Day Eight - Honor the Wisdom of Age

Leviticus 19:32 Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the LORD.

                  Only eternity will show the impact of the prayers of the shut-ins,  the prayer warriors in your church.  These godly saints are no longer able to do many of the activities of the church,  but the one thing they can still do is pray.  Many of these have learned over the years to trust the wisdom of God and his faithfulness in answering prayers.  They bring their lifetime of devotion to God into the prayer for the believers in the church and God answers their prayers. 

God places a strong emphasis on the wisdom of age.  Our world has placed a stigma on older people because they are not as productive and therefore not as valuable as the young adults in a church.  They are easily neglected and forgotten.  In Bible times,  old people were not placed away from families, from society in cottages where no one saw them.  They lived in the next room.  They were the patriarchs of the family and still directed in many respects up until the day of their death. 

This verse tells us to stand up when an older,  gray haired man or woman come into our presence.  We are to honor their faces.  It is one of the reasons why we are to honor our father and mother.  Children are to obey their parents,  but we are always to honor our moms and dads even when we are older.  The reason?  They are older still and they have been wisdom that corresponds to their age.  We read,

1 Timothy 5:1  Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren;

A pastor is also an elder.  That does not mean that he is old,  but he is old in the faith.  He is not a novice.  He has been tested by pride and has rejected the pride of knowledge.  A pastor is to be respected and treated as one would treat an older man in the faith.   We are not to rebuke and older man,  but intreat him as we would our own father. 

An Exercise to increase our Faith:  Visit a shut-in or an older person or couple in the church.  Find out the needs that they have.  Pray that God would give you a love for them,  so that you could pray for them and care for their need.