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anglican devotional

The Daily Fountain Devotional of the Church Of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) 12 December 2022 – Not Like Your Fathers

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TOPIC: Not Like Your Fathers

READ: Zechariah 1:1-6 (NKJV)

  1. In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,
  2. “The LORD has been very angry with your fathers.
  3. “Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Return to Me,” says the LORD of hosts, “and I will return to you,” says the LORD of hosts.
  4. “Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds.” ‘ But they did not hear nor heed Me,” says the LORD.
  5. “Your fathers, where [are] they? And the prophets, do they live forever?
  6. Yet surely My words and My statutes, Which I commanded My servants the prophets, Did they not overtake your fathers? “So they returned and said: ‘Just as the LORD of hosts determined to do to us, According to our ways and according to our deeds, So He has dealt with us.”

THE MESSAGE:

When we got to the village for my father’s burial, one statement I kept hearing at every point of discussion with the elders was “that is our tradition” or “that’s the way it’s done.”. Hardly did I hear “that is what God expects.” And when they say this, they expect compliance, whether or not it is against Christian morality. Unfortunately, many of the people who insist on tradition are themselves in the Church; yet they insist on the ways of their fathers. God spoke to His people through Zachariah and the counsel is clear: “Do not be like your fathers…turn from your evil ways” (verse 4). God does not expect us to be like our fathers in evil; He does not expect us to be like them if what they did was against God’s purpose; He does not expect us to continue the maltreatment of widows because our fathers did same.

But many a Christian still holds to the tradition of the fathers even when it goes contrary to God’s expectation. If there is any aspect of your culture that is not in accordance with Bible expectations, do not continue in it. After all, we are not insisting on living in thatched houses because our fathers lived there. Traditions change; fathers pass away, but God’s words are eternal. Let us repent from all the ways of the fathers that are evil.

PRAYER: List five negative ways of the fathers in your tradition. What will you do about them?

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