Blessing Our Children

We have just celebrated Father’s Day, and above all we must honor our heavenly Father, who gives us so much love. His care for us is constant, and He expects nothing in return because His love is free—tax-free.

I very much like the way the Great Commission appears in Luke. He tells us that Christ said repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24:47–48)

As I meditated on this, one of the things that came to mind was how fully fathers have understood what this means. We know that not all of us live in Jerusalem, but Christ, in His immense wisdom, wanted us to see that we all have a Jerusalem, and it does not always have to be in Israel. I think it is very close to us.

Our home is our Jerusalem, and this entails an inescapable responsibility, especially for fathers, whom God has placed as the head and guide of the home (1 Corinthians 11:13 and Ephesians 5:23).

An elderly pastor used to say that “the tenderest doctrine of the Scriptures is the doctrine of Divine Fatherhood.” This is irrefutable, and that is why fathers must take God, the perfect model, as their guide and foundation. Even if they cannot be His equals, they will have a visible example of love, respect, and responsibility to show their children.

A father’s love is fundamental to the healthy development of a child’s personality. For a long time, we mothers have had to cover this part of raising our children in a vain attempt to make up for fathers’ absence, but the father’s role is irreplaceable. A father’s teaching begins to show through his own life and is part of the love his children should receive from him. A father who loves his children takes care to leave them a legacy of wisdom for life, which can be found only in a relationship with the supreme Father: “Therefore take heed to yourself, and guard your soul diligently, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, or they depart from your heart all the days of your life; rather, you shall teach them to your children, and to your children’s children.” (Deuteronomy 4:9)

There are many fathers in the world, even Christian ones, who strive to fill their heads with knowledge and then go out into the streets to tell others about the word of God. But that knowledge remains at the level of the cerebral cortex without descending into the heart. It is true that we must win lives for the kingdom of God, but this Great Commission must begin in our home. Otherwise, how can we preach to others when our Jerusalem is upside down? How can we preach a gospel we do not live?

Fathers, God has placed you in authority to correct and educate your family. The father who does not correct his children makes them illegitimate children, for what father who loves his child could watch that child fall down a precipice and not desperately try to stop the fall, even if he is injured in the attempt?

It is also the responsibility of fathers to provide, “for if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8). Provision is not only in material goods; those are important, but spiritual provision is indispensable. It does children no good to have food to fill their bellies if spiritual food does not nourish their souls. On this, the Lord says: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” Matthew 6:19–20

Teach your children to treasure what is true and lasting, for that is what they will carry with them and leave to their own children when they pass away; one day we must all appear before the throne of God. Meanwhile, show your children how to live holy lives, in purity and uprightness, so that they, their children, and every generation until Christ’s coming may benefit from the way we live today.