Honour God. Honour His Son. Honour His Spirit. "A prophet is not without honour except in his hometown and in his own household." "Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you."
In this day and age, it is honourable for a man to love his wife and children above all things. Perhaps it is considered honourable because we have become more aware of the tragedy of fatherlessness in our world. The security of a father's love for his family may have become a more rare occurrence in recent decades, accompanied with the fact that we are realizing the emotional ramifications of our father's participation or lack of participation in a person's formative years. However, bestowing honour upon a father's prioritization of his family may be signifying the depravity of the role of a father in this generation.
For a worshiper of Christ, it should be a minimum requirement that a man should love his wife and children. A man's wife is joined to the man, as the two are one flesh. A man doesn't neglect his own body, does he? Nor does he fail to nurture what is produced from his own work, does he? He doesn't need to be congratulated for taking care of his own, it should be expected as a part of his nature.
But Oh! how the men or this generation have failed to even honour what is the primary extension of their own body. This triggers me to wonder: what have the men of this generation spent their time and energy pursuing that they would consider it worthwhile to destroy their own body for? They must be doing something.
They have surely built their household in a world of make-believe. Some make-believe worlds exists in the mind of a man, never to take form in the world. Some make-believe worlds take their form in this world, and become the only measurement a man has for himself. Either way, he has neglected what is real in his life for something that is counterfeit to his true self.
But the kingdom of God presents another dimension to how we are to consider ourselves as men of our household. We are to love our neighbour as ourselves. We are even called to love our enemy. How can we properly love our neighbour and our enemy if we deny our own household? The household is an extension of the man, that if a man neglects his own household, he is surely unfit to love his neighbour as himself, because he has neglected himself. Therefore, he is completely unfit for God's kingdom.
God will bestow honour upon those who keep His commandments. Even if a man doesn't receive honour from his own household, he can nurture his own household so that it can grow to honour the commandments of God, that their days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord gives them.
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