My dad was a hero to me.  He was the "president of my fan club," and maybe its only member (grin).  I think it was Mark Twain who was astonished at how much his father had learned between the years of his (Twain's) adolescence and the time he became a young man.  We have to become adults before we realize how wise our fathers were as we grew to adulthood.  We can look back and see that our frustration at our fathers who "didn’t understand us" as adolescents knew more than we could imagine.  They had the insight of having been where we were as kids and the foresight to see what we could become if we would just listen to the voice of experience of our dads.

Discipline is part of being a good dad.  We are not born with the propensity to be an obedient child.  Left to our own devices, we would develop into selfish, rude and perhaps despicable human beings.  (I am sure you know someone fitting at least part of that description.)  Our Heavenly Father knew we would need an earthly father who loved us enough to see past our tears and demand that we do what was right even if we didn’t think so and making us do it even though our tears broke his heart. 

Discipline is not easy for the one administering it nor the recipient, but it is part of God’s plan to bring us to maturity as responsible adults who in turn would be prepared to provide the proper discipline to the next generation.

It has been said by some sage that the best thing a dad can do for his children is to love their mom.  Love and discipline make up a good recipe for happy children with feelings of security.

We are inescapably linked to our father.  His genetic makeup is fixed in us.  He is responsible for the blood that flows through our veins.  Our features and coloring come from our father and mother.  I recall more than once being asked by someone trying to remember me, "Who is your father?"  If they could remember my father, they could place me with his family with remembrance.  I am proud to say that my father was Kelsey G. Adams!  Perfect?  Oh no.  Always right?  Not so.  But he tried his best and created a love and respect in me for his efforts that will live as long as I do.

I no longer can buy him a sweater or wallet or send him a card on Father’s Day which I would love to do.  He’s with the Lord now and enjoying the presence of his Heavenly Father.  But I can still give him the honor he deserves and preserve his memory.  I have done so on my website: Kelsey Adams Family.   I have a special page for him and my mother:  Mother and Daddy.   I also have some pages of his own biography:  Daddy’s Early Life.  It was a pleasure to share my father with the WWW!

What about your father?  The Bible declares that we should give honor where honor is due.  Tied to that admonition is "Honor your father and your mother."  No qualification, no prerequisites, no exceptions.  If, on the off chance, they don’t deserve the honor you give, God will hold them responsible.  We are to be obedient to the Word if no one else is!  So we are to Honor our Father, and as we approach Father’s Day, plan how you can give your father honor as our Heavenly Father Commanded.   It is a commandment, not a suggestion!

A high profile case was recently in the news as to who the father was of a famous child?  Several claims were made by various men, but the real biological father was revealed when DNA was compared with the infant’s.  Apparently, it is an infallible test to fatherhood.

In a spiritual sense, Who is your Father?  You might not be able to determine who your earthly father is, but you can know beyond any shadow of doubt who your Heavenly Father is.  You have His DNA!

"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever" (1 Peter 1:23).

Birth takes place after conception and the child takes the blood of its father.  Our conception took place by the incorruptible seed of our Heavenly Father and brought about our "birth."  Our new birth brought new life that never existed before and will never end.

"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible."  "And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him" (Colossians 3:10).  

Just as we genetically have the image of our earthly father, we have taken on the image of our Heavenly Father because of the new birth and His "royal" blood that redeemed us.

Jesus was teaching some Jews about His Heavenly Father (and potentially theirs), but their understanding was dull and dark due to their unbelief.  In fact, they told Jesus He was a devil!  He knew their hearts and told them, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do [like father, like son!]" (John 8:44). 

Who is your Father?

Have you been born again by the blood of Jesus?  As gruesome as it may sound, if you haven’t, you are of your father, the devil; and you will follow his bidding -- in spite of yourself!  We don’t listen to one who is not our father.  What right does he have to tell us what to do?  We are rejecting God’s influence in our lives, until we make Him our Father.  Spiritually, we have two choices of fatherhood--God or the devil. 

Who is your father?

If it isn’t the God of heaven, do something about it now while you can.  The longer you live under the rule of the devil, the harder it is to make the change to live as God’s child.  We come to God because the Holy Spirit "woos" us to Him.  Every time He woos and we reject Him, we apply a layer of hardness around our hearts.  You have to become hardhearted to reject that kind of love!  Each hard layer makes it more difficult for us to accept His love and grace.

Statistics show that the older we get, the least likely we are to come to Christ.  As the years go by and we keep rejecting Him, the hardened layers build up, so our chances of change lessen with each year.

These startling statistics indicate that the longer we live without making God our Heavenly Father, the less our chances become that we ever will:

After 25 years of age, only 1 in 10,000

After 35 years of age, only 1 in 50,000

After 45 years of age, only 1 in 200,000

After 55 years of age, only 1 in 300,000

After 65 years of age, only 1 in 500,000

After 75 years of age, only 1 in 700,000

Can you see how important it is to not put off your salvation!   The most important thing you will ever do as a dad is to give your heart and life to your Heavenly Father and then teach your children how to know Him.

"To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne" (Revelation 3:21). 

Who is your father? 

Make that decision today.  Be prepared to "sit with your Father [in Heaven]."

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY to all dads, step-dads, surrogate dads, granddads and any filling the role of Father!

Special note to Fathers/Husbands

(From "Clifton's Food for Tho't" October 11, 1956 issue)

If a husband knew that merely for a single day would he be blessed with the love of his wife, how indelibly would that experience be burned in his memory!   This can be reversed to be adapted for wives as well.

"Husbands love your wives..." (Ephesians 5:25).

~~Delores~~

My sister, Lorinda Lee (Adams) Grubbs,

wrote about our father as a shoe cobbler.

"The Shoe Cobbler's Hands"