QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION WITH PASTOR CHRIS OYAKHILOME.
HONORING YOUR PARENTS
QUESTION – Tedson (Zambia): How powerful are curses spoken over a child by a male parent, and how can they be broken? Furthermore, the Bible teaches us to honour our parents so that it may be well with us. I want to know in what ways one can honour his parents. Is it just by showing respect?
ANSWER: “How powerful are curses spoken over a child by a male parent?” Very powerful! The curses or the blessings come to pass as the Bible shows us. You study in your Bible, you’ll find blessings by parents, you’ll find curses by parents and how they came to pass. So that’s very, very important. They are powerful; they work. But, as a child of God, as one that’s born again, it’s important for us to know that we are called into a blessing by God and we should not walk in the dark about these things. What’s important is this: if you had a problem with your father and he cursed you before you were born again, now that you are born again, go and reconcile with him. That’s number one. Now, where reconciliation is impossible or difficult, go to your Pastor, and he will counsel with you and let you know what to do. Now, if you were already born again and then your parents curse you, FIRST IT WILL NOT EVEN COME TO PASS but then it depends on what you did. If what you did was also against the Word of God, then you’ve got real trouble because that means he’s not only just cursing you but you were already OUTSIDE THE WORD OF GOD meaning that you were in a PLACE WHERE A CURSE COULD ACTUALLY COME UPON YOU.
Remember, in the days of the children of Israel while they were in Egypt and God said the death angel was coming into Egypt, [Exodus 12:21-23] He told them, stay inside the house and have the doorposts and the lintels of your doors marked with blood and the death angel will not come in. So, He separated the children of Israel from the children of Egypt with the blood. So, you stay in God’s Word, you stay in the Kingdom, you stay functioning according to the principles of God. Don’t go outside the Word of God. If you live outside the Word of God, then of course you are in the place where a curse can come on you. But even in such situations, what you’re supposed to do is reconcile with your father, because God wants us to live in peace. He has called us to peace and you should walk in peace with others especially your parents, especially your parents.
You already said this: you’ve already referred to what has been written in the Bible where it says that we are taught to honour our father and mother. It says in Ephesians; I’ll read it to you, from chapter 6 verse 1: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother;which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.” [Ephesians 6:1-3] Now, here it is quoting from Exodus 20:12 and Deuteronomy 5:16, and He brings this up to let us know that this is important to us today. So, he says “which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with you.” So, don’t find yourself functioning in a way that your father then curses you, and I said, if he does curse you, go to him and reconcile with him. If reconciliation is difficult or impossible, go to your Pastor, who is your spiritual father, and he will do something about it; not only can he reverse the curse (he can reverse it and secondly) he can help you know what to do about reconciliation where at all possible.
Now, you asked another question [another part of your question is]: “in what ways can one honour his parents?” First of all, what is it to honour? ‘To Honour’ means To respect, To Recognize, To Esteem. So everything that you can do to honour, meaning to respect, recognize and esteem, you ought to do. First in the way you greet, in the way you address your parents. How do you address them? How do you respond to them? Do you talk to them angrily as though they are like your classmates or your juniors? That’s not respect, that’s not esteem. You esteem them; that means ‘to hold them highly’. Then, you recognize; don’t act as though they are not there. Recognize them and esteem them. So, everything you can do that’ll show that you respect, you esteem them and recognize them is what you must do, and these things are (I mean, the list is) endless. There’s so much you can do that will fall into these classes.
So, we cannot take the time to list all of them out because it depends on your age, your relationship with them, where you are, how old are you? Do you live with them or do you live somewhere else apart from them [all of these things]? If you live with them, there are certain things you must do. If you live with your parents, there are certain things you must do even if they are not asking for them. I think it’s important for you to recognize that your parents are in the house. You’ve got to greet them first; you go to them and greet them. Clean the house, maintain the house; you do the work at home, clean up the house, take responsibility. Don’t let your mom or your father do the menial things at home; clean their rooms. There are things you can do. Now, if you don’t live with them, there are other things you can do too. Maintain Good Relationship – Good communication. And then, the Bible says for us to repay them. Now, ‘Repay Them’ means that we owe parents something; we owe them and we will always owe them. So, YOU CAN NEVER PAY THEM OUT, because they took care of you when you were young. They did everything to make sure that you became what you became.
Now again, there is the issue of who is your father or who is your mother? Is it the one that gave birth to you, or is it the one that brought you up? Now, for most people, the same one that gave birth to them brought them up. For some others, one person gave birth to you [and] another person brought you up. That means you’ve got two. You always recognize the one that gave birth to you, and you must always recognize the one who brought you up. So, you see, you’ve got, if it’s your father or your uncle, whoever it is, you’ve got two. So you always have to recognize them. That’s very important! They will always hold a special place in your life, so always remember that.
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