Honoring father & mother (part six)

"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.” Exodus 20:12

Parents have an important role in leading our children to honor their parents. Here are some thoughts on how to do this.

  • Teach your children (and grandchildren) the Ten Commandments. All ten. Including the commandment to honor parents. Be sure they understand that dishonoring parents is a sin first of all, against God.

  • Be a respectable and honorable parent. Besides not making it harder for them to honor you, we parents will answer to God for our parenting.

  • Be loving, but do not excuse disrespect. Worse than the other things our children may do wrong, speaking and/or acting disrespectfully toward parents is a serious sin and it must not be tolerated.

  • Honor your parents. Be careful how you speak about your parents in your children’s hearing.

  • Never speak ill of your children’s other parent, whether you are married to their other parent, regardless of who their other parent is, or how that parent acts.

  • Pray for your children. What they need most is to be born again by the Spirit of God. Do all you can to shepherd their souls, and pray that God will save them.

Failure to train our children to honor their parents trains them to break the fifth commandment!