Checks & Balances

2 Tim.3:16-17 (NIV) “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Anything you leave man to navigate in his own wisdom, man will abuse. God knows this, so He puts checks and balances in place. God says, ‘wives submit to your husbands‘. God says to husbands, ‘if you treat your wife shabbily your prayers will not be answered‘. Can you see God’s wisdom? We have to honour our parents. Honour is given, respect is earned. You cannot say that your parents do not deserve honour.

Guess what? They do not need to deserve it; you give honour to whom honour is due so that it will be well with you. If things are not well, the first place to check is your relationship with your parents. For those whose parents have passed on, I pray that God will heal you in Jesus Name. It is due because they brought you into this world. Spiritually, honour is due to your spiritual parents because they are providing a spiritual covering for you.

Eph.6:4 “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.” This is another one of God’s checks and balances. When the Bible says children obey your parents in the Lord, it is multifaceted in the sense that it means your parents both physical and spiritual. But beyond that, it means to obey your parents as long as they are in the confines of the Lord (as unto the Lord). If your parents tell you to do something that is not in the Lord, you are not obliged to obey. For instance, long ago a mother called to report her son to me. She was convinced that I was the only one her son would listen to and so she wanted me to tell him to obey her. 

She kept on saying he was disobedient and rebellious. The Bible says children obey your parents, and as she is his mother he must obey. ‘Okay, what is the issue, and what did he not do?’ Someone had called her, and she told her son to tell the caller that she was not at home. But her son respectfully declined, ‘I am sorry Mom, I will not lie but I can help you end the call.’ His mother was livid, ‘Pastor, tell him that he has to obey me!’ I said, ‘I am sorry I cannot do that because children obey your parents has to be ‘in the Lord.’ If your parents tell you to do something that is not in the Bible, do not do it. God says to fathers, “…bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.” Do not do it outside of the Lord. 

Prayer: Father, I ask for the wisdom to govern the great nations You have given to me, to bring them up with discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord, in Jesus Name. Amen!