Follow A Genuine Father

Focus: 1 Corinthians 4:17 - KJV

17. For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every church.

1 Corinthians 4:14-17

A good father wants his children to emulate him in that he has only good deeds to hand over to his children in the form of a legacy. Only a bad example of a father will hear that a “son” had dedicatedly followed him as an example of Christ-likeness and decide that such a “son” was wrong and should have rather been following God instead. To have an earthly mentor in someone who is an epitome of Christ is not to turn the same into a god, but to extract from him the juice in Christ-likeness and imbibe the same for the forming of his own character in the same similitude and likeness. Indeed, the same should be encouraged to further teach others from that which he had gained in his years of close study rather than be discouraged and have all he gained (if any) conscripted into the bin.

Paul was an Apostle of Christ, the last of his generation. He brought up disciples through almost endless teachings, vigils and prayers. Those he discipled who also stood to learn, he encouraged to follow him even as he followed Christ. Of course, he knew that such was the way to true discipleship and Christlikeness, and he encouraged it. Christ Himself who is the author and finisher of our faith, prayed the father to fuse us in Him like He is fused with the father. What He did, He encouraged the disciples to do. Paul said, that which his disciples have learnt of him, they are to give to faithful servants. That is the way the faith has been passed down from generation to generation. It is therefore clear that only a leader whose ways be not in Christ Jesus will be displeased at having been followed for a length of years, since he would not want to be guilty of having misled any little one.

Please be sure to operate in Christlikeness and hand the same over to worthy disciples so that they may all continue in the traditions of Christ and hand it down to successive generations for as long as the Lord tarries in His return. Let no one be discouraged from following you even as you maintain strict followership of Christlike spiritual fathers so as not to derail from the right and narrow path. We must also test all spirits so as not to follow wrongly the sons of perdition as they can only lead to perdition. No one can give what he does not have.

Please pray:

Thank you, father for your faithfulness in investing in men to father many others in your path. I look up to you to father others in the faith by remaining rigidly in the pathway of Christ alone, dear Lord, in Jesus’ name. Let everyone that follow me even as I follow Christ be inheritors of your incorruptible glory, in Jesus’ name. Please help people never to misconstrue my acts and actions as that of a demi god, so that the focus in the end is only you and not me, in Jesus’ name. And as my ‘sons’ make it to you in the end, let me never be found wanting, in Jesus’ name.

Please share with others. God bless you.