Ephesians 6:4
Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord
I believe the most important responsibility of a father is to relay the meaning of the Gospel to his children and to impart to them the inheritance of the Christianity, in other words, to bring them to the acceptance of salvation and a personal relationship with God.
One can compare this mission to a 3-stage relay race. The first stage, when you are a child, your father runs his portion of the race with a baton, which symbolically represents the Gospel. At a certain period in time, he passes the baton to you and the second stage of the race begins when you personally participate in it. And finally, the third stage is when you must pass the baton into the hands of your children.
A baton seldom falls on the track if the runner holds on to it tightly. Nevertheless, the victory or defeat of the race depends on how the baton is passed. There is a critical moment when you can lose everything due to ignorance or mistakes while passing the baton from one generation to another.
In the month of June we celebrate Fathers’ Day. As I express my most sincere gratitude to our fathers for their dedication and loyalty, I desire that they would maintain their stride in this spiritual race, that they would carefully pass the spiritual baton, the knowledge of the Gospel, faith and love of God to their children. May the Lord help you in this!
With love and respect,
Pastor Yuri Georgiev
San Francisco Christian Church