March 4th Devotion

Deuteronomy 5:16 (NIV)
16 "Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

The Lord commands us to honor our parents, both of them. He also gives a promise to this command, “that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land.” The question I have is, do you honor your mother and father? Does God expect us to honor bad parents, or ones that are failures? Are we commanded to honor parents that have brought hardship to us, through no fault of our own?

Consider the Israelites that are receiving this command. As a result of their parent’s disobedience, they had to wonder in the dessert for forty years, and their parents died without getting to enter the promised land. Their parents constantly complained, worshiped idols and brought plagues upon the people. Their parents did not live long, and did not even get into the land. And why? Because they did not honor their Father. And with all the failures of their parents, God commanded them to “Honor their father and mother.”

Honor your father and mother.

Love, Pastor Don