Honor Your Parents

Where this command is found:

“For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.”

Matthew 15:4

When you think of your relationship with your parents, do you think of it as something special or to be treasured? In the command given by Jesus in Matthew 15:4, the word honor in the Greek means just that! But how can we fulfill this command when there may be lingering hurts, conflicts or even disagreements between us and our parents?

The key to answering this question is found in looking at the emphasis of the context surrounding this command: honoring from the heart. The scribes’ and Pharisees’ heart was not to obey God’s law; it was actually to evade it. In so doing, not only were they dishonoring their parents and teaching others to do the same, they were ultimately dishonoring God and violating His law.

So how do you fulfill this command? If you choose to honor the Lord by loving and embracing His commands, God will grant you His wisdom. A natural outflow of this will be knowing how to honor, respect and value your parents. As you daily depend upon the Lord and treasure His Word within your heart, He will empower you to obey this command in the way He desires. If you seek to honor your parents in this way, you will have the opportunity of experiencing the blessings of long life and peace that are promised by your Heavenly Father in connection with obeying this command!

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Episodes

Honor Your Parents — Part 2

There's a long list of excuses for why we don’t have to honor our parents. But usually it's just because we find it to be hard and uncomfortable.

Play