18 May Honor Father and Mother (Part 4)
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” – Exodus 20:12
Q: What is the fifth commandment?
A: You shall honor your father and your mother, so that you will be well and live long on the earth.
What does this mean?
Because we worship and love God, we shouldn’t ignore or anger our parents, but we should honor, obey, love, and think highly of them.
Why do you think God gave us the Bible? Primarily, God’s word, the Bible, is a story about God and his plan to save a people for his own glory. For those who are his people, he also wants them to know the most blessed way to live. Once we know that we are his, it’s important to listen to God, in his word, to know what pleases him and how to repent when we fail. We honor God through listening to him.
Do you think it’s possible to honor someone by ignoring them?
Of course not. This is why honoring someone is linked to listening to them. When we don’t listen to God or our parents, we’re communicating without words that what they say has value to us. We honor our parents by the way that we listen to them.
If someone listens well to you, doesn’t that make you feel good? The opposite is also true. If people ignore us when we are talking it makes us feel devalued. It’s the same way for God and our parents.
Consider James 1:19, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger…
- In what ways do you need to repent of not listening well?
- Are there ways in which you have not been slow to speak?
- Can you identity a time in your life when you listened well to your parents and it was a blessing to you? (Parents, if you children can’t think of a time, maybe you could help them remember.)
Prayer
Our Father, please help us to listen well as a family. May our patterns of speech be such that we love to listen. Banish all defensiveness from our hearts because we know that we are secure in you. Help us to desire to listen well to you and our parents. May we honor you as we honor them. In Jesus name, Amen.
