Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers and especially those of you that are present in worship today.
As Fathers, we are all extremely important to the continual development of the kingdom of God. God views us as His spiritual leaders in the home. It is our faithfulness to this task that qualifies us to serve in His house (the church; 1 Timothy 3:4-5). God told Abraham, “For I have chosen him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice; in order that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.” (Genesis 18:19) It is when a man chooses to be the spiritual leader in his home that God blesses his house and makes him prosperous (Proverbs 24:3-5; Psalm 128). For the salvation of our homes, our church, and our community we must run this race that is set before us. “And he will restore the hearts of the fathers to {their} children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse.” (Malachi 4:6)
Being a leader is sometimes very lonely. Many times, not even our wives understand or appreciate our vision for the home, our discipline of the children or some of the decisions we make, but we cannot back away from the role God has ordained for us. We cannot just work for peace because all we will create is temporal peace rather than spiritual maturity (as spiritual leaders), which leads to peace that is more stable. (Galatians 5:22-23) Many of us may say this is hard. This is why I do believe in the Men’s Ministry. It is a place where men can come and share and be strengthened. Here is one of my foundational principles for life; “If we can share the load, we can bear the load.” (Galatians 6:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:14)
“A little girl followed her father as he carefully stepped through a new garden. She stepped exactly where he stepped and said, “Daddy, if you don’t get mud on your feet, I won’t get any mud on me!” Wives pray for us. All the words that you believe can fix us (1 Peter 3:1-2) may never fix us the way prayer can, because when God does the fixing, He allows us to be the spiritual fathers we need to be since He is our spiritual Father. (Ephesians 3:14-21)Men, we must keep the faith and press toward the mark of our calling (Philippians 3:13-15; Hebrews 12:1-3). This race would not be lonely if we do not allow our egos to cause us to run it alone. Get a prayer partner, be an active part of the Men’s Ministry and wives pray for us; “we be trying…”.
