The Christian Home
Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him.
Psalm 127:3
Deuteronomy 6:1-9
6 These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, promised you.
4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Message
A Christian home is harder and harder to maintain in this day and age but it is not impossible to know. In fact the way to make it happen is still right at our fingertips – the Bible.
Our Heavenly Father gave us powerful spiritual truths from which we were to build ourselves, our families, and our country on.
Those truths are expressed for us in this most famous of scripture passages.
Deuteronomy 6 and especially Deuteronomy 6:4-5
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4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Jesus echoed this scripture and added that we should love our neighbour as ourselves. We know it as the “Golden Rule” and the Jewish people proclaim its truth as one of their most precious scriptures.
God’s intention is that we should know the fullness of His blessings. Those blessings are meant to be realized by knowing how God wants us to think how God wants us to act and how God wants us to live.
In this passage God tells us that long life, material prosperity, peace and a heritage for our children are all linked to how we obey, love and serve God.
It starts as individuals and grows through the dynamic of a family and reaches its zenith in the community we call the Church.
A family is a microcosm of a nation. It is in family that we learn the blessing of the sacred union that is marriage. A man and woman become one flesh as their union produces a new life, a child; the fruit of the womb.
It is at this stage of the family dynamic that things get really interesting and challenging for this new 3 in one relationship.
It’s a challenge because every person in the family is fighting a common enemy that interrupts the sweet life flowing with milk and honey that should be our experience.
Mom, Dad and child will be faced with the sin that is inherent in them from Adam and Eve as well as trying to deal with the sin that pervades the society all around them.
To live as a Christian home this family will need courage, faith and resolve and the power and presence of an all loving, all powerful God.
The experience of thousands of years has taught every Christian family the means by which we can succeed in claiming all these blessings from our Heavenly Father for our families.
It starts with recognizing and honoring God and His word.
As a young Christian husband this was driven home for me some 26 years ago by an elderly couple in Prince Edward Island. I had volunteered my young family that year to a church mission trip. We were to help a rural church with some of its pressing needs that included cleaning the cemetery grounds and painting the fence posts as well as some painting and repairs to the church building itself.
The church provided all the supplies we just provided the labor. We were part of a team of 6. Four adults and two small children. The host church billeted us out to its member families.
My family were guests of Arnold and Lillian Neill. He was a gentleman farmer and she was a retired church organist. At the time they were both close to 80 years old and lived across the road from the church.
These dear precious saints saw us as a delightful addition to their family and embraced us as their own.
That meant time around God’s word at the breakfast table on our knees. This was an entirely new experience to me and my family. For a week we would celebrate each new morning in this way. My young children were offered plain oatmeal no fruity circles or chocolate shapes not even brown sugar for the oatmeal. My wife was taught to take a nap mid-afternoon along with the children. In the evening we would gather around the organ as Mrs. Neill played hymns and choruses till the children fell asleep in our arms.
What we were exposed to for that short week in Prince Edward Island was discipleship. These dear Saints Arnold and Lillian taught us in a very unapologetic way how to revere God and His word and how to love and respect each other as husband and wife and as a mother and father who had the means to set an example to our small family.
It was a great experience and when we got home I tried to put into practise the things I learned. I got rid of the television and cable service. I began to pick up the guitar and the Bible instead. We did not get to our knees at the breakfast table but we did manage to honor God with prayer and daily devotions as well as bedtime stories and prayer for our little ones.
Those three years remain the sweetest memories of my time as a father and husband. Unfortunately I did not maintain the discipline needed to make these changes permanent and before long we found ourselves falling back into our old routines.
My children still turned out pretty well and I am proud of the people they have become but I regret the blessings I missed out on because I was weak and let the world cut in on me. My advice to you today is to learn faithfulness first to God and to your spouse and to teach it to your children. If you can accomplish this you will not be able to count all the blessings the Lord will pour into your lives.
A Christian home is a Christ centered home. Do all you can as a Mom or a Dad as a Grandma or a Grandpa to lift high the name of Jesus starting at home. Then bring the praise of those blessings with you as a family as we meet as a church so that we all might be encouraged and blessed at what the Lord has done by using your family to touch the family of God. – Amen.
