Daily devotion – a godly father
War in Ukraine yes, war in the middle east yes, but there is also a war in our very own nation. Satan has declared war on the Christian family! The Bible gives us the blueprint for how the family is to function. The father is the head of the family. Together with his wife, he raises his children in a home where Jesus Christ is the Lord and Saviour.
The goals of Satan are very clear as to how he is seeking to destroy biblical families from generation to generation.
He has two basic strategies – to effectively alienate and sever a husband’s relationship with his wife. Such a division can either be physical or emotional.
Secondly – to effectively alienate and sever the father’s relationship with his children.
All around us and sadly in many Churches, we have a growing mass of human wreckage as families are torn apart by the work of Satan.
Satan cannot destroy a family without dividing the husband and the wife, so it is here where he puts his efforts. We can see it is working and it’s a strategy that has been around for thousands of years. It’s called divide and conquer.
But thank God, there is also a flip side to the story. When a husband and wife refuse to allow anything to divide them, they become an impregnable force in the war on the family.
So that when emotional energies such as anger are not spent on fighting one another, they can be used constructively, to raise to God’s glory, a godly family.
There came into the family narrative a few years back now the term, “Quality Time”. So that it’s not about how much time you spend with your kids, it’s how you make whatever time you spend with them, quality time!
Sounds good in theory…but it has a very fatal floor. You never know when quality time is going to show up! For quality time is not the norm. Quality time is when you can talk heart to heart with your son or daughter, or kids as a group. Quality time is when your son asks you a serious question completely out of the blue as you are driving to football training or tying up their shoelaces. Quality time is when you are putting your daughter to be and she asks you tell you a story of what is was like when you were a kid.
She will remember that story for the rest of her life.
Dad’s, God has placed in your care His most precious gift, children. Learning to be a godly father is a ‘slow burn’, it is listening to the Scriptures, seeking God in prayer, leading and modelling Christ before them, each and every day.
It is a role and mission that has no breaks, no time off and a role that you are constantly on call. Begin today the greatest and most important task you have – to be a godly father.
Deut 6: 3 Listen closely, Israel, and be careful to obey. Then all will go well with you, and you will have many children in the land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, promised you.
Deuteronomy 6:4 “Listen, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. 5 And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. 6 And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. 7 Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. 8 Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. 9 Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.