Do You Recognize Father's Day?

Wishing a blessed Feast of Weeks or Shavuot to you today!

Isn’t it interesting how subtly the devil works? This year, Father’s Day falls exactly on Pentecost. I’ve always said how I believe many manmade holidays were designed by the devil to distract us from God’s holy days. While the world is in a frenzy to recognize their earthly fathers today, our Heavenly Father and His day goes unrecognized by most of His people.

I don’t believe it’s wrong to honor our parents because, indeed, that is a commandment, but where is the balance? Where do we draw a line? I grew up worshipping my parents, and I treated them as though they were God. I respected them so much I feared them, and I couldn't bear to feel their disapproval. This is not honor.

It feels like there is no balance. People hate and dishonor their parents, or they fear and reverence them, giving them all power and control over their lives. This kind of treatment is supposed to belong only to our Heavenly Father.

Why did Jesus say, "Call no man your, father?" He wasn’t telling us that we don’t need to honor and respect our parents. He was reminding us, do not worship your father and give him undue recognition (because to say "father" to someone is to recognize them). He was saying, "Do not favor man over God." This is idolatry. That is why I no longer recognize Father’s Day, not because I don't love my father (anyone who knows me knows how much I loved my father). These manmade days are distractions from the days I've been given by my Heavenly Father to recognize Him. Satan is always making counterfeit days to imitate, even mock, God's days. He gives us Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Sunday Sabbath, all very close imitations of God's days and all falling right around the same times as God's days, but all altered subtly to get our attention onto worldly things or to do things a little differently from how God commanded.

I can be thankful to my parents every day for giving me life, so I don’t need to set apart a holy day of reverence for them. Please don’t feel condemned by this post if you keep Father’s Day or any other holiday. I’m simply pointing out that I think most of us don’t even realize this is what holidays (holy days) are. They are days set apart from ordinary days to reverence something. Catholicism has hundreds of them, and that’s actually how we have many of our holidays today - from the Catholics. And we know how Catholics make excuses for the worship of creation…

Anyway, just something to ponder on! Wishing you all a blessed Pentecost!

Matthew 23:9 And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.

Leviticus 23:2 Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, "These are the appointed feasts of the Lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts."

Leviticus 23:21 [Concerning Pentecost] And you shall make a proclamation on the same day. You shall hold a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work. It is a statute forever in all your dwelling places throughout your generations.

Exodus 20:3 You shall have no other gods before me.