I haven’t been respectful to my parents in the past. Am I condemned because of this?
Question:
Greetings to you.
I thank God and the Lord Jesus Christ for His unending love and His grace and mercy that has saved me and had given me life, making me experience the greatness of His love and His righteousness in me. All the glory and honor and praise and thanksgiving belong to Him alone. Amen.
I am a young Christian and I am active in our church and congregational youth activities and a given a task by God to minister to His people through singing, I am a backup singer. I thank and glorify God for His grace and mercy founded by His unconditional love, and for His forgiveness, comfort, and teachings.
Though I love my parents, I feel condemned because, unlike others, we are not so attached to each other. I was not used to greeting them or saying "I love you" to them, and I talk to them like they are the same age as me sometimes. I mean that I lacked respect for them because I will often argue with them whether I am right or they are right. I never ever say I'm sorry to them for all my mistakes and disobedience, nor thank them audibly because I am shy or feel awkward since I am not used to greeting or complimenting them.
I realized that I was deliberately and constantly sinning and accumulating judgment to myself because of my gap from them. But also we have many good times and we look fine, but still, I feel condemned and guilty knowing that I was not honoring them from the start. This really makes me fear not to be able to say sorry to them for the mistakes I had from childhood until now, and not able to say "I love you" to them, or give anything to them to make them happy, and not being able to greet them with a kiss as a sign of respect.
My question is this: What must I do that I may not be disqualified in Christ because of these? And how can I honor them? Is it really necessary to say, "I love you" or to complement them always? Or is it really necessary to say sorry to them for all the mistakes since my childhood and for my lacking in honoring them?
Answer:
"Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin" (James 4:17).
Sins don't accumulate. Either you are in sin or you are not. If you know you have not been respectful to your parents, then the thing to do is start being respectful. Apologize for your past mistakes and start working on being nicer to them. What starts out as hard or awkward soon becomes a natural habit.
