Every year the United States sets aside a day as Father's Day. But in spite of that gesture, many assume that fathers are not really necessary today. Fatherhood takes a real beating in our society.

It takes a real man to be a good father. Let's consider the ideals of true fatherhood. Understanding fatherhood may even help us understand more clearly our relationship with our Heavenly Father.

Results Are Not Positive

We increasingly see people analyzing society's results from an amoral point of view. Many, though, still get married in a religious ceremony, and so they should be concerned with what God has to say about the subject.

God reveals that marriage is a divine institution He created (Matthew 19:4-6). Certainly the ideal of fatherhood should be within the institution of marriage. We believe marriage portrays a spiritual relationship, as does fatherhood.

But the statistics are not encouraging. The National Fatherhood Institute says:

• 70 percent of long-term prison inmates grew up in homes with no father present.
• 75 percent of homes with no father experience poverty. Only 20 percent do so when there is a father present.
• 21 million American children live in a fatherless home. In 1960 it was 8 million.

Society does very little to educate young people towards effective fatherhood within marriage. We must choose to do something different.

We are engaged in an ideological war. Real men are needed as much as they are in any war. Mothers and potential mothers want real men.

Real men don't neglect the responsibility of fatherhood. "Unwed" fathers are often the undiscussed factor in the "unwed mother" situation.

To the unmarried potential fathers I say: Do not be discouraged from upholding God's standard (1 Corinthians 6:18-20). Save your sexual relationships for the mother of your children, in marriage. Be strong and courageous.

To Married Fathers

One purpose of a godly marriage is to portray the relationship of Christ and the Church. "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself...This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the Church" (Ephesians 5:25-28, 32, NIV).

Thomas Jefferson said, "May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion."

A big factor for real men in marriage is the use of time! Detachment and too much "business" will stifle the life right out of marriage. We can choose to do things that give life or things that smother it. Life flourishes where we have a positive devotion to it.

Love is a life-sustaining force! Real men know this. Husbands love your wives: for your name's sake, for your children's sake, for appreciation and support of God's plan and purpose for fatherhood.

Women are sensitive. They sense it when someone is not looking out for their welfare. They receive the gifts we give. They endure, too often, the neglect they receive in their attachments to men.

Real men have a highly developed sense of care, concern and obligation to sustain and provide for the needs, especially the emotional needs, of their wives and children.

God is involved in this issue. His Word says we are not free to do as we please. Real men are commanded to love their wives, to nurture and care for their children in ways some have mistakenly labeled as "women's work."

There are some real men left today that we should celebrate, not only on Father's Day, but also every day. All of us, men and women, young and old, married and unmarried, should work to promote fatherhood in every way we can. We must work in such a way that more real men are produced in the future. Let's celebrate and promote the conditions, attitudes, actions and ideals of real fatherhood! UN