As Father’s Day approaches, it is a good time to reflect upon our roles (or future roles) as both husband and father. Since life is not as compartmentalized as we’d like, it is worth noting that the roles of husband and father are in fact intertwined. I have never done a good job at being a husband and simultaneously done a bad job at being a father. And the opposite is true as well. Being a better husband makes me a better father and being a better father makes me a better husband. While we may be good at some things but not others (i.e. good at playing music, but not fixing cars, etc.), we are saved and called to be godly men - men like Jesus. And to that end, our roles as husband and father are prepared by God’s grace, lived through God’s power, and enjoyed for God’s glory.
Here, then, are some ways that you, dear husband and father, can reflect Jesus to your family:
1. Pray for your wife and children
2. Pray with your wife and children
3. Read the Word of God with your wife and children
4. Teach the Word of God to your wife and children
5. Talk with your wife and children
6. Listen to your wife and children
7. Serve your wife and children
8. Protect your wife and children
9. Provide for your wife and children
10. Lead your wife and children
11. Instruct your wife and children in godly living
12. Be an example of godly living to your wife and children
13. Expose your wife and children to the gospel again and again
14. Have fun with your wife and children
15. Weep with your wife and children
16. Rest with your wife and children
17. Be generous toward your wife and children
18. Study your wife and children and know them
19. Be affectionate toward your wife and children
20. Be willing to die to yourself for your wife and children
21. Be willing to die for your wife and children
We must remember that:
1. Jesus did not serve two masters and you cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6:24; James 4:4). We will either serve our family or ourselves, our family or our career, our family or our hobbies, etc. Serving two masters is an impossibility and one of them will destroy the other.
2. Jesus did not seek to gain what the world temporarily valued at the expense of what His Father eternally valued. As surely as we can gain the whole world and lose our soul (Lk. 9:25), we can gain the whole world and lose our marriage and our children. They are more valuable in God's eyes than anything He gives us in this world.
3. Jesus lived in the power of the Holy Spirit in order to accomplish the purpose of his Father (Luke 3:22; 4:1). What Jesus requires of us, He empowers us to do. There is nothing about our role as husband and father that is impossible for us, because the power of the Holy Spirit is available to us to conform us, lead us and help us.
Dear husband and father, rejoice in what God has given you in a wife and children. Rejoice in who He has called you to be as her husband and their father. Rejoice in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. And rejoice in Jesus, who has purchased you, redeemed you, clothed you and called you.
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