You may be wondering what ever happened to the loving, good fathers of this world. You look around you and you see many men who are more interested in who they can sleep with than taking care of their wives, children and extended family. This is because their sinful natures have taken over their lives. They live only to satisfy their sexual cravings and other physical desires. They like to gamble, play games, listen to music, drink, smoke – and some of them care more about money and their documents than they do about their own families.
There are some good men in this world – men believe in and worship the Lord. They do what Jesus told them to do: “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” – Luke 10:27
And fathers – that includes your wife and children. You must love them and take care of all their needs as best you can. You have to be there for them physically and emotionally.
One wife for life
Jesus taught us men that we are only to have one wife for life. We are to marry the woman we love as young men and stay with them until we are old. We are not to divorce them and they are not to divorce us. We are not to go to any other woman’s bed as long as we are married to our first and only wife. This is a beautiful picture of holiness and righteousness in God’s eyes. It shows that we are faithful to God and to our wife.
“Haven’t you read the Scriptures?” Jesus replied. “They record that from the beginning ‘God made them male and female.’” And he said, “‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.”
“Then why did Moses say in the law that a man could give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away?” they asked.
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended. And I tell you this, whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery—unless his wife has been unfaithful.” – Matthew 19
Men who abandon their families are wicked
The Lord of Heaven’s Armies says, “The day of judgment is coming, burning like a furnace. On that day the arrogant and the wicked will be burned up like straw. They will be consumed—roots, branches, and all.
“But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture. On the day when I act, you will tread upon the wicked as if they were dust under your feet,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
“Remember to obey the Law of Moses, my servant—all the decrees and regulations that I gave him on Mount Sinai for all Israel.
“Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord arrives. His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise I will come and strike the land with a curse.” – Malachi 4
Men who get women pregnant and leave them are wicked and evil. Men who marry women just to have sex with them and leave them are wicked, and don’t think that you will escape God’s judgment on your life if you are abusing or taking advantage of women in this way. God will find, God will corner you, God will take away everything you have and leave you standing naked before Him without any excuses – you will damn yourself and judge yourself unworthy of eternal life because you denied the love to your wife and children that you were supposed to show them.
Getting new heart with Jesus
One of the beautiful things that happen when someone becomes a Christian is that they start to love the family members that have always been around them. It’s as if their eyes have been opened and they see in their hearts that they have not been loving their families as they should have. They realize that they have neglected the people on earth that they should have been loving the most.
In the Bible it says that God “will turn the hearts of fathers to their children.” God will change the heart of man who becomes a Christian and that man will start to love his family the way he should have long, long ago.
The hidden problem
Sometimes the most obvious problem is the one that no one wants to talk about; sometimes the things that is most wrong with a family is the thing that no one wants to say because of fear. But you do not have to be afraid of God. You can tell God anything that is going on inside your heart and your mind. Maybe you can hide all the pain and suffering you feel behind your smile; maybe you can hide all the pain and suffering you feel by kicking a can down the road, or staying out late. Maybe you can hide the deep pain and hurt in your heart by not admitted it to anyone. But it’s there. And sometimes you run and hide and cry and allow yourself to feel the pain of growing up without a father.
Well I have good news for you! I have good news for you if you have grown up without a father and I have good news for you if you have been a wicked father.
God is a father to the fatherless
If you have grown up without a father there is really good news for you, God is a“Father to the fatherless” – Psalm 68:5.
God wants to have a relationship with you and wants to adopt you into His family and be your dad. God wants you to know that He loves you and cares about you very much. God wants to bring you to Himself through Jesus Christ. God sent Jesus Christ onto the earth to die for our sins on the cross so that we could have a relationship with Him. By putting gour faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour we become the children of God and God becomes our Father.
God can become the father you never had. There is hope – you are not alone. You don’t ever have to be alone again. You can pour out your heart to God by praying to Him and asking Him for whatever you need and you can trust Him to deliver to you anything that you pray for ask for.
Jesus said: “I tell you the truth, you will ask the Father directly, and he will grant your request because you use my name.”
God will provide you with the Himself if you put your faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. God will become your protector, friend, guide, helper, advisor, comforter, and problem solver. You can go to God and tell Him absolutely anything that is on your heart and God will be there for you and God will help you.
God can help wicked fathers
God sent Jesus Christ to earth to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children. God knows how evil, selfish, and hard hearted fathers can be. Men have sex with women and father children and then they slip away like snakes, slithering away into the darkness of the jungle. They abandon their duties and obligations. They run away and hide from their responsibilities like little spoiled children who only want to eat the cookies from the cookie jar. God knows your hearts and there is hope for you.
God can turn your heart back to the wife of your youth and to your children. Maybe you are divorced, maybe you have remarried again or are living with another woman. There is hope for you. You don’t have to stay there.
I have been married to the same one woman for 28 years, and we have 9 children together. I have remained faithful to my wife and she has remained faithful to me – and God willing we never leave each other until death separates us from each other here on earth. That is what marriage is supposed to be – a man and a woman who remain faithful to each other.
The Bible says:
“Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.” – Hebrews 13:4
If you have sinned by committing adultery, or by abandoning your children, then turn your heart to God and ask Him to forgive you. Let God change you into the man and father He wants you to be.
Fornicators
And just because you are a young man with strong sexual desires that doesn’t mean that it is ok to go around and get young women pregnant. No! God wants you to remain pure and get married so that you will not repeat the sins of your fathers and so that you want live unholy lives.
God wants young men to read the Bible and worship God and to learn how to work their hands so that they will be able to provide for their families. Hallelujah! Yes this is a holy and good thing to do for young men.
So if you are a young man who has go off track and gotten involved with women, and sex, and living a lifestyle that is no pleasing to God then this is the day you can stop behaving like a little child and the day you can become a man of God.
You can turn your heart to Jesus Christ and accept Him as your Lord and Saviour.
Whoever you are God wants to be your Father
God is looking for those people that He can adopt. God wants to adopt fathers, mothers, daughters, children, and grandparents. God is not looking for people who think they are righteous, God is looking for those people who know that they have sinned and are acting in a way that is not pleasing to God. God wants to adopt you and change you into the kind of son or daughter who will please Him and live for Him. In order to become that person you need to acknowledge and admit that you haven’t live the way that God wants you to live and you need to admit that to God and ask Him to forgive you.
May the Lord bless you as you seek Him. There is hope for you.
Amen.