Fatherhood is one of the most important relationships God used to represent His kingdom on earth. It is only next to marriage. God established Fatherhood to introduce the relationship we will eventually have with Him when we become His sons and daughters (when we become saved). In fact, becoming a Christian means accepting to be under the fatherhood of God the Father in Heaven. This is because the strength of a material is tested by the strength of the smallest unit it is composed of. Fatherhood which is established in the smallest unit of God’s kingdom (the family) is a crucial building block to all the moves of God.
The first and most important responsibility of a father is the duty of fellowship with the Father of fathers. I am not only talking about your quiet time. Fathers must not only spend time with God for their personal growth, they must spend time with God because of the office they occupy. One is a relationship (quiet time), the other is a duty, it is a call. You cannot be a representative of a person without standing before that person to receive instructions. I am mentioning this point because we will continue to refer to this duty through the course of this piece. A man who fails in this will fail in all responsibilities.
The next most important responsibility of a father is to show the way to his children.
An important reason why fathers fail in their calling is that they have not conquered their internal battles. You cannot conquer a battle without while you still fall for those within. No man can give the victory he lacks; I had to learn this lesson with time and pain. Everything you will do as a father will be from the abundance of your heart. If you don’t have it, you can’t teach it. The reason I do all I can to live a victorious life through Christ is to be able to teach it to my kids. When you find a father who can’t teach his children about sexual purity, he most likely did not have victory in that area.
When Fatherhood Fails
There is a stage in a child’s life known as the stage of indoctrination, the age of 0-5 years. At this stage, a child is expected to take everything he or she learns, hook, line and sinker. The bulk of a child’s life is determined at this stage. God has designed the world in such a way that the closest person to that child ought to be his father. The first result of a failed fatherhood is an unbaked child. A child that lacks some of the necessary life skills. No matter how evil a person is, he or she was once an innocent child.
When fathers fail, the enemy can easily rob a child of his destiny by one careless mistake. The father has divine power to preserve or alter the destiny of a child.
A curse was placed on Benjamin by his mother because she had a very painful labour that eventually killed her in Genesis 35:18. She called him Benoni which means son of pain, but Abraham who understood the spiritual implications of that name and also understood the power in fatherhood cancelled that name and gave him Benjamin which means laughter. If you look at Benjamin’s life you will see that he had a good life. The opposite happened to Jabez whose mother gave a similar name because of the pain of childbirth. He did not have a father to nullify such pronouncement until he could cry to God himself (1 Chronicle 4:9-10).
When fathers fail in their responsibility to train their children in the way of the Lord, a nation that has forgotten God will rise on the face of the earth. One of the primary responsibilities of a father is to train his children and household in the way of the Lord. God said about Abraham “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him” (Gen 18: 19). When fathers fail in this responsibility, a nation will forget God because the family is the building block of the nation. It happened in the book of Judges Chapter 2. In Joshua 4 vs 4 -8, Joshua specifically gave the men an instruction to take 12 stones from Jordan as a representation of the mighty works of God and when their CHILDREN asked them what the meaning of the stones, they should teach them about the works of God. Later on, in Judges 2 verse 10 there was a generation of men who did not remember God. How did you think this happened? Obviously, because the fathers who were men in Joshua chapter 4 failed to teach their children.
When fathers fail, the apostolic calling and workings of God can be altered, generational covenants can be altered. God’s covenant with the house of Levi was that his generation will be priests forever. Eli failed in that and God started to lead Israel by prophets, the first of which was Samuel. No one outside the family of Levi could serve and lead Israel except those from the house of Levi. Samuel also failed as a father and that’s why Israel had kings, David also failed, that’s why the dynasty of kings ended.
Men need to first experience God before they can rule over and have dominion on earth. Our authority as Men comes from God, he gave us that power to shepherd and we cannot lead our families without him because it will be Godless and ruled with the mindset and systems of this world.
In conclusion, The Men of today need to experience what Love from a Father looks like and that it can only be found in Abba (God the Father). In Abba is love, patience, humility, meekness, tenderness e.t.c, so take your broken pieces to him to fix and heal you today.
THE BRIDGE HUB 