This morning, we honor and celebrate fatherhood!  There is truly no other journey like it!

This morning, we’re going to learn some advice for being a good father from the life of Jacob, whom God renamed to Israel.  God is obviously the absolute best, perfect father.  However, He chose Jacob, a single man, to be the father of His own people.  That’s saying a lot!

God chose Jacob to father twelve sons who would become the twelve tribes of Israel who would, spiritually speaking, become the father of us all.  His children became the nation of Israel and generations later, they are still here today as a direct result of God’s promise.

This was the promise given by God first to Abram, which was then passed along through Isaac, which was then passed along through a blessing to Jacob.  We start with the power of:

A father’s blessing

One of the most significant things that God has enabled a Father to do is to pass along a blessing to his children and along through his children to future generations.  The blessing that a father speaks over his children is prophetic and powerfully life-directing!  This blessing is our inheritance that remains even when we are not present.

Proverbs 13:22 (NKJV)

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children

An inheritance is so much more than just money and material possessions.  As most of us have seen firsthand, those things will destroy a family if they are not also accompanied by the blessing of a strong moral compass built from God’s word and a solid foundation to stand on of God’s Kingdom principles.  Only then is an inheritance all that God intends for it to be.

Men, what are we passing along as an inheritance to the generations to come in our families?  What attitudes and behaviors and mindsets do we bless?  Which do we boldly curse?  What values are we developing into the lives of our children and the generations to follow them?  What are we defining as right and where do we draw the boundary of what is wrong?  We do these things not only with our words, but more importantly, with our own actions.

God honors the blessing that we pass along to our children because it’s who He is.  He promises and fulfills, therefore, he honors the blessing that we as fathers prophetically promise to our children.

Don’t underestimate the power and authority that are carried in the blessing of a father!  Next, we can take a breath of relief because:

Perfection is not a requirement

Jacob wasn’t a perfect man and he definitely did not have the perfect family.  He was a momma’s boy and his twin brother, Esau, was his dad’s rough and tough hunter.  Jacob bought his firstborn brother’s birthright for a bowl of soup.  Then, he stole his father’s blessing to Esau by deceiving him.  Of course, this was his mom’s idea and not his own.  She vowed to be cursed so that Jacob might be blessed.  Esau was furious and planned to murder him because of it.  This is how valuable the blessing of a father is!

We don’t have to live life perfectly to be the perfect father to our children.  In fact, we probably teach them more from our mistakes and how we respond to them and what we do to own up to them and to make things right than we do by making all the right choices.

Jacob didn’t have the perfect family.  Jacob chose to favor his son Joseph more than his brothers and this caused issues.  Ten of Jacob’s own sons agreed to kill, but then instead sold off into slavery, Joseph!  However, because of Jacob’s commitment and faithfulness to serve the Lord and that same trait that Joseph lived out, God brought their family all together in the end.

Jacob’s life was not without hardships.  His own uncle, Laban, treated him badly.  He broke his promise at the end of a seven year contract by deceiving him and giving him the wrong daughter in marriage.  Then, he made him work for seven more years for the daughter that he worked the first seven years for.  However, God continued to bless Ja