"Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you."  (Exodus 20:12).

Sunday is Father's Day!  May we honor our father! Let's all take time to do something special to let each of our fathers know we appreciate them.  There is another father whom we don't want to forget either.  It is our Father in Heaven!  He needs to be honored and made special this Father's Day too.  There are many ways to honor our Father in Heaven.  Here are a few:

1. Be "zealous for the honor of God" (Num. 25:13).  Our Father is honored when we are zealous for God's honor by standing up for his ways in our own lives and encouraging it in other's lives.  What can you and I do today to be zealous for the honor of God?  Are we zealous for serving and honoring him?  May it be so!

2. "Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops" (Prov. 3:9).   God is honored when we give to him first.  Let us honor him by giving him first out of our paycheck.   Let us write out a check for him first before we spend money on anything else.  This honors God.  Are we honoring God or something else?  Do we pay other things first?  May God be honored in each of our lives in this way.

3. "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me" (Is. 29:13).  God does feel honored when we praise him and sing to him using our mouths and lips if we also engage our hearts for him.  God wants to experience our hearts as to whether we will obey, praise, and serve him.  Is our heart totally with God and sincere in our worship and daily walk with him?  Do we do things out of obligation and are merely religious?  Or do we communicate our hearts of good will and appreciation to him.  May we honor God by loving him with all our heart as well as our mouth.

4. "You are not your own; you were bought at a price.  Therefore honor God with your body" (I Cor. 6:19c-20).   God is honored when we are pure, when we do not abuse our  bodies, and when we use our body to do his will and spread his word through our lives and special talents.  Let is dedicate our entire body and life to honor him today and every day.

5. May we honor our earthly father but let us also honor our Heavenly Father today.