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It isn't about us going to heaven, 2 of 2, Purity not perfection

1/31/2026

Hi all,

I've been sharing how the focus of New Testament living is about the Father's will being done in our lives, rather than; 'Lord beam me up!'. As The Revelation closes, we see heaven coming to earth, not earth beamed up to heaven. Most of the NT is focused on the kingdom of heaven coming to earth. Let us have that same mindset. (Rev 21:2)

"Father in heaven, holy is your name" is how Jesus started His teaching on the pattern of prayer we call The Lord's Prayer.
Everything else in that prayer is traced directly back to and flows from, 'holy is your name'.

Let's go back to the Garden of Eden when Adam named the animals. (Genesis 2:18-20) The rabbi's say the names Adam gave them were the result of him knowing the character, nature, and place in creation each animal and its kind fit. We do the same today, one of the better known cases might be the naming of a dinosaur 'Tyrannosaurus Rex' or 'terrible lizard', summing up its character after looking at its bones.

When Jesus said 'holy is your name' the focus isn't on a particular name but rather used as a summary for all the attributes of His Being. People get side-tracked arguing over the proper name of God, not satisfied with 'Father' or even 'Jesus', completely missing the point that 'holy is your name' means the sum total of His nature and character. The use of 'Father' completely sums up His character, nature, loving-kindness and justice within His Being.

Similarly, we are called Christians, first seen in Acts 11:26. The title 'Christian' literally means 'kinsman of Christ', but in use it means a follower of Christ. With that identifier we can say the attributes of Christ are within us and we are set aside for His use. The words 'sanctification' or 'set apart for use' and the word 'holy' are often considered synonymous. I would say it this way:Holy is belonging to the divine. Holiness is the condition or state of being holy.

Purity not perfection
You are holy without being perfect. Purity is in our spirit, our soul is being renewed to think more like Him daily, and our bodies have been made a living sacrifice. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels (earthly bodies) that the glory will be of God and not of us." II Corinthians 4:7 states this mystery. It isn't about us. It's about Him. So eyes off self.

When Jesus said in Matthew 5:38-48 in His great instruction on walking in love with those who don't love us, He concluded saying in the King James Version:"Be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect." The use of 'perfect' in 1611 English meant 'mature, complete', not as we use it today meaning no imperfections at all. The Greek 'teleios' means 'complete' or 'mature.' "Be complete/mature (in love) as your Father in heaven is complete/mature (in love)." He is always moving us towards greater love within the framework of holiness.

The Father's grace is so overwhelming that when we have a revelation of the depths of our own sin we can scarcely take it in. Human tendency is to turn inward at the sins of the past or present and conclude we are doomed to hell in spite of New Testament realities. They believe their own fears and doubts rather than believing God. This process of course is part of the growing up in Christ everyone of us must do. Yes, His grace is overwhelming. And yes we sinned and continue to sin, and maybe said things to Him like a toddler having a tantrum with their parents that cause us to fear we have offended Him beyond grace. But being holy is about how He recreated us and placed us in His family, not about our imperfections.

He planned us while we were still within His mind before time began. II Timothy 1:9 says of the Father:"Who saved us and called us with a holy calling not according to what we've done, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal."

It's too late to argue the point
It's like someone telling me the baptism with the Holy Spirit or healing's aren't for today. Too late, I've already received the Holy Spirit, opened the eyes of the blind, opened the ears and speech of the deaf and dumb - I'm already walking in what they say doesn't exist today. So too is someone who says they sinned too much and are doomed for hell, even though they love Jesus with all their heart. Too late, He already recreated your spirit meaning Christ is in you. It's too late, He already made you one of His children, part of a royal family. Too late; He saw every sin we would ever do, and still in times eternal gave us Christ. Wow.

This truth comes home when we understand:“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid. And because of his joy, he goes out and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. Upon finding a pearl of great value, he went out and sold all that he had and bought it."

In these parables Jesus is the man who finds a treasure in a field (the world).
Jesus is the merchant who traveled far and found a pearl 'of great value', and then sold all He had and bought it. WE are the pearl of great price which He bought with His own blood. You see, it's too late for us. He already saved us before times eternal.

In I Corinthians 6:9 Paul states the unrighteousness (those who don't know Jesus) will not enter the kingdom of heaven. He then lists lifestyles of the unrighteous just to be sure they knew who he was talking about. Lifestyles of promiscuity, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind, thieves, drunkards, extortionists, and rioters (riotous living) will not inherit the kingdom of God. Then he says:

"And such were some of you (proving he was talking about lifestyle not individual sins done after knowing Christ). But now you are washed, now you are sanctified (made holy), now you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ by the Spirit of God." v11 Washed, set aside, justified. Justification is an amazing word. It doesn't mean a person was charged with a crime and then had their record erased. It is a legal term for a judge stating no charges existed in the first place. NOW are we justified Paul wrote.

Some get stuck on what they did, even after they came to know the Lord. In their spirits they are pure, but that treasure is in a soul greatly burdened and a body used to sinning. That is the whole process Paul describes in Romans 12:1-3, where he says to make our body a living sacrifice, then we will undergo a metamorphosis as we change how we think, and then we will be able to 'prove (walk out) the good, acceptable, and complete (perfect) will of God.

"Fear not little flock, it is the Father's good pleasure (Greek:Father took delight) giving you the kingdom." Luke 12:32

Jesus' statement had nothing to do with our imperfections. No! The Father knows all that, saw all that, made provision for all of that, and STILL found it in His good pleasure to give us the kingdom. Purity, not perfection. Perfection will come and He has the long-term view. It IS about us forging our way seeking His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, right now in our lives. The kingdom of heaven is now within us. Let us live it out, demonstrating to those around us the ways of our Father and Lord.

I will conclude with something I've said for decades:Anyone can say they are a Christian. But the Father in His wisdom has made it so that righteousness is proven within a framework of relationships. It is within those relationships we see the Father's will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

New subject next week, until then, blessings,
John Fenn
cwowi.org and email me at [email protected]

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It isn't about us going to heaven. 1 of 2

1/24/2026

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Hi all,

"Our Father in heaven, your name is holy. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven", from The Lord's Prayer of Luke 11:2. "Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" is the subject of the rest of the prayer. The whole motive of the Lord's Prayer is for the Father's will being done in our lives through the Father's will being done in us.

The Lord's prayer is more of a statement than a request
The verbs of The Lord's Prayer were written in the aorist text, which means they are written as completed tasks, or statements. Surrounding those verbs it was written in the imperative, meaning as a request. Today, we pray the prayer only as a request, which changes what Jesus actually said.

Look at what Jesus said and what tense He used:
"Holy is your name" is aorist imperative, meaning an earnest, heart-felt statement coupled with a burning desire to also be holy.
"Your kingdom come, your will be done" is aorist imperative, meaning a firm, heart-felt statement reflecting the earnest heart-cry of the disciple who wants His will first and foremost in their life. These opening statements reflect a person praying with the intensity that reflects their unquenchable zeal for God's will to be done in their life.

"Your will be done" uses the same - reflecting that earnest desire on the part of the disciple who has completely surrendered their will to His. Have you ever been so desperate for God that you make statements to the Father about your heart and love for Him while also crying out for more at the same time? That's this:Your will is done in my life Father let your kingdom come into my life even more - reflecting a burning zeal for God's will and ways in our lives.

"Give us this day our daily bread" is both aorist and imperative, meaning in English it is a statement with a view towards a continual act of fulfillment. We might say in English:You give us our bread, daily." This agrees with Jesus' teaching of Matthew 6:24-34 where Jesus said Gentiles (non covenant people) search for food, clothing and a roof over their head, whereas when we seek the Father and His righteousness, these things are added to us by Him (Father). He DOES provide daily. But 'according to your faith be it unto you'. If you are weak in faith, you may not see His provision, and have to live miracle to miracle. It is far better to live IN miracles as part of everyday life.

This agrees with II Peter 1:3-4 which states in part:"...all things which pertain to life and godliness have been provided through knowing Jesus Christ our Lord." I have used this SO many times when something happens that surprised me - an emergency, an unexpected bill - and immediately stated:"Father, reveal your provision! II Peter 1:3-4 says everything pertaining to life and godliness HAVE BEEN provided by you, so Father, reveal your provision!" Living like this means rest, for you know what caught you by surprise has not caught Him by surprise, and you gain a child-like excitement waiting to see how He (Father) has provided.

And yes, in intense moments I have said it just like that to Him. He and Jesus are the ones who said in the Lord's Prayer and through Peter that all things are provided, so I am when times are intense, that bold. Other times, like with a bill I'm hit with unexpectedly, it is not as intense, almost reflective:"Father, this didn't catch you by surprise but it sure did me. How have you paid for it? Please reveal your provision, your way to meet this need." In a humble, reflective attitude, searching in my mind my own Plan A, Plan B and so on, but determined to see His plan fulfilled.

"Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who owe us" is the same:"You forgive us our sins according to us forgiving those who owe us." The Greek word translated 'owe' or 'debt' is not in first use about sin, though in context it is that, but also much more. Jesus said we are to state the Father forgives us our sins while we forgive those who owe us - that includes sin, but includes those emotional 'I'm sorry's' we look for, those apologies, those recognitions from those who wronged us that tells us they realize the damage they did. The word 'owe' is all that in Jesus' statement. "You forgive us our sins while we forgive all who owe us anything." That doesn't mean cancel financial debt as that wasn't the context, but emotional debt, an acknowledgment of them doing wrong to us debt, is the context. And again, it is written in the aorist, meaning a statement of fact - we do indeed have our sins forgiven by the Father for we also forgive those who owe us.

"Lead us not into temptation" and "deliver us from evil" are once again written in the aorist, meaning as statements. This agrees with the rest of the New Testament, that the Father does not tempt us with evil for He is not tempted with evil, as James 1:13 states. He does deliver us from evil, as I Corinthians 10:13 says, when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Father raises a standard so we are not tested above what we are able to handle, and makes a way of escape. "You do not lead us into temptation and you do deliver us from evil" reflects a more accurate translation of the aorist-imperative grammar here.

Matthew 6:9-13 also records The Lord's Prayer, and he was led to add the closing line:
"For yours is the kingdom, the power, the glory forever. Amen." This too is aorist (as a statement) as reflected in the accurate translation of this sentence. It is not a request that it is the Father's kingdom, but a statement, emphatic statement. It is emphatic that it is the Father's kingdom, the Father's glory and the Father's power. The word 'amen' means "steadfast" in Hebrew (apeitheia). The Greek 'amen' means steadfast, firm, trustworthy. Sometimes it is translated 'so be it'. I like 'trustworthy' as in, these statements of The Lord's Prayer are trustworthy. That's how Jesus ended His instruction.

My point in all this detail is that this prayer pattern is about the Father's will being done on earth, expressed first in our lives. Not the rapture. Not when the moon is red or the calendar's line up. But now, the Father's will and kingdom done in us, now. The awareness of our citizenship of heaven and therefore our immediate home-going upon death is always in our minds, but first and foremost is the Father's will being done in our lives right now on earth.

Some believers are so heavenly minded they are no earthly good.
It is fun to speculate, and the Internet feeds that desire (lust) to know the latest news from heaven. Part of that is completely normal human nature, for even the Old Testament prophets having just promises of the coming salvation, sought diligently for more information. (I Peter 1:9-12)

But when that desire for more information about being taken to heaven gets out of balance with our Prime Directive of the Father's will being done on earth in us daily, then it is a problem. As long as we are alive we are to live for the Father's kingdom-will being done in earth. Yes, we live with the certainty that Jesus has gone ahead to prepare a place for us, but no where does anything in the New Testament teach that should be our focus.

What is taught is the discipleship process of ever learning, ever growing, ever becoming more Christ-like in the here and now. If you read the gospels, the bulk of Jesus' teaching was about how to live out God's kingdom on earth by walking in love backed by strong moral and spiritual backbone.

Jesus started The Lord's Prayer saying:"Father in heaven, holy is your name." We will start with holiness next week. Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
cwowi.org and email me at [email protected]

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Adult children breaking contact with parents, 4 of 4

1/17/2026

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Hi all,

Today we conclude this important series.

Finding 'my truth', 'protecting my peace'
Adult children who tell their parents these things are deceived into thinking they are protecting themselves, but in reality they are shoving their pain under another layer. Their minds become weaker as they run from those who challenge them. Real peace comes from learning how to navigate the difficulties of life. Strength comes through maturity and emotional maturity.

An emotionally healthy young person will realize...
...their parents weren't trying to control them, but to protect them. Parents speak from experience, having been hurt in the world, they have made mistakes and aren't perfect. At some point an adult child will realize it wasn't about control, but protection. Instead of pulling away from mom and dad, they will esteem them higher in their lives, pulling on their experiences good and bad.

What goes around comes around
The actions you take to your parents now is what your children will do to you. They will hear you say one thing, but will watch what you do, which is training. They will grow up to be just like you. You will be training them to avoid relatives who love them, to avoid conflict, to look for offense. You will one day experience the same alienation from your own children that you are now doing to them. Every missed birthday, every missed holiday that you now avoid with your parents, will be done to you. Is that what you want?

I said I would get back to this
On a larger scale, once mom and dad are dishonored in this way, your offense and refusal to deal with real issues spreads insidiously into your whole life. When I said previously the last 5 commandments are directly linked to honoring mom and dad, this is what I was talking about. Your life will be stolen from, your emotions will be stolen, your time will be stolen, your child-like faith will be stolen from you. Those you love will be unfaithful and betray you. You will want what others have when you see happy marriages and children, and successful live. You will find yourself the victim of those last 5 Commandments, for the command to avoid those sins are directly linked to honoring your parents.

My advice is therefore to stop the cycle you are creating.
Get off the merry-go-round before it is too late. Sit down with your parents to hear their side of things. Let them tell you their life story, before they knew the Lord, mistakes made before and after. Hear the burdens they carried for you that you never saw. Hear their pain. Hear how they have grown in life and the Lord. Parents, be vulnerable. Kids, realize they are flawed just like you, but are the only ones who love you in the way only parents can love their child. There is no one on planet earth who loves you in such a way.

You have to get to an age when you have to stop blaming your parents for everything. You have to stop replaying the same story over and over letting it excuse you for every choice you have made. Blaming your parents for your entire life is taking zero responsibility for your own growth. Healing isn’t cutting those who love you out of your life. You aren't healing by inflicting pain on your parents by not showing up for birthdays and holidays.

Reaction or response?
Popular culture which includes social media, trains people to react, when in fact a response is needed. A reaction is knee-jerk, emotional, and done without thinking things through. A response is done once a situation has been thought through with the purpose of a plan.

A response is measured. For instance, if a person reacts with an anger that is greater than the level of offense - something deeper is going on in them. For a child to react by completely ending all communication and contact with their parents, it is a reaction.

Now it is time to put on your big boy pants and respond. Not react, respond. Both parents and child in this study are adults. Be adults. Kids, this isn't social media where you can react and blow up like the kid you were having a tantrum. No, it is now time to sit face to face with mom and dad and respond - it will be a negotiation and you won't end up saying everything imagined saying (goes for mom and dad too). But you will be able to air enough to be at peace with the compromise.

Learn to control your reactions because they are your parents and they will make you angry, they will offer advice you don’t want, they will challenge you. Blaming your parents for your life circumstances is avoiding the facts of your own choices. You need to stop viewing any social media that feeds the breaking up of the relationship, and distance yourself from people who feed your hurts.

Give parents back their authority
Step back and allow a parent to step in, they offer options, experience, they add perspective. Allow them to step in before a crisis happens. Allow their opinions even if different, don't be threatened, be empowered - it's a matter of perspective.

The Prodigal son
The story of the Prodigal Son is found in Luke 15:11-32. Volumes have been written about him and his brother. The son asked for and received his inheritance early, and spent it all on lavish living. He ended up feeding pigs while working for a Gentile - something upright Jewish man would have done in that day.

While feeding the pigs and realizing they ate better than him, making him unclean on a level beneath pigs, Jesus said; 'he came to himself'. That moment is what every parent who has an adult child who has cut them out of their lives is looking for.

Paul's prayers of Ephesians 1:17-19 and 3:15-20
These are prayers asking the Father to work on the inside of people. He asks in 1:17-19 that the Father give them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him that they may see the invitation He has extended.

In 3:15-20 he prays the Father will strengthen them in their inner man by His Spirit so they can know the love of Christ which is beyond knowing mentally. Paul also compared praying for someone like being in labor in Galatians 4:19:My little children, I am travailing in birth again until Christ be formed in you.

Parents - don't give up, pray along the lines of Paul's prayers, which weren't about seeing them do this or that, rather that they be changed from the inside out by the Father's Spirit.

Adult children - do the same for your parents. You have each been wrong.

Both parents and children will have to forgive each other, and realize that peace between them is more important than going over every single little thing that led to them cutting off contact. Jesus said forgiveness is a decision not an emotion:"When you stand praying, forgive if you have something against someone." Mark 11:25-26

Make the decision to lay all the justifications aside - mom, dad, child - and decide to forgive and move forward. Make steps to act on that decision. Be the bigger person. Take the initiative and then to the other, accept that initiative.

Emotions may take years to work through once a person has made the decision to forgive.
There will be times a horrible memory will come roaring back into your memory. The way to deal with it is that once you've worked through that emotion, you bring that emotion back to your decision to forgive. You will find once you go through all that anger again and bring it back to that decision, God will heal you. The memory will remain but the pain will be gone. That is how you know He has healed you.

There could be much more to say, but this is enough. New subject next week, until then, blessings,
John Fenn
cwowi.org and email me at [email protected]

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Adult children breaking contact with parents, 3 of 4

1/10/2026

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Hi all,

We continue with part 3 looking towards reconciliation.

The more disconnected they are from God the more they become angry.
If they are believers, they often fool themselves into thinking it is God leading them to break contact. But when balanced and pure faith is gone everything feels like an attack.

They are confused because if what they are doing is God's path to healing, why do they have no peace? Why are they so unhappy? They stumble through life, going through the motions, fueled by anger at mom and dad.

Anger is not strength, nor does it mean they are taking control of their life. On the contrary, it is proof that peace and God are far from them. They can smile on the outside but be miserable on the inside. They aren’t as close to God as they need to be, for the closer to the Father a person is, the less they need to win the argument - and that goes for the parents too.

I define these qualities this way:
Justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. Grace is getting what you don't deserve. In any reconciliation, all 3 will come into play at some point. A recognition that all the hurt and pain is what happened as a result of the actions of both is required. Mercy, in withholding volleys of poisonous words that hurt the reconciliation process. Grace, extended because each loves the other, overlooks the past, and empowers each other with respect and honor for each person's place in life.

Anyone you love will make you uncomfortable at times. If you can't sit down with them in that, you can't love them. Love isn't love until it's proven. Sit down and prove your love for one another. If you can’t handle disagreement you can’t grow as a person or in faith.

If you cut off everyone who challenges you the more you become an island to yourself, which is what the devil wants. If you cut off all who challenge you, you aren’t protecting yourself, you are choosing to live in a world of anger, turmoil, and broken relationships – extending into your (kids) own lives.

The devil tries many ways to destroy the family.
Satan hates families. When a Christian adult child breaks contact with their parents 'unto God', their faith has become poison. 'Toxic' is the popular term for people and a faith structure that is poisonous to us.

Their faith is often within a religious system that allows the religion (structure) to control a person’s life rather than the Lord. Leaders in that religious system like pastors, their spouses, elders and others manipulate them into blind obedience. Often, this system will agree with the adult child, leaders hearing only 1 side of the story but siding with the offended adult child. It's often manipulation, to keep them in the fold, keep their money, talents, resources within the 4 walls of that church.

Toxic faith is about inventing a god or faith that honors self.
Such a misplaced faith is counterfeit, and often fear-based, and in that, addictive. They can't miss a service because the devil may get an opening. If they don't watch the next service they might miss their miracle, and so on. Faith becomes very narrowly focused to just the voice of that pastor or spouse, to the exclusion of voices of reason, common sense, and healthy emotions and thoughts. Reconciliation with parents may mean breaking away from that toxic church, maybe out of a toxic marriage or other relationships. They feel trapped when the realization hits them and they don't know what to do. They need to go to mom and dad.

The result is fragile people.
Whether Christian and in a controlling and toxic church, or not a Christian, surrounding oneself with people who agree with them that cutting off their parents was good, are emotionally fragile. In such fragility they have lost the ability to tackle real issues. Sometimes too fragile to admit mom and dad were right.

In this fragility they have become easy to influence.
They become easily influenced by people who don't purely love them and/or who don't have their best interest at heart. They need to know that families have arguments. Teenagers push boundaries, rebel, test the limits. They yell at each other. Children face consequences for their actions. Families with young children have rules, discipline, and boundaries. Family life is messy sometimes, and it is within those messy moments God forges character, back bone, helping a child establish boundaries.

It is the family dynamic that teaches a child to stand up for what they believe. To state their case to their parents. To decide while still at home what they believe and why. Cutting off contact with parents removes the very people who can provide that challenge, those hard questions, to that young adult. The adult child thinking they are establishing their own identity, are actually fragile and easily influenced by people who don't love them as their parents do.

At some point....
That adult child realizes their parents are flawed human beings just like them. Perhaps the parents were overbearing, strict, too religious without helping them find the Lord for themselves. More than one well meaning parent has used the Bible to punish their child:"Go to your room and read your Bible" only causes a child to associate God with punishment. But when that child grows up they realize mom and dad were just trying to prevent them from really poor decision making and the consequences that would have come with such decisions.

And mom and dad recognize they were flawed. They recognize there is a kernel of truth to some of the accusations their child levels against them.

...reconciliation enters a negotiation phase.
In a negotiation neither side gets 100% of what they want. But they can live with the results. When the Prodigal Son left, it wasn't what the father wanted, but he allowed his son the freedom to take the money and run. When he returned the father extended grace that the other son wasn't happy with.

In John 21:15-19 Jesus asked Peter 2 times if he loved Him. Jesus used the word 'agape', which is unconditional love. Both times Peter replied in the negative, using 'phileo' love, which is the love 2 best friends might have for one another. The third time Jesus came down to Peter's level, asking if he loved Him with phileo love. Peter, disturbed by the whole line of questions, blurted out for the 3rd time:I love you as a best friend! To that, Jesus prophesied there would come a time Peter would love Him with agape', even being led away to die for it.

More steps to reconciliation next week. Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
cwowi.org and email me at [email protected]

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Adult children breaking contact with parents, 2 of 4

1/3/2026

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Hi all,

I ended part 1 with a word to adult children asking what was in it for us as parents?

Neither children nor parents owe perfection to each other.
But that idea that parents don't owe their children perfection, flies in the face of social media that advocates cutting off communication with the parents. Parents don't owe children perfection, in fact it is that imperfection that makes it possible for God's grace to be woven within and throughout the family dynamic. There are no perfect parents, there are no perfect children.

The hurt a parent feels when an adult child 'cancels' them (cuts off contact), is in part because that parent loves their child and still wants to protect them from the evil in the world. But it's more than that. A mother of 4 girls told me when her girls were arguing it was difficult for her to decide who was right, because each of her girls had part of her in them, and she could see each one's point of view.

It isn't just the empty seat(s) at the dinner table; part of you left when they left. Part of you went with them when they cut off contact. That's why you feel a piece of you is missing - it is. That's also why they feel all alone, masking their hurt by cutting off contact, for they feel part of them is with you too, mom and dad.

They may have justifiable hurts from your (parental) actions. But they often fear going to their parents because they think they will be yelling and shouting and it go horribly wrong. Parents in this situation need to be the parent, the bigger person, the more gracious for they want to bring that part of themselves back into the family. Sit down, keep the emotions in check, acknowledge mistakes and hurts caused by your words or actions, be transparent and honest, and talk...

Cutting parental contact has consequences in the rest of their lives.
The 10 Commandments are divided into 2 parts:Loving God, and loving your neighbor. The first 4 Commandments have to do with loving God, the last 6 are led by 'honor your father and mother.'

The remaining 5 are traced directly back to their core value in honoring mom and dad:You shall do no murder, which would dishonor your parents. You will not commit adultery, which dishonors your parents, you will not steal, you will not lie, you will not covet (lust) for things that aren't yours - all those find their core values in honoring mom and dad, honoring the family.

The 613 laws of Moses are summed up in the 10 Commandments, which are summed up in 2 categories:Loving God, loving others. When mom and dad are dishonored, a spiritual door opens for that child to suffer the rest of those commands - more on this later - but know that once they open the door, they are likely to be stolen from, betrayed, lied to, and more....more later on that.

Honor doesn't mean obey.
Honoring those who brought you into the world is the foundation of this command. It isn't about obedience, especially for adult children. It's about creation, that God used them to conceive you and He gave you life at that moment.

In an act of one's will, by assigning honor to them you honor God who honored your conception by giving you life. It doesn't mean you suddenly feel all warm and fuzzy about them. You may have nothing in common at this point. You may detest their lifestyle. Honoring them means recognizing that without them you wouldn't be here, and giving them that - just that perhaps - that they gave you life.

An adult child, perhaps starting in the teen years, stops going to mom and dad for advice. They run to others for guidance, advice, counsel. They look to social media and others who feel as they do to justify pulling away from mom and dad.

When Solomon died, his son Rehoboam became king, in I Kings 12:6-11. He consulted with the wise older men who had advised his father, and then turned aside to 'those he grew up with'. They gave him bad counsel, selfish counsel, words that fed his ego and lust for attention and power.

That's what's happening today in social media; young adults are forsaking the wisdom of their parents to take advice from 'those they grew up with', who feed ego and tell them what they want to hear, not what is wise. They have no ability or have lost the ability and desire to filter out the bad stuff to glean the good and helpful from their childhood.

It is easier to make mom and dad the villains and blame them for every hurt inside them.
How many adult children have seen their parents die before reconciliation has been made? All because no one was willing to talk through hurt from some old argument(s). At some point that child has to realize it is a good thing to have a parent to argue with. They need that perspective. They need that point of view. They need that voice of experience. God uses our parents in the good and bad, to form us into successful adults.

A convention of twins
A twin convention was held some years ago that included a survey. In the convention were 2 brothers. One brother was an attorney, married, stable in life. His twin had been through a couple of divorces, battled alcoholism, had a hard time keeping a job. One survey question was:What event most shaped your life?

Both men wrote the same answer:"My father died when I was 12."

One had used that as a means to better himself, the other allowed that event to destroy him. 'Cancel culture' tells adult children their wounds and pains and trauma in childhood destroyed them. If they believe that, they will never know how the Lord could have turned those hurts into precious stepping stones to stronger character in Christ, and happiness and blessing in life. Sometimes it's too hard to say to mom and dad; "You were right." In those cases they are angry at themselves for the choices they've made, but turn that anger outward to mom and dad so they don't have to make hard decisions.

We are turning the corner towards healing, and we'll head in that direction next week. Until then,
Blessings,
John Fenn
cwowi.org and email me at [email protected]

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