Honor God, Honor parents

Just want to share with you in how God is breaking me and moulding me into His Sovereign will.

Every family is bound to have problems and that is the case for my family as well. I also struggle with many other issues in my life. One of it is that I was unable to honor my parents. In a very familiar passage from Exodus 20:12 (New King James Version) says

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you”.

Year in and year out I’ll come across this verse and often time I chose to sweep it under the carpet.

As I was cleaning up my stuffs one day, I discovered my pledge during one of the camp session about 9 years ago. It mentioned how I wanted to honor God by honoring my parents. To my embarrassment, this was also one of the resolutions for some of the current and previous years which also mean that I did not take my yearly resolution seriously…

I began to consider those hymns that we used to sing about how we love the Lord. Do we mean it? It causes me to ponder is my love for the Lord real or genuine? If I love the Lord, I must also have love my family members which is in sync with what was told in 1 John 4:20-21 (New King James Version)

If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.

With much encouragement from my accountability partner and God’s working in my life, I wanted to change and ask God to help me to cope with my parents. At the back of my head, I know God placed me in my family for a purpose. I have no excuse not to change regardless how problematic things are in my family. I also realized that I can’t change my family members but at least I could allow God to change me (and prayerfully as I was changed to be more and more like Him, it could impact my family positively).

When I confessed this particular sin in my life, this was the verse that struck me the most
- Ephesians 4:22-24 (New King James Version)

that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, 23 and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

It implies that we (I) got to deny ourselves (myself) and follow Him. If we (I) do not want to follow Him, it would mean we (I) do not want to be a Christian.

Christian life did not stop when you say a sinner’s prayer. It’s just a beginning of your spiritual journey at the narrow way. You and I need to go through lots of thorns and thistles, experience dark valleys and dangers from lion etc. until we have gain the victory in Christ.

- Yit Mun

Images taken from:
http://www.learkentfool.com/?p=24
http://matteroffactsite.blogspot.com/2009/05/must-i-really-honor-my-parents-when.html
http://whenyouwalkalongtheway.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/what-not-to-wear/