Flip-Flop Outreach Ministry

Honoring God, Self, and Others

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            The fifth commandment states, “Honor your Mother and Father.”  If your mother commanded you to help her get the groceries out of the car and you do, this is honoring her command.  Mother commanded, you honored, and it is the same with God’s commandments.  God commanded; you should honor.  Honor is giving special treatment, weight to, making precious, bowing down, faith, patience, love, respect for others, God, and self, thankfulness to the point of laying down your life for others, and humbleness because of having a servant’s suffering character, and all need to be taught in the home by parents and by church leaders in the church.   If honor for God, self, and others is not taught in the home then the children are taught to be, as Paul states,  “. . . lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. . .” (2 Tim. 3:2-4, NIV).  Paul explains that “. . . faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, [and] sufferings. . .” are what he taught and what he lived (2 Tim. 3:10b-11a).  Also, Jesus reinforced honoring God and neighbor when he stated that all the Law and the Prophets depend on those two commandments (Matt. 22:37-40). 

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          When parents are not teaching honor in the home and churches do not have enough sermons about honor, the home ends up with many children expressing no honor for anyone, not even themselves.  Research in 2018 shows that almost thirty percent of single-parent households are dealing with child-to-parent violence.[1] The US Preventive Services Task Force concludes that over thirty percent of adolescents and children are either overweight or obese, which is not honoring God nor self.[2]  The Bible has many verses that warn against not honoring a father and a mother (Lev. 20:9; Col. 3:20; Deut. 21:18-21; Proverbs 13:245, 20:20, 30:17; Exodus 20:12, 21:15, 17; Matt. 15:4; Eph. 6:1, and Mark 7:9-10 to name a few).  The media is not teaching honor and has not for a long time so it is up to the parent and the individual to learn, and teach what God expects, and how God wants his creation to treat His creation including themselves. 

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          Flip-Flop Outreach Ministry’s website is filled with links that will help a parent teach what honor truly means and there are many links that fill its pages to help parents make sure their children are watching and listening to positive Christian teachings of truth instead of the sinful garbage that is rammed into our children's minds through watching everyday television, radio, and video gaming.  Also, Flip-Flop will announce events and recreational and self-help activities that parents and children can go to make sure the children are around mentors, ministers, and pastoral counselors that teach honoring God, self, and others.

 

Michael Ross (BA and MA)

Director, Missionary, and Pastoral Counselor 

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[1] Gaylene S. Armstrong, Calli M. Cain, Lindsey E. Wylie, Lisa R. Muftić, and Leana A. Bouffard, “Risk Factor Profile of Youth Incarcerated for Child to Parent Violence: A Nationally Representative Sample,” Journal of Criminal Justice.  vol. 58 (September-October 2018): 1 (accessed Jan. 20, 2021), retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2018.06.002.

 

[2] US Preventive Services Task Force, “Screening for Obesity in Children and Adolescents: US Preventive Services Task Force Recommendation Statement,” JAMA. Vol. 317, 23 (2017): 241 (accessed Jan. 20, 2021), retrieved from: doi:10.1001/jama.2017.6803.