Praise God for Fathers Following Jesus

Praise God for Fathers Following Jesus

Ephesians 6:4 “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

Father’s Day, celebrated by dads who are followers of Jesus, faithful churchmen, filled with the Holy Spirit and characterized by lives focused on Scripture, bears testimony to men who are incredibly blessed by God. Fathers outside the transforming power of gospel grace are not nearly as blessed.

Those dads outside the redeeming grace of God, and fathers who walk in disobedience of God and truth,engage in the battle with the flesh that does not bring the God’s honoring guidance children need. Some of those battles are with various displays of fleshliness. We can see unregenerate or disobedient hearts displaying passivity and apathy, with no consistent or helpful interest being manifest in the spiritual welfare of children. Then some dads view their children as the means of realizing unfulfilled dreams, causing their children to feel like they are a means to an end that may or may not be relevant to them. Unfortunately, some fathers try to motivate and direct their children with humiliation, insults, and anger. Parenting in the flesh can be pretty ugly.

Thank God for saving and transforming faith. Fathers blessed to know and follow Jesus are on a different track.

The instructions to fathers given by the Apostle Paul, flow out of his encouragement to followers of Jesus in the church in Ephesus to consistently pursue the fullness of the Spirit. Spirit-filled means consistently acknowledging one’s desperate need of the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit to illuminate biblical truth, redirect misguided affections and empower transformation that perseveres throughout life.

Through the gracious gospel work of God in hearts and lives of men who are fathers, the frustrating and exasperating patterns of the flesh, explained above, are being changed. The wisdom of a life characterized by the love of God and humble dependence on His truth will provide the necessary caring discipline and sensitive teaching all children desperately need. Through transformed and redirected fathers, God graciously works to transform and redirect children.

Praise God for empowering men to be fathers who are faithful followers of Jesus. These are men God is using to make a difference in homes, church, and society. May God continue His good work in you and may that work spread gloriously to the lives of your children and to the lives of men and women in our world who need God’s wonderful saving grace!