The Sunday Mail
Pastor Tinashe Zinyemba: The Christian Youth
MAY is the fifth month of the year and there are five Sundays this month. Five represents a number of things in Scripture.
One of those is grace, which is the empowerment of God for every believer that enables us to walk in the full benefits and authority of a believer.
My prayer for you is that the grace of God will sit on you this month and that you accomplish all you set out to do.
Some of you are going back to school this week and I believe with you that you will do well in your midyear examinations.
May the grace of God be with you in this month.
Throughout May there are two Scriptures that I would like us to spend some time on. They are in reference to what is happening in our society and to the young.
Ecclesiastes 10:8-9 says, “He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.
Whoso removeth stones shall be hurt therewith; and he that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby.”
Our main focus will be the part that says “whoso breakethan hedge, a serpent shall bite him”.
The second passage is Proverbs 22:28-29: “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set. Seest thou a man diligent in his business?
He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.”
This passage speaks volumes and holds our main area of focus.
There are certain principles, beliefs and positions that we as a people have begun to move away from in part
This has led to moral decadence in our society, it has led many who had a bright future throwing it away in the gutter.
It has led to a large number of people living aimless lives not sure of who they are and where they are going.
Solomon advised us not to remove the landmarks established by our fathers and that whoever breaks the hedge will be bitten by the snake.
One of the “landmarks” that we seem to be neglecting is that of honouring our parents.
By saying “parents” I am not necessarily referring only to biological parents but to anyone in authority over our lives that include our pastors, teachers, bosses at work, community leaders, family members and the like.
Let us look at an example.
There is a man called Samson in the Bible (Judges 13-16), he was called of God and ordained to achieve much for the nation of Israel.
His parents were given strict instructions of how they were to bring up Samson as he had a great future.
They did all according to instructions and when Samson was now an adult they told him the instructions and advised him to live by them. Guess what, Samson disobeyed all of them.
For example he went off after ungodly women, and associated with people of unscrupulous means.
Ultimately which was the final nail in the coffin he revealed the secret of his strength to a prostitute. That was the downfall of Samson.
The landmarks in his life were the instructions that God gave him through his parents and the hedge in his life were his parents who had given themselves to make sure that Samson lived according to the stipulated guidelines.
There are many young people losing their jobs for very silly reasons such as insubordination, theft, poor performance, unruly conduct and so forth.
These are all signs of dishonouring a parent/life source.
We have many young people who are in jail for theft, rape, violence, or violation of law of the land. All these are signs of not honouring our constitution as Zimbabwe is our parent/life source).
There are youths who have been expelled from school simply because they failed to comply with the school policy in one way or the other.
Exodus 20:12 gives us the fourth commandment that says, “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”
This is the only commandment with a promise attached to it.
Those who honour their employers remain employed, those who honour the law of the land are not incarcerated, those who respect their teachers and school leadership tend to progress well in their school curriculum. Those who respect their leaders in the community tend to have a good name and standing before man.
Get me right I know some parents/life sources are very difficult to deal with. We have fathers who are raping their daughters and we have bosses who treat their employees terribly.
In instances such as those be like David who was hunted by King Saul in 1 Samuel for no reason and was nearly killed on numerous occasions.
The honour of David resulted in him being eventually made King of Israel despite the hell his ‘parent/life source’ put him through.
Today take time to look at your life, perhaps the snakes that are biting your life are because you have moved the establishment of honouring your parents.
That’s all for now, we will continue next week. God bless.
Tinashe Zinyemba is a pastor with New Life Covenant Church. Feedback: [email protected]
