Be a Man!
Ephesians 6:4
Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
A 27-year-old survey from Switzerland revealed some surprising insights. Within this broad demographic study, researchers tried to find out how faith passed from one generation to the next. What did they find?
In families where both father and mother were regular church attenders, 74.2% of their adult children at least attended church every once in a while. 25.8% no longer attended church.
In families where neither parent went to church, only 19.3% of their children started attending church. The other 80.7% remained unchurched.
In families where both parents attended semi-regularly, 60.8% of their children also attended church irregularly. 7.8% started attending more regularly in adulthood, while 31.4% stopped going to church.
That gets the obvious ones out of the way. But what about families where one parent attends regularly and the other only attends once in a while?
In families where the mom attended regularly and the dad attended irregularly, 3.4% of their children were regularly in church, 58.6% were in church semi-regularly, and 38% stopped going to church.
In families where the dad attended regularly and the mom attended irregularly, 37.7% of their children attended regularly, 37.6% attended irregularly, and 24.7% stopped going to church.
(If these stats are making your head spin, check out this link).
Now, I don’t have a PhD in statistics, but I can see the difference. If mom goes regularly, there’s still 60% of kids, 3 out of 5, who see church at least as semi-important. But if dad goes regularly, regardless of what mom does, 75.3% of kids, 3 out of 4, also see church as semi-important, and many more see it as a bigger part of their lives than if only mom goes.
Dads and husbands, in his wisdom, God has made you the head of the household. Now, I’m not going to question God’s wisdom, but when I see the influence a dad can have on his family, even outside of what Scripture says, and then also see that although 73% of men say religion is important, less than 1 in 3 men attend church regularly, it makes me raise an eyebrow. Compare that to 82% of women who say religion is important and the 2 in 5 women who attend church regularly. (Men; Women).
By making the man the head of the household, he has primarily made you your family’s spiritual leader. Yes, you work to make sure your family’s needs are met. Yes, you’d protect your family from anyone who’d try to harm them. But your number one concern is that your wife and children know Jesus and what he has done for them.
There are a lot of obstacles in your way. Going to church doesn’t seem all that manly. Sunday’s your only day to rest after a long week of work. Maybe your wife and kids don’t even want to go. But in reality, these and all other obstacles end up being self-focused.
Each person has a different idea of manliness. But it most often boils down to be strong and self-dependent. Faith in Jesus is the opposite. It means depending completely on him. What kind of man depends on another man? It may draw ridicule from fellow men that you feel you need that crutch. It crushes your own ego to have to rely on someone else.
You work all week. You’re tired. You’ve been doing what God wants you to by providing for your family. He’ll understand if you need rest so you can right back at it Monday morning. How can you do your best at work if you’re tired?
How can that last obstacle be selfish? You’re granting their wish. You’re listening to your wife and kids who don’t want to go. Hey, that sounds like something God said. When Adam and Eve fell into sin, God told Adam, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you.” It’s God-pleasing to listen to your wife, except when her will doesn’t align with God’s will. But it’s easier on you not to put up a fight, to just let it go.
There are kinds of excuses and all kinds of obstacles. They don’t pass muster. God defines manliness his way: A man leads his family to Christ. God’s definition of a man is one who trusts in Jesus and teaches his family to do the same. Anything else is unmanly. And worse, based on the statistics above, anything else can produce horrendous results. Your kids not going to church is one thing. Your kids not going to heaven is another.
This is why God sent the perfect man, his Son Jesus Christ. We only have to look to the first man Adam to see an example of unmanliness. His unmanly behavior and sin brought sin into the world. But the perfect man came to correct what the first man did. “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” By Jesus’ perfect manliness, you are made perfect in God’s sight. Your unmanliness is covered over by the blood of the perfect man.
It’s time to be the man God has made you through Jesus. It’s not the man you were. It’s the man you now are through faith in Christ. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” Bring your family to church. Lead them in family devotions. Pray with them. Show them Jesus, their Savior, your Savior.
Next week’s devotion will discuss the question “What if my children still fall away?” (Proverbs 22:6)