Read Previous Articles in this Series:
Biblical Exhortations to Dads #1: Imitate Your Heavenly Father
Biblical Exhortations to Dads #2: Love Your Wife and Children
Biblical Exhortations to Dads #3: Lead Your Family
Biblical Exhortations to Dads #4: Provide for Your Family
Biblical Exhortations to Dads #5: Protect Your Family’
Biblical Exhortations to Dads #6: Disciple Your Children
Biblical Exhortations to Dads #7: Discipline Your Children
Biblical Exhortations to Dads #8: Pray For Your Children
In a recent series of articles, we’ve been exploring how Christian fathers can honor God and bless their children in parenting. We’ve been reviewing a list of biblical exhortations for fathers. So far, we’ve reviewed the following exhortations:
- Imitate Your Heavenly Father
- Love Your Wife and Children
- Lead Your Family
- Provide for Your Family
- Protect Your Family
- Disciple Your Children
- Discipline Your Children
- Pray for Your Children
Let’s review the next call to action on our list.
Guard Your Heart
In an earlier article, we talked about protecting our families. Do you want to know who one of the biggest threats is to your family? You.
Specifically, sin living inside of you.
If you want to blow up your family, don’t guard your heart and let yourself fall into sin. Commit adultery. Consume pornography. Become addicted to alcohol. Let your explosive anger run unchecked. That will create a blast radius of damage that will negatively impact your family from the inside out.
Scripture tells us that Satan is seeking to take down all Christians:
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Pet 5:8).
What better way to attack a Christian family than by striking at the father. Just like Satan loves attacking pastors to damage churches, Satan would love to take down the leader of a Christian family to hurt each member of the family.
A big way that you can love and protect your family is guarding your own heart. Your heart is the root of your behavior, your actions, and your words.
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life (Prov 4:23).
Unchecked sin in the heart is where horrible actions and speech comes from:
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander (Matt 15:19).
As Christian men, we need to root out sin in our hearts, confess it to the Lord, and seek to cultivate a heart that loves righteousness. We need to be spending time with the Lord and seeking to grow more like Him every day.
Spending time in the Word and in prayer has a direct impact on your leadership of your family. Cultivating a heart that loves the Lord is foundational to avoiding the pain that scandalous sin can cause your family. It also goes a long way in minimizing the pain from non-scandalous sin that crops up in our lives daily.
Fathers, you need to realize that you are in a spiritual battle every day. Protect your family from being collateral damage in your spiritual failures. Don’t be overconfident in your spiritual resolve.
Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall (1 Cor 10:12).
Rely on the Lord for help by cultivating a deep and intimate relationship with Him. Protect your family by guarding your heart.
