Order and Disorder

Who doesn't know the ten commandments, God's will for us? The first is about our relationship with God, the rest about our relationship with other people. One of them is our verse for the day – that we should honour our father and mother. It does not only apply to little children who were disobedient at some time and did something which was forbidden. It concerns, as in many other scriptures, the divine order of creation. Regardless of what we have achieved in our lives or how our relationship towards other people are, father and mother always have priority in God's divine order. To honour them means, inter alia, to recognize their authority.

Proverbs 30:17 says it with even more clarity than today's scripture: “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.”

Even though we are all of equal worth to God, even though God loves and values everyone equally, there is a hierarchy here on earth, which we need to follow in order to ascertain a good co-existence.

We read in Ephesians 5:21 that we are to be in submission, one towards the other. In the next verse, we see that women should be in submission towards men, however this has nothing to do with worth, but with leading and the structure of the family.

In Romans 13 Paul looks beyond the border of the family. In verse 2 we read: “Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.” To cheat when completing your tax return, is as wrong as to drive too fast because you are in a hurry...

Certainly, there is not a single one amongst us, who has never once gone against God's divine order. Satan, the god of disorder is also the lord of this world. As long as we are still living in this world, he will continue to antagonize us into disregarding God's Word. We read Satan's favourite text in Genesis 3:1: “...Yea, hath God said:...” In this manner he endeavours time and time again to lead us into temptation and we can only counteract this with Jesus' words: “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written....” (Matthew 4:10)

Only God's Word reveals to us, how we can live together in peace and order, and from His Word we also receive grace, when we stumble.

Who is your father and your mother? Do you honour them, or are you opposing God's divine order?

I wish you a blessed day, there where God has pre-ordained you to be.

Rainer Gigerich