To all fathers, whether single or married, happy Father’s Day to you!
I want to say a special “Happy Father’s Day” to those of you, young fathers, who are working hard to provide to your whole family while your wife stays home with her little kids! May God bless you! What a priceless, precious and loving gift you’re giving to your wife and children!
Fathering is a very scared and honorable call of God.
Any man may be able to make a woman pregnant but not any man can be a father to his children. A father is who is mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually available to his children’s needs.
And for a father to be a kind of father God calls him to be, he has to first learn how to love the mother of his kids.
A father, who neglects his wife and claims to love his children, is deceiving himself and his children struggle to understand his love and care for them. A child’s physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health and strength is firmly established on his father’s love and care that his father shows to his mother.
That is why the word of God calls a man to primarily love his wife:
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;” Ephesians 5:25-28 NASB
If a man learns to love his wife as the word of God calls him to, fathering his kids for him will be as easy as saying 1, 2, 3.
But no one can truly and genuinely love self and anyone without the help of God because God is love. There is no other source of love than God.
The Bible says,
“The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” 1 John 4:8 NASB
It’s absolutely impossible for any father to love his children without learning how to love from God.
Jesus said,
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:1-5 NASB
Wow! Did you see it?
Yes, the source of true love is God! If anyone does not love, cannot love self and other human beings. The only thing we humans can do, and are best doing it, is to lust, which is the total opposite of love.
The Bible says,
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Proverbs 9:10 NASB
Amen!
So, fathers, especially those of you, young fathers, strive to truly and genuinely be a loving and caring dad to your children as you learn how to love your wife from the Best, the True Vine, Jesus Christ.
One strong command given to fathers from God is this:
“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Ephesians 6:4 NASB
You know what that verse says in short: Stop making anger and wrath your fathering tools; instead bring your kids up as you teach them the word of God, modeling the life before them and when your kids disobey, discipline them as a loving and caring father.
A father who always gives gifts to his kids for no apparent reasons, or yields to all his kids’ demands is a not a kind of father the word of God is calling you to be. That kind of father is a “sugar-daddy” or “Santa Clause” kind of father.
That is why Dr. James Dobson titled one of his best books appropriately as: “Parenting is not for cowards.”
Please be a kind of father the word of God calls you to be so the next generation will be healthy and productive.
Look what different studies have shown the fate of a child who comes from a fatherless home (these are just as an example. The list is too long! I found this from “The National Center for Fathering” website):
63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (U.S. Dept. Of Health/Census) – 5 times the average
90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes – 32 times the average
85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average. (Center for Disease Control)
80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes –14 times the average. (Justice & Behavior, Vol. 14, p. 403-26)
71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average. (National Principals Association Report)
75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes – 10 times the average.
What an important role a father plays in his child’s life! Incalculable and immeasurable!
May God help you, all fathers of little kids, to be rescuers of the next generation by fathering your little ones as the word of God calls you to!
Happy Father’s Day, to all of you, fathers! ///