And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but nurture them in the chastening and admonishment of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4
I am so grateful that I was raised to love and honor God and attend church faithfully. As the old joke says, I had a drug problem, we were drug to church every time the doors were open, and sickness was no excuse, my parents would just put us in a prayer line where the Pastor and elders could lay hands on us and pray for us. (I remember on several occasions my parents called for the pastor to come to our house to pray when we got sick.) Along with faithful attendance, came certain rites of passage when we reached different milestones in our walk with God and sometimes when we turned a certain age. One of those rites happened when we turned twelve, we were no loner allowed to go to children’s church and we were expected to attend Sunday morning service with the adults. When we outgrew children’s church, we were promoted to the youth group and along with that promotion, my patents allowed us to sit in the youth section instead of them during the service. The auditorium was almost a semicircle and from where the youth sat, we were almost in a direct angle from where my parents sat and I understood that it was a big privilege (not a right) to get to sit in the youth section and that my Dad was watching to make sure I did not abuse the privilege. One Sunday night some of the girls got giggling and passing notes, I was trying really hard to pay attention to what our Pastor was preaching, when all of the sudden our Pastor stopped the sermon and called the girls down. His daughter was in on the note passing and giggling and it did not bother him to stop and correct the whole row of girls. I was just mortified that he stopped the sermon to correct the youth. I looked over at my parents, and sure enough, my Dad was watching me, I just wanted to crawl under the pew. When my Dad crooked his index finger and motioned for me to meet him, I did not hesitate, I got up immediately and went into the vestibule and headed for the side my parents were sitting on. My Dad met me in the vestibule about halfway from where we both sitting. I thought I was in trouble! My Dad started the conversation saying that he had been watching me and he knew I was not participating (I am sure there were other times I would have been guilty) in the bad behavior and he wanted to protect me and keep me away from the influence of the other girls. As I followed my Dad to sit with them for the rest of the service, it was really comforting that my Dad was watching out for me, that he knew things were getting out of hand and in his concern, he removed me from the temptation to giggle and talk during church. The fear I had of my Dad kept me from falling into temptation that Sunday night. I do not want you to think I was perfect and did everything right, I was not and I was corrected and disciplined when I got out of line. But the fear of my Dad helped me to make better choices and kept me from suffering some of the pitfall of sin that are so easy to fall into. My Dad worked hard and still had time to get out and play ball with us in the evenings. It was not unusual to sit at the table in the evenings for two and three hours talking about our day and the things that concerned each of us. On Sundays I got up early and went with my Dad to run the church bus and pick up children whose parents did not go to church with them, and when we moved to Levelland, he managed the five bus, bus ministry. My Dad faithfully read his Bible daily, and after he read it, he would lay it on the end table by his chair, open to the place he was reading. He had clear expectations of what was expected out of us and there were consequences for when we did not meet his standards. I remember several walks we took at the end of the day when things in my world were out of control and he wanted to hear my heart and to comfort me that everything was going to be okay. He worked very hard and was not perfect, but he laid an amazing foundation for me to build my life on for God. By teaching me to have a healthy reverential awe of his authority, that the Fear of the Lord was the next logical transition. It is almost a balancing act as a dad to raise your children with love yet maintaining a level of reverential fear. It is the kind of fear that will keep rebellion away because you do not want your father to be disappointed in your decisions. I was lucky that he based his expectations on our relationship with God instead of some academic or athletic dream for me to outdo his accomplishments.
No wonder Proverbs 1:7 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” and Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Sadly, the modern American church has embraced the fact that God is love, that we have gotten away from the fear of the Lord. We have emphasized in our teaching and in our worship that God is all love, there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God (and God is absolutely love) that we have forgotten to show God the respect and awe He alone is worthy of. Instead of basing our decisions on whether God would approve, we do what we think is right by our emotions and what feels good. Even after walking with God for all of my life, there are things that still feel good to my flesh that are not right in God’s sight and it is my fear or respect for God that I try to base my life on and allow to guide me. Throughout scripture, people who had direct contact with God, had a reverence and fear for God. God told Moses to take his shoes off because he was on holy ground. When God came down on the mountain to speak with the Israelites, they were told not to touch the mountain or they would die. In Matthew 17 when Jesus was transfigured on the mountain and the voice from heaven said “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” The disciples fell on their faces in fear. God is awesome and worthy to be praised, but if that is the depth of our relationship and we have no fear, we are open for bad decisions that will alter the destiny God has for each of us. Remember all the angels knew God and worshipped Him at one time, but one third of them rebelled with Satan. They had no fear of God. When we combine the fear of God with the word of God, we will have the ability to make the right choices and live a life of pleasing God. The Fear of the Lord will help you pick healthy boundaries. If something or someone violates the word of God or we would not include God in the relationship or activity, then we should have a strong boundary and not participate in it. It is so much easier to refuse to participate in something if we stop and think about whether God would be pleased with it. Galatians 1:10 “For do I persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please man? For If I still pleased men, I would not be a bond servant of Christ. “I know that Matthew 6:24 is talking about serving God or money, but the same thing goes with anything that tries to rule over us, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to ne and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (money, possessions, fame, status, or whatever is valued above the Lord.) It goes so much more than the people and activity is pleasing to God, it raises the question do we fear God Himself?
Today is Father’s Day and I honor all the fathers who are pursuing God and raising their children to love Him as well. It is no accident that God chose to relate to us as our Father. I think all men should be honored to think that the role gave them to set as an example is to be a child’s father. In our society we have fallen into the trap of trying to be our children’s best friend. I believe that if we raise our children properly, they will become a friend, but while we are raising them, they must be given love and taught a healthy fear or reverence of their parents (especially their fathers.) I heard an interesting statement this week, “You can raise your children and spoil your grandchildren or you can raise your children and spoil your grandchildren, The only way we can raise our children is in the Fear of the Lord. HAPPY FATHER’S DAY.
Cathy Nesmith