Devotional for Thursday, March 08, 2007
Text: Ephesians 6:1-9
Spotlight: Ephesians 6:1-4
You want me to what?
In this passage
of text, Paul continues his all out assault against cultural Christianity.
It is
an underlying them of the whole book of
Ephesians. I think what the Ephesian church was struggling with was a
prophetic foreshadowing of how Christianity in America would be influenced
by worldly attitudes that are rooted in rebellion and are quite simply
not of God. Let’s face it. Rebellion is appealing to us. We love
to watch movies where there are uprisings and oppressors get theirs in
the end. We like to picture parents as out of touch and ignorant and
the young as finding their liberation in throwing off the restraints
of parental authority. The notion of winning over an unjust master through
humble submission wouldn’t make a very popular movie topic in today’s
culture. Neither would a rebellious teenager finding that his parents
were right and he should have listened to them all along. This passage
of text is nothing less than a fire extinguisher on the fire of rebellion
that has interlaced itself so well into our culture and has even integrated
into modern Christianity as a normal mode of thinking.
“Children, obey your parents…” Simply the first place where
we see rebellion manifest itself is with young children. Parents never cease
to be amazed at how their children rebel so naturally without even being taught
at the earliest stages of development. You don’t have to teach your child
how to grab a toy from another child and yell, “Mine!” A child’s
propensity for selfishness and rebellion is inborn as part of their sin nature.
There is no denying it. Almost immediately the enemy comes in and fuels that
with one of his greatest weapons, the media. Even shows marketed to young children
always seem to show the adults as uncool and out of touch, planting seeds of
isolation that say, “Grown-ups don’t get me. They don’t know
what its like to be a kid.” This flies in the face of the obvious logic
that all of us adults have one thing in common if nothing else. We were kids
once and experienced all the same trials and tribulations of childhood. But,
even that revelation doesn’t console a young rebellious heart that can
quickly rebound with, “Well, you don’t know what it’s like
to be a kid now. It was different when you were a kid.” When confronted
with this just quote Ecclesiastes1:9b that says, “There is nothing new
under the sun.” There is something to be said about how obeying your parents
affects your quality of life. Ephesians 1:3b says, “…that you may
enjoy long life on the earth.” The simple reality is that parents care
about their children. Luke 11:14 says, “If you then, though you are evil,
know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father
in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" The main reason that
children think their parents don’t understand them is that they have yet
to comprehend the concept of delayed gratification. Parents mostly rear their
children and make decisions for them based on their futures. Children mostly
make decisions based on the here and now. It’s my firm belief that this
fact is the nucleus of the disharmony that arises between a child and a parent.
Verse 4 in our text gives a command to parents, “Do not exasperate your
children…” I can think of nothing more exasperating to a child
than parents who do not hold to a standard, who are “double-minded and
unstable in their ways.” (See James 1:8) Parents who enforce a rule and
then go back on their ruling or give in after being prodded. Children need
consistency. They need to be ale to depend on the stability of their parents
to anchor them and ground them in what is right even though they will work
hard to derail that stability and challenge their authority at every turn.
The over all theme of this text is that submission is more powerful than rebellion.
Our goal as children should not be to throw off the restraints of parental
oppression but rather to learn from our parents how to be submissive so we
can apply it to our Christian walks and submit to Christ. Likewise, as employees
we should be submissive to our employers whether they are just and treat us
well or they are unjust and treat us poorly. We should serve them like we are
serving the Lord, whole heartedly. Submission is necessary no matter what age
or stage of life we are in. We are always going to have to submit to someone
Both of these commands have promises. For children who obey their parents,
we are promised that things will go well and that we will have long life. For
slaves who obey their masters, we are promised that the Lord will reward us
for the good we do. Romans 12:21 says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but
overcome evil with good.” Being submissive, we can overcome because we
allow God to take control of the situation. Let’s practice submission
in all of our relationships.
How to Pray this scripture:
Dear Lord Jesus,
I pray that you would give me a submissive and obedient heart. I pray
that I would
honor and obey my parents so that I may reap
the benefits that you promise me in your word. I pray that I would respect
and fear my earthly masters and obey them as I would obey you, not only
when their eye is on me but like a slave of Christ, doing the will of
God from my heart serving whole heartedly. May I serve others just as
I ma serving you. In the Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
Other Scriptures:
Ephesians 5:21
Romans 12:21
James 1:8-10
Colossians 3:20-23
Philippians 2:12
Hebrews 5:8-10
I Peter 1:22
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