I wrote on Wednesday of revival. Families are perhaps the most beautiful of God's institutions because they are so real, so personal and they touch every aspect of our emotions and senses in powerful, heartwrenching ways. They present an individual with a sense of comfort, love, ownership (or responsibility), accountability, devotion, investment, warmth and so much more.
The love we have for them, the concern when they are sick, the burden for their souls, the gravity of the task of raising them in a Christ like way, the joy when they are glad, the walking in the door to three kids running toward you with smiles and hugs, the cleaning up after them, the teaching them something new, the amazement in their eyes over the beauty of God's creation in the simplest of creatures that we unfortunately lost our wonder of a long time ago, the melting of our hearts when we have to discipline them and so much more.
The greatest foundations that God establishes of course are the most attacked foundations by the enemy. Genesis 1 gives us creation, which as we all know - Satan has attacked through the foolishness of evolution, the big bang or just outright leading people to worship the creation rather than the Creator. In Genesis 2 we have the first mention of families as we have the first mention of father, mother and wife in verse 24. Satan attacks the family in hundreds of ways - many of which I am certain we are not even aware of since his subtle tactics (those attacks we'll save for another day) likely have changed God's intended behaviors and desires for families generations before we even came into this world. Of course the next would be Genesis 3 where we see God's word come under attack right away. We could go on and see every major institution God set up (like government) and how it has come under attack.
God's design for all of these things are to be pictures of things in the spiritual realm - His family relationship with us, His justice and holiness in government, His truth and immutability in His word, His power and beauty in Creation and so much more. The enemy wants to destroy those foundations and If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? - Ps. 11:3
Every generation Satan seems to gain more headway - further tainting the perfection of God's creation through sin, confusion, wrong priorities etc. Yet we have wonderful hope, we have access to God and the preservation of His word which Satan can't do a thing about!
A powerful revival for all of our families is God's desire that the hearts of fathers will turn back to their children and their children to their fathers. I will save the study on fathers for another day but here is a verse to reiterate how God promised to bring revival at the end of the OT.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
Malachi 4:5-6
The more a father reflects the Father/Child relationship that God desires to have with all of us - the more our hearts turn toward our kids in desire for them to walk with God and not just be pleased with us by spoiling them - the stronger of an impact we will have on this world for Jesus Christ.
God has charged me as a father with many things - and He has also set the expectations of what He wants my precious little girls to become (Prov 31, Titus 2). The way of getting there is through communion with Him by worship, prayer and loving His word.
I am far from it and can't do it on my own, but by the grace of God we can all be confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6).
Have a great day and love on your kids if ya got 'em!
1 comment:
Thank you so much for the reminder that our families are to be an example of our relationship with the Lord, etc. It's so easy to forget and just try to get through the day wiping up the spills, getting school done, etc. I needed to be reminded of the God-given reason for family - to show the world an example of His love for us!
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