Honour Your Father

Today, we turn right on back to the place where we left off, the place where Jesus is responding to a rich young man who has come to Him with this question. Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life? Matthew 19: 16b.

We were at the point where the words, Honour your father and mother, took full focus. Still mindful of all that has been said and is being said about fathers and God’s unmatched plans, we listen with Spirit-filled ears to receive all that is for our hearing.

Remember, the person is asking and seeking to know what good thing he has to do to obtain eternal life. Straightway, we get a glimpse into this son of somebody. O yes, he is a father’s son, and knowing about life after death, he wants to ensure that he is not barred from such a life. Jesus’ response totally throws you, doesn’t it? So, what good thing do you and I have to do, to secure our salvation from hell and damnation?

Jesus turns to the commandments of Father God. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments. Matthew 19: 17b. Obey the commandments and one will be guaranteed entry into eternal life? Jesus has just said this to that young man. It is true, in this most exposing and truth-bearing conversation, when Jesus specifies and highlights a few commandments, the man is not at all fazed. He boldly tells Jesus that he has kept them all, a statement of claim which Jesus does not refute. We know how the conversation proceeds, where Jesus points out one single lack in that law-abiding, commandment-keeping man. But that is not our focus at the moment. We are being held on fathers, as father is taken out and held high off the ground, to teach us, by reaching each of us in our spiritually poor mind-sets.

Will you hear it like this, in your now enabled minds and hearts? In responding to a question about what one has to do to attain eternal life, Jesus says one has to obey God’s command to honour one’s father. Are you really hearing? Honouring your father is big with God the Father and Jesus knows this, for He speaks it publicly. Can you and I respond as that young man, who is speaking directly to Jesus? Can you and I say to Jesus, even in this moment, that we have honoured our fathers? And what makes it even more interesting and convicting, is what Luke adds. We are told that the response to Jesus was this. All these things I have kept from my youth. Luke 18: 21 NKJV. In other words, from the time I was young, I was honouring my father.

What a jolting! What a toppling over! What a piercing conviction!

May the Holy Spirit turn us around with His enlightenment and teach us from now on, how to honour our fathers. In so doing we are honouring Father God.