful to them and obey them.
- It will be well for you.
- You will have a long life on earth.
Matthew 15:4, Ex. *20:12, 21:17, *Deut. 5:16, Eph. 6:2
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