| Today's Word May 4, 2009 |
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Today's Word for Monday May 4, 2009
Respect
Defined by Webster:
Esteem; admiration; proper acceptance of courtesy; the condition of being esteemed or honored.
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"Furthermore, we have had human fathers
who corrected us, and we paid them RESPECT."
"Show proper respect to everyone.
Love the brotherhood of believers,
fear God, honor the King"
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Without question one of the most serious problems facing young people today is their lack of respect. Most young people do not respect their parents, their siblings, their peers, their teachers or even their friends. The root problem is that so many children and parents have no respect for God Himself. How many times a day do we hear God's name, the name of Jesus used in a disrespectful way? For example parents and children are heard saying: "Oh my God, it was awful." This is the ultimate of disrespect and misuse of God's Holy Name and leads to disrespect in all areas of life.
In Exodus 20:7 we are warned that the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name. When children hear their parents misusing God's name they think it is OK for them to do the same. This is part of the break down of the family unit for our children today.
When our children were teenagers, we can remember several incidents when we as parents had set standards and expected respect from our child in regards to adhering to those standards. When one of our children broke the standard that we had set, we first of all clarified to them the reason for the standard and then issued the penalty. We always tried to be fair and consistent in our response and then we saw that the penalty terms were honored with respect. The penalty was always increased when our child would respond with a lack of respect.
At the time, our child's response was often negative but because we were clear, consistent and fair it rarely would happen again. Now that our children are parents, they fully understand the necessity of setting standards for their families and they expect their children to be respectful to them. This is very rewarding to us because our children learned respect and they are now teaching their children respect and even though they live in a TOUGHER WORLD today their children all show great respect to God, their parents, their grand parents, their siblings, their cousins and their friends.
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Dear Lord, help us to honor and respect you in all that we do.
Help us to respect those that we meet with today,
including our parents and friends, and let our love for you
shine through our lives to them. Help us to face today with the
goals of honoring all the people we meet, loving the unlovely
that need our love, and then honoring the Lord in all we do and say.
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Your Friends,
Ken and Dottie Phillips
"Today's Word" is sent to you free
to encourage you to commit today to
serve and honor God as a family.
These Family Devotional Thoughts are written by Dr.Ken Phillips, ministry director for World Bibile Society, and his wife Dottie. Ken has had ministry positions with The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, World Vision, Youth For Christ, World Opportunities International, and World Bible Society. He also has consulted for more than 20 Christian ministries in management and stewardship development. Ken and Dottie have been married for 52 years, and have 6 children and 21 grandchildren. Come back regularly to enjoy their Family Devotional as they share their thoughts about living in God's Word!
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6:1 "Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. |
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