Duties Of A Godly Father

The Duties of a Godly Father

June 15, Father’s Day, 2025

Being a father is a wonderful thing. We all have an earthly father, and although many of them have gone from this life, we still honor them in our hearts today, and we will see them again in the resurrection. Along with our natural father, we are all children of one Great Spiritual Father, our Father in Heaven, who has created us in His own image and placed us on the earth so that we could learn what He already knows. God our Father, through Jesus Christ, provides the perfect example for every father, and it is our duty to strive as much as is within us to be like Jesus.

Fathers are put on this earth with a purpose. God never intended for any father to be a couch potato who cares little for his children and chooses not to provide for his family. The Bible tells us in 1 Timothy 5:8 that, “if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” How can you get any worse than an apostate Christian or an unbelieving Heathen? That which makes it worse is the fact that those who are of such will stand before the Righteous and Perfect Father in Heaven and be judged and punished for their neglect of their family and children. Too late, they will realize how terrible their lives have been when they experience the neglect of their Heavenly Father while in the pits of hell.

God gave instructions to Adam in the Garden, and as the father of all natural men, those instructions are passed on to us, and we are commanded to tend to the great creation that is all around us, to be priest of our own household and family; to be the faithful husband of one wife; and to be the provider for the family.

All of that means a lot of work and effort because in the fallen creation where we dwell, we are ever struggling against the Great Adversary, Satan, whose purpose is to steal everything from us of any value, to kill the hope that is within us of creating a life worth living, and then to destroy our relationship with our own Father in Heaven, and in so doing, destroy every relationship we may have in our family, including our spouse and our own children.

The greatest target of Satan in our world today is our children. The devil knows that if he can win just one generation of our kids away from serving God, then he can destroy God’s design for the family and can turn the hearts of men to worship him as their father; denying the Fatherhood of God. That has been Satan’s design from the dawn of Creation. He hates God, and he hates everything that God loves, especially mankind, who is created in God’s own image.

We are thankful for those of you among us today who are fathers, having brought children into this world. We applaud you for taking on the great responsibilities that God designed for every father, and we pray that you will be able to accomplish God’s plan for your life and the lives of your family.

There are many families in our society today that are not fully following the design that God had in store when he brought Eve to Adam and told them to multiply and replenish the earth. Sometimes life throws a curve ball at us and we have to make choices and make changes that were never intended for families, yet here we are.

So however your family is put together, be thankful for the family you have and then make your decision to make the best of it and be the father of your family; and in some cases, be the leader of your family as the acting father because of your circumstances that are forced upon you.

There is a father in the Bible that I want to use as an example to help all of us who are fathers to know that the things we face, and the trials and tests that come our way, are nothing new. We have to learn through the example of another father’s trials and tests, that our Father in Heaven is always Faithful, always near, always aware of our troubles, always watching over us, always teaching, leading and guiding us, and has plans for our ultimate success in spite of the trials.

Long ago, sometime around 2000 BCE, at about the same time that God called Abraham to step out by faith and follow him, the Bible also identifies another man whose name was Job. Job’s story is found in the Bible in the book that carries his name, the Book of Job, which is considered to be the oldest book in the Bible even though it isn’t placed chronologically as the first book.