Heaven Helps the Home (Eph. 6:1-4)

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Dr. Alexander Kurian

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Children Suffering from:

 

Fatherlessness and Motherlessness  at home even when they are not orphans.

 

How and Why?

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• Lack of time

• Jobs

• Outside activities

• Television

• Misplaced/distorted priorities

• Financial Pressures

• Ignorance

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Action Step:

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• How will I practically remedy such a situation?

• Educate others who struggle with such issues.

 

The Duty of Children

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1. Obedience

2. Honor

 

• Obedience is the fundamental relationship of children to parents.

• Obedience should be cultivated in the context of a loving parent-child relationship.

• Obedience is guided, but not abolished by love.

• The importance of obedience and the consequence of disobedience.

• To teach the child to obey the parents is to teach the child to obey God.

• Honoring parents is a lifelong duty. It encompasses several responsibilities. This is to be taught at all levels of the child’s growth – childhood, teen age, youth, and early adulthood.

• This is not a cultural thing, but a matter of divine revelation.

• Either to physically or verbally abuse a parent was a capital offense in ancient Israel (Exo.21:15,17; Lev.20:9).

• Action Step: systematic teaching of these truths at home and also in Sunday school.

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   Parents Are Not for Frustration

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• Parents are commanded not to create anger in their children through habitual attitudes and actions.

• How do we provoke them?

• We must create a sense of peace, purpose, and sense of belonging for our children. When we don’t do this, we create a sense of stress, emptiness, eventually leading to rebellion.

• When we follow God’s rules we create an atmosphere for growth in our homes.

 

  Training & Admonition

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1. “To bring them up” means to feed them.

2. Know their needs and feed them accordingly.

3. It demands that we be need oriented, that we know our children well enough to recognize their need and that we act in such a way that we provide for their needs (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual).

4. We must adjust our lives to meet their needs.

5. Systematic teaching and training.

6. Principles of behavior, manners, morals, spiritual truths.

7. Correction, discipline, punishment are an educational process.

8. We instruct them by our model before them.

9. We must pray for our children, and pray with our children.

10. Parents must honestly discuss our children’s needs and how we can best meet them together. We must bring them up together.

11. We must affirm our love and trust in them.

12. We must spend time to watch, observe, listen, talk, think, pray and act for them and with them.

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Common Mistakes

 

1. We talk without listening.

2. We demand without understanding.

3. We decide without consulting.

4. We fail to love our children when we don’t give them ourselves.

 

Home is not where we come to rest; home is where we come to lead, love and care.

 

Points to Ponder

 

• Fathers set the tone in our families.

• Parenting is a team work.

• What is your biggest concern concerning your children right now? How do you address it?

• What you think is the greatest need of your children?

• How can we help and encourage one another in this great responsibility.

• Remember: Heaven helps the home.