Correcting Sons, Correcting Fathers

A prerequisite to becoming a good father is learning to be a good son. I am specifically talking about being a son to a father. There is purpose and design to a husband and wife conceiving and raising children that many have irreverently dismissed. The dismissing of purpose is always a precursor to abuse. Due to various circumstances, many fathers in our society were never sons to fathers themselves. Having never walked the path of a son to a father, there will be some inherent challenges in the relationship. Challenges in the area of disciplining tend to be the most impacted. If disciplining and correcting the son becomes ineffective, then the son doesn’t become mature and the flaws persist. This scenario has created a cycle of parenting that has produced generations of immature men. However there is a fix and the cycle can be broken. Yeshua gives us the opportunity to becomes sons to the Heavenly Father. The scripture reads in  John 1:12, ” But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of GOD, even to them that believe on His name”. What is this power that He gives… it is the power to obey. As the first-born son of GOD, Yeshua walked in perfect obedience and so abides in the love of GOD the Father. This same power Yeshua exercised over the pride of life, as an obedient son, is made available to us through His cross that we may also abide in the Father’s love and reach maturity.

Again, the challenge comes when we have to be corrected or chastised for our own good. When chastised do we buck up and rebel, or do we submit like a good son? The traits of a good son is that of being humble, teachable, faithful, and receptive to correction. This comes from trusting the Father and an eagerness to please the Father. We must be convinced of the Father’s love for us and then render Him our trust. Our faith and trust will justify all that He ask. The thing that makes disobedience sinister is not the failing, it is the self-justification and reasoning that foils the attempt from the beginning; the mindset that considers the command too hard and unreasonable in the first place, due to the pride of selfishness. It is all the abominable reasoning that is the result of pride exalting personal opinion to personal truth. Personal truth equals personal reality which essentially makes a person the deity in their own world. This is why the scripture says in 1 Samuel 15:23, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.” The disobedient son conjures up something of his own, instead of trusting and submitting to divine authority. Yeshua, of whom GOD said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him ” (Matthew 17:5) operated from “not my will Father but yours be done”.

The good son accepts correction because he realizes if he failed it is on his own part and it is the just response of a loving Father. The good son realizes that if he is punished for disobedience, it is because he didn’t humble himself when he should have. Hebrews 12:6-8 reads, “ For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes. You must submit to and endure [correction] for discipline; God is dealing with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not [thus] train and correct and discipline? Now if you are exempt from correction and left without discipline in which all [of God’s children] share, then you are illegitimate offspring and not true sons [at all].”

When men resist correction from divine authority, it demonstrates that they are not being matured in the son-ship offered by Yeshua. On a deeper level it shows that they have not yet given control of their lives over to GOD. We must consider the gospel of Yeshua the Savior until there is nothing in us that contends with the call to the cross. Through this process we will find the approval we seek as sons from GOD the Father and the anointing to serve as Father’s ourselves.