Gary Powers explains in this video that the Bible gives both positive and negative commands for fathers. First, fathers are not to exasperate their children. Without a vision or a hope, they will become discouraged and hopeless. Fathers also need to point their children towards something. They are to be encouraging and build up their children.

Ephesians 6:4 (NKJV) - "And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord."

So Paul in Ephesians 6, 4, he exhorts fathers, first of all, two things. He gives a negative command and a positive command. And the negative is not to frustrate them, not to exasperate them. And I think oftentimes we can exasperate our children, well we don't give them a hope or future. And without a vision, people will cast off restraint.

They will perish. And so same with our children. They get discouraged, they feel hopeless. And so if they're just hanging around with, you're not pointing them towards something, I think we can really frustrate them. And then I think that also plays into the positive command to admonish, to encourage, to keep building them up.

We can tend to bring a condemnation. We can tend to keep correcting them and pointing out all of the things that they're doing wrong and not showing them and encouraging them in the things that they're doing right. And so just like us, our children need a lot of encouragement and I think we need to build relationships with them, we need to come alongside of them. And That's not always easy when you