In the previous study, the father was rightly described as the priest of the home. He is however, also the king of the home. What a father does will have an effect on every member of his family. As a father, you cannot afford to act like a child. From Ecclesiastes 10:16, we see that it is the family that would suffer for the childishness of their king (the father).

Remember that everything you do is an example for your children. When you drink or send your son to buy you cigarettes, you are already introducing him to that lifestyle. When your children see you having an affair with a strange woman, you are sowing a terrible seed in their hearts. The way you talk to their mother is probably how your sons will talk to their wives too. The low self-esteem of their mother due to how you treat her will probably become the self-esteem of your daughters too.

As mentioned earlier, you are the priest of the home; when the priest is spiritually asleep, God help that home! There are some demonic issues that a father need only issue a command for them to disappear, but if he is a spiritual baby, such issues would linger. As a father, how often do you pray for and on your children? Are you deliberate about teaching them the word of God?

Another reason for you to watch your spiritual life is that children could reap the harvest of the spiritual seeds their fathers have sown. In 1st 11:34, God softened Solomon’s punishment for misbehaving because of David his father.

“Howbeit I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand: but I will make him prince all the days of his life for David my servant’s sake whom I chose, because he kept my commandments and my status.”

Jonathan on the other hand was a good boy, but he partook in the punishment of his father and died a shameful death. I pity any child who has a baby as a father and I pray that God will rescue such children from any danger that their father’s ignorance or ‘childishness’ can cause them in the mighty name of Jesus.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.