No 6

(How does the family fit into God’s plan?)

The definition of a family in the World Book dictionary is : 1) a father, a mother and their children; 2) the children of a father and mother. Pretty basic, right? The Bibical definition varies somewhat : “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2 :24 & Ephesians 5 :31) . A family, in God’s eyes is one woman and one man; any children that are born of this union are part of the family. Picture the family as a circle where mom and dad hold hands and when children come along, the circle gets bigger; the children are not in the middle, they become part of the circle or the family. The family is central in God’s plan and through it, God teaches us selfless love, submission, accountability and a miriad of other virtues. The relationship that we have with God is described in the Bible as a family where we are His adopted children (John 1 :12) and He is our loving heavenly Father (Matt 6 :32) providing for all our needs, both spiritual and material. Therefore, the model for our families ought to be the one that is described in the Bible. Needless to say that the world we live in falls way short of the standard that God set in the Bible. Who’s to blame? Satan? Partly. Mankind? Mostly!

In past studies, we have seen the three areas in which we sin : “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life” (1 John 2 :16). Satan, of course tempts us in these three areas just as he did with Jesus in the wilderness (Matt 4 :1-11), but we decide, on our own, to fall to the various temptations even though we know perfectly well that the Lord will not let us be tempted above our ability to resist (1 Cor 10 :13). I will not go on to describe the situation that the family is in at present in the world because we all know how it is and it’s disgusting. I’m convinced that it must sadden the Lord’s heart to see us but, Satan, on the other hand, must be wringing his boney hands and laughing his head off to see how successful he has been at destroying the family in the world today; including Christian families. As born-again Christians, we know that we have been forgiven because Jesus Christ went to the cross to take the penalty for our sins and that He is preparing a place for us in heaven (John 14 : 6). Also, God sees us as perfect and therefore will welcome us into eternity….(there’s a but coming), but the sins we’ve committed, have consequences and we must live with these consequences until we die or until we are raptured into God’s presence.