Daily Rhema: Honouring fathers: Spiritual and natural

1Corinthians 4: 15 (KJV)
For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.

Fathers are men on the earth that God has put responsibility upon. Just as we have biological fathers, those that give birth to physical children, we also have spiritual fathers who may not necessarily have physical children, but give birth to and nurture spiritual ones.

An excellent example of a spiritual father is the apostle Paul. He did not marry, so had no biological children, but certainly had thousands of spiritual children! He wrote such in an epistle that was stamped and approved by God the Holy Spirit.
Spiritual fathers are those whose spirits God uses to birth unbelievers into the Kingdom on one hand, and on the other hand, to grow you up in the Kingdom. It is wonderful to observe this phenomenon.

This spiritual transformation takes place over many years. Just as physical children look like their fathers through the biological seed and the DNA, so also spiritual children resemble their fathers spiritually, because of the Word they have been hearing over years! People who stay under a pastor over many years begin to preach like that pastor! We can see and hear the effect of the Word of God that is being imbibed by somebody who has followed another person like Elisha followed Elijah.

So fathers are those whom God has set to exercise responsibility, spiritually or physically, or sometimes both, over others in order to develop them.

What does it mean to be a father?

To be a spiritual father means much more than physically giving birth to children, though that is important in its place. From a biblical standpoint, a father is one who provides spiritual covering over his spiritual children, and spiritual nutrition for them so they can be protected on one hand and, secondly, grow spiritually.

Now, because of the strategic position that fathers occupy, they are targeted by Satan and many times instead of Satan fighting 1000 people, he fights one person: the father! If Satan can overcome that one person, the father, he gets the 1000 people under the father’s authority. This makes a lot of sense. Why fight 1000 when you can fight and defeat only one and win the others. That is what we see in the book of Zechariah (Zech. 3:1 ).

Hence, Satan attacks all fathers as symbolized and typified in Zech.3.2! There we see Satan standing at the right hand of Joshua the high priest (a type of father) to resist him.

In the book of Genesis, we see the original plan of God for mankind (Gen. 1:27-28).

Husband and wife are supposed to have children who are godly like their parents, and that godly seed is to produce another godly generation: for the seed will reproduce after its kind. The family unit is divinely-designed to be a self-perpetuating, continuous line producing godly seed (Gen. 1:11).

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