Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the Earth. (Exodus 20:12)Now that Paul has addressed the wives and husbands, he's turned to the children. He says that the only law addressed to children is this one, and it's the first rule given that also contains a promise right in it.
Children are told to learn to obey their parents. This is the only thing God will hold a child responsible for. When children learn early to obey their first authorities, then they will also be able to obey later authorities: teachers and policemen and employers. Learning their position in the hierarchy of authority is key to getting along in life.
That's why the promise is attached to this commandment. When we learn to submit to the rightful authority that God placed us under, then we will be able to also be in authority over others. Then life will stretch out before us with all the benefits of cooperating with how God designed things to work.
And to learn to submit to the authority we can see will prepare us to obey the Authority we don't see with our eyes, God's authority.
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Still focused on the children, Paul addresses the fathers, who are the highest authority in the family, to not abuse their position. They are to represent God the Father to their children, teaching them as our Father teaches us: with patience, understanding the personalities of each of their children.
They are to teach them the right attitudes, and to discipline them with a view to correcting the wrong thinking that prompted the disobedience, not punish them.
God does not punish us; He put all than on Jesus for us. Now He disciplines us through the hardships and sorrows of life. His wrath only goes upon the wicked people who do what is evil. Our children are not evil.
When fathers and mothers seek the Lord and His ways in their lives, then they will demonstrate to their children how God loves them and wants them to do well. But they also need to teach their children what is right and how to do what is good, and how to get along with others, by learning servanthood (not slavery).
When we all as members of our own families learn God's ways and follow them in our daily lives, then our children will follow us as we follow God, and will grow up to also lead their own children into paths of righteousness. God said that He would bless thousands of generations, as long as they continue to live righteously (Deuteronomy 7:9). But He also said that the sins of the parents will dog their children for three or four generations (Exodus 34:7; Numbers 14:18).
Children learn how to do life by watching their parents. So we as parents have the grave responsibility to teach them the right way to live, primarily by our example, because they will not do what we say unless we back it up in our daily lives. Please let us not condemn them for three or four generations into faulty attitudes that lead them into doing evil.
God is our good Father, He wants to teach us how to follow in His footsteps. His ways are how He designed this World to work, and when we understand it well enough to follow Him, our lives will hum along like a well-oiled machine.
He gives us His Holy Spirit, who acts as the oil in the machine of our life, so we need to be sure that His Oil is lubricating all the parts of our minds and hearts and bodies. And it's all based on Love. That's why He told us to Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might (Deuteronomy 6:5) and You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18). (Also see Luke 10:25-28.)
God designed that the nuclear family would be the building block of our society, to build up into civilizations. Our enemy knows this, and he has been hard at work to destroy this foundation, so that our civilizations will crumble.
God has told us how to form our families, with marriage, and how to function as transmitters of His Word and His ways to the product of marriage, the next generation; so that they will also teach their children, unto thousands of generations.
O my Father, You are such a good Father to us all. You have thought up the whole idea of creation, and You have made everything just the way You wanted it. And You have put us here to run the Earth by building our World on it.
And You have instructed us how to run this World. O Father, when we do, when we understand who You are and how Your ways are, and align our own thinking and attitudes along Your lines; then we find the result is great blessing from You, tremendous benefit in our families and our work and our friendships.
Father, continue to teach us Your ways. Continue to give us Your understanding and Your wisdom in dealing with all the parts of our lives. Continue to strengthen us against the temptations to go with the flow of the World; but to strive to swim upstream, against the pull of the World, our enemy, and our own flesh. To run away from the temptations, and to face the enemy when he confronts us, in the power of the Blood shed for us.
O Father, I pray for all the children who are now adults, and will no longer listen to their godly parents and grandparents. I pray that You would open their eyes to see the error of the paths they have chosen, and turn them around to gather them into Your loving arms.
I know You Love them even more than we do, and You are not willing for any of them to perish, but that all would come to the realization of how much You Love them.
And may all the lost sheep be found, all the children who are searching, even when they don't realize that what they're searching for is You.
Gather all Your sheep, Father, into the safety of the fold, that there will be One Fold and One Shepherd.
And Your House will be full, every place at Your banquet table will be filled. And every knee will bow of every creature in Heaven, on Earth, and under the Earth, and every tongue will proclaim in every language, the glory of the Lord God Almighty, our Savior and Redeemer, the Mighty King over all Creation; to the glory of the Father.
Even so, come Lord Jesus!
