Parenting. Honor Your Father and Your Mother. If Anyone Does Not Provide for His Own. Update.

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Parenting

“Being a parent is a job full of challenges, large and small. Wouldn’t it be great to have a source of expert parenting advice? And especially in the biggest challenges, wouldn’t it be reassuring to have access to the best parenting advice of all?

Practical Tips for Positive Parenting

Parenting can be one of the most wonderful experiences—but it can also be frustrating. How can we increase the wonderful—and lower the frustration?
From planning and preparing for a baby’s arrival to first holding that precious new life in your arms—it is hard to put into words the feelings we have when starting a family!
Then begins the process of taking a little one who is dependent on you for every need and helping him or her develop into an independent, well-mannered and productive member of society.
It is a daunting task, and there are bound to be bumps along that path!
No matter where you are in your parenting “career”—from brand-new, first-time parent to experienced grandparent—virtually everyone feels at a loss from time to time while raising children. This section has been written for those times when a fresh perspective or the seasoned words of veteran parents can provide the insight you need.
The world is changing rapidly, but the basic needs of children, from infancy to young adulthood, remain the same. Meeting their physical, mental, social, emotional and spiritual needs are all as important today as ever.
The psalmist likened children to arrows in the quiver of an archer, stating that “happy is the man who has his quiver full of them” (Psalm 127:5 ). We invite you to explore the experiences and lessons in this section so your parenting experience can be more of the happy—and less of the frustrating!” More at: https://lifehopeandtruth.com/relationships/parenting/
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Honor Your Father and Your Mother
“Why is the Fifth Commandment called the “first commandment with promise”?
Without the Fifth Commandment, society can (and will) collapse on itself. What makes honoring your father and mother such an integral part of human civilization?

In giving the 10 Commandments, God specifically highlights how keeping the Fifth Commandment benefits both you and all of society.

The first four commandments define how God wants us to show love for Him. This Fifth Commandment begins a series of six commandments that show us how to love other people—starting from our earliest years in the family.
In a way, the Fifth Commandment connects the two sections, since God reveals Himself as our loving Father. No father deserves honor as much as our Heavenly Father! Yet the Bible shows that humanity, and even those chosen to be God’s people, have often failed in showing that honor and respect to our Creator God.
God pointed out this much-too-common problem in Malachi 1:6: “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am the Father, where is My honor? And if I am a Master, where is My reverence?”
This Fifth Commandment helps us see how learning respect and honor in the family setting helps prepare us to show honor to our ultimate Father.

The first commandment with promise

The Gospels record Jesus Christ repeating the Fifth Commandment several times, including Matthew 15:4 and 19:19.
The apostle Paul also reiterated the Fifth Commandment, emphasizing that it’s the “first commandment with promise: ‘that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth’” (Ephesians 6:2-3). Paul adds to this in Colossians 3:20: “Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.” All of God’s commandments are given for our benefit, but this one is especially highlighted by God for the blessings that it brings for the individual, the family and society in general.
Paul expands on this subject of family relationships with commands to both children and parents: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (verse 1). A smooth functioning society and happy relationships are based on respect and obedience to authority. It is much easier if we learn this early in life—without requiring the harsh taskmasters of boot camp, prison or being fired.
God wants us to learn to “honor all people” (1 Peter 2:17). We must submit to authority, “For there is no authority except from God” (Romans 13:1). This does not mean God condones repressive, heavy-handed leadership. He holds parents, teachers and other leaders to a stricter judgment (James 3:1).

Honor shouldn’t end when we leave home

Family is a lifetime commitment, reflecting the permanence of the family relationship we are called to in becoming children of God. As the apostle John wrote, “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1).
Family is a lifetime commitment, reflecting the permanence of the family relationship we are called to in becoming children of God. God intends for us to continue to show respect and honor for our parents long after we leave home and perhaps even more as they age and may require support and care. Read more about honoring parents as adults in our article “How to Honor Your Parents as an Adult” and the blog post “Honor Our Mothers.”
Jesus Christ showed the hypocrisy of some who tried to get out of honoring and supporting their elderly parents:
“Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God”—then he need not honor his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition” (Matthew 15:3-6).
God wants our honor to extend throughout our parents’ lives.

The vital parental role

The apostle Paul also commanded parents: “And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). To the Colossians Paul added, “Lest they become discouraged” (Colossians 3:21). Parents must not shirk their teaching role, but must do it in a way that is encouraging and doesn’t provoke their children.
The “training and admonition of the Lord” is explained more fully in the book of Deuteronomy. God told parents: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:5-7).
The parental role is a vital one, and it is challenging. It is worthy of respect.” From: https://lifehopeandtruth.com/bible/10-commandments/honor-fifth-commandment/?
For further study about applying the Fifth Commandment and strengthening our families today, see the helpful articles in the “Family: Keys to Building a Strong Family” and the “Practical Tips for Positive Parenting” sections.
For more about the rest of the 10 Commandments, read the article “What Are the 10 Commandments?”
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If Anyone Does Not Provide for His Own

1 Timothy 5:8
“But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
The Bible teaches us to love everyone, but the religion of the Bible is a practical religion that gives us priorities and starting places. God gives us family as a support structure and a workshop for human relations.
Showing love must start at home and with our nearest relatives. If we can’t love and fulfill our responsibilities toward our own family whose needs we know, how can we show love for those we don’t know? Paul pronounced those Christians who did not care for their family members as worse than the unbelievers, since many unbelievers take better care of their families than that.
Jesus Christ mentioned an example of people trying to get out of caring for their own parents by claiming to dedicate the money to God instead (Mark 7:9-13). This tradition, called Corban, “was evidently a pious-sounding evasion of the requirement of honoring one’s parents by supporting them financially” (The Nelson Study Bible, note on Mark 7:11-13). Jesus said it was rejecting “the commandment of God” (verse 9).”  For more about the commandments of God, including the Fifth Commandment about honoring parents, see our section on “The 10 Commandments.”        From: https://lifehopeandtruth.com/bible/blog/if-anyone-does-not-provide-for-his-own/?
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Update.
Like most folk now that the country, or at least my part of it, has almost shut down again, there isn’t much going on, not even the air conditioning!  It was off for 2 days and 2 nights.
On the Friday, I had called the emergency number for the apartment office and the answering service relayed my message so the apartment manager called me to tell me that she had left a message for the AC guy.  So I didn’t dare leave. I hardly even dared take a shower because you can’t hear the doorbell in there. If I had know that he wasn’t coming, I would have gone somewhere, a motel or something.  My family had already left on their trip and knew nothing about it, so I was on my own as usual.  I waited and waited, but by Sunday midday, I knew that I had to do something. 
My neighbor drove me to Lowes in College Station to buy a window unit.  I was feeling weak, and didn’t want to drive myself.  Before I left, I turned the system off, and then realized that IF the AC guy came, he would need it on.  After the 50 mile round trip to get the window unit, when I walked in I immediately knew that the AC was cooling again.  Before we left, my neighbor had banged on the old rusty outside unit, so we don’t know if the compressor was stuck, or if it had frozen up, or if it was a dodgy on/off switch on the thermostat.  The AC man had not been there, he didn’t show up until Monday and couldn’t find out what was wrong with it.
The new computer arrived, and it is fast.  I spent a few days getting it sorted out with the programs that I use, but I can’t get it to be friends with Open Live Writer, so I have to do this on my laptop.
On Thursday, I ventured back to College Station Lowes by myself and exchanged the AC. The one I had picked up on Sunday was the wrong one anyway, so I got the right one.  I will keep it it case the old central AC goes out again.  I really dislike driving to College Station, it is a fast 75mph road, and you know ‘they’ are going faster than that.  What would happen if they had a blow-out at those speeds?
I also went to a super Walmart, and to PetSmart. We don’t have either one of those in Navasota. No, my cat isn’t back home, but I needed new filters for my kitty water fountain. I looked at an older cat for adoption, but resisted because he is a biter! My thin skin would leak!  I went to visit my daughter and took a cauliflower crust pizza for us to eat.  I thought it was good, so did her father-in-law.
As usual, on Friday morning, my church neighbor and I studied the Bible study book. New health rules, so we couldn’t go to the church service, or even the Zoom Bible study at the church. We wanted to keep up with our studies even though we knew that we wouldn’t be going to the church Bible study on the Sabbath the next day.