Stop Listening to Our Fathers--and Start Listening to The Father

 We have to get past the knowledge of our parents and go to the wisdom of God the Father.

For the longest time, I vacillated between the opinions of my mother and my father. I have only recently learned how wrong they BOTH were, on so many issues.

Unlike many people, I have no problem looking past the two options which are usually placed before us on a number of issues.

I have gotten more accustomed to recognizing that whatever ideas are presented in an either/or fashion, there is often a great way to come up with other options in the midst of them, or outside of their scope entirely.

I don't feel the need to be bitter toward my parents. I realize what they did not know about the Gospel of Grace, and what I have learned today because I have learned so much from the preaching of Pastor Joseph Prince and Pastor Bob George, among many others. So grateful for their work in restoring the Gospel of Grace, that Jesus has finished the Work and given us Himself.

Amen!

We need to seek not the wisdom of our fathers, but the Father. We need the love of the Father, not just the love of our earthly fathers. This is not to disparage the work and the witness of the men and women who raised us. 

But no matter what we are facing, not matter what we have learned, we need the love of THE Father!

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." (1 John 2:15)

The wisdom of our earthly fathers cannot compare with the Wisdom of the Father. In fact, let us never forget that "Christ is our wisdom" (1 Corinthians 1:30)

One final thought ...

I have listened to so many older men talk about their convictions and beliefs, and many of them acknowledge that their beliefs come from what their fathers told them. "I know that William F. Buckley was a racist, because my father said so, and my father would never tell a lie."

Perhaps your father did not lie to you, but what he said was not true. 

Consider also what my father used to say about lying: "My father told me not to lie, because you are too stupid to keep track of your lies."

But what does the Bible say about lying?

"Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another." (Ephesians 4:25)

and

"Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;" (Colossians 3:9)

We don't tell lies because they are not commensurate with our new nature, our new identity, our new creation as Christ's own, adopted into the Family of God.

We need to stop listening to our fathers, and start listening to the Father!