The Most Important Work You Will Ever Do
If you are a father, the most important work of your life is not your career, not your business, not your ministry. It is the four or five people who live under your roof.
The world will not reward you for this. But God rewards it. And your children, in thirty years, will look back and know what you did.
“ Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”
Ephesians 6:4The Office of Father
Fatherhood is not a role. It is an office. Every father stands in the place of God to his children — not because he is God, but because his children will learn what "father" means by watching him.
THE THREE DUTIES OF A FATHER
1. Provide. Put food on the table. Put a roof over their heads.
2. Protect. Physically, emotionally, spiritually.
3. Train. Not just discipline, but instruction.
“ Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
1 Timothy 5:8Your Wife Comes First
The greatest thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. Not tolerate her. Not provide for her. Love her the way Christ loved the church.
“ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
Ephesians 5:25“ The greatest thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. It is not close. It is not even a competition.”
Dennis PragerPresence Over Presents
Your children do not primarily need your money. They need you. They need a father who is in the room.
The statistics on fatherlessness are staggering. Children without a father in the home are far more likely to be poor, to be incarcerated, to drop out of school, to struggle with depression and addiction.
“ Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.”
Psalm 127:3When You Have Failed
Maybe you did not have a good father. Maybe you have been an absent father yourself. Hear this. There is no sin so deep that God's grace cannot reach it.
Repent. Then go. Then do the work. Call the child. Write the letter. Show up. Apologize without excuses.
“ The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.”
Psalm 103:8