HOUSES OF BLESSINGS
God's Plan For The Christian Family
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Quite often we hear members of different congregations say: “Let’s go to church”, We are having church today”. “I didn’t go to church today” and so on. The reason is because we have become accustomed to thinking of the church as being the four walls of the facility in which we congregate. With that in mind many Christian Families only think of Church, church activities, church involvement, church building, church developing and so on in connection to the church temple, building or facility.
The Church that the Lord Jesus Christ is building is not contained by the four walls of a building. The Church of Christ are the saints that have been called out from the world to a life of obedience to, and a relationship with Christ the Lord. This relationship and obedience to the Lord does not begin and ends on Sunday in the formal worship service but it begins when we accept Jesus as our Lord and savior and it must permeate every aspect of our lives. Furthermore we are to keep in mind that the Church is the body of Christ, the congregants, the Christian community collectively and that the community splits into local Churches that congregate accordingly. The concept of Church has two faces, 1. The organizational Church and 2. The organic Church. Many Churches leadership are super involve in the organizational Church; events, services, community affairs, goals, finances, numerical growth and more. All good by the way. But many are missing the most important face of the Church; Spiritual development, true biblical discipleship, Prayer, Fasting, Faith developing training, Seeking God’s will, applying biblical principles to our everyday devotion, building Godly families etc. Many Christian families are frustrated because their own homes are suffering a lack of development in Christ, fathers and husbands questioning their roles, mothers and wives not knowing how or where to be competent helpers to their husbands and their calling, and children missing out on a proper biblical upbringing. Most believers that are seeking for a local church are seeking for a community of believers, the local body of Christ to find fulfillment in an area of their lives in which they are experiencing a void. They need spiritual understanding, knowledge and wisdom to face the everyday challenges that they experience in their own lives, their marriages, their children and teen-agers and other significant family relationships. They know that the first relationship that they have to put in order is their personal relationship with God, which is why they seek for a church body in the first place. They arrive with a question in their mind: Is this the local church that God wants me to attend and what can they do for me? Regretfully many local churches are so involved in their own goals as an organization that they miss the opportunity to meet this newcomers where they are and begin to guide them to God's plan for their lives and their families. Churches are focus on forming and equipping people for a future ministry or service in the church family, that many times never materialize, and miss the fact that these men and women are already in leadership roles with leadership responsibilities and they are lacking the know-how to proceed and be successful in the Godly building of their own families which is the first line of ministry. Leaving families with UNMET NEEDS. Quite often we see men and women that have trained and are successful in the church organization ministry while failing in their first line ministry "Their Families" and home life. Even grown Pastor-Kids tell their own horror stories of non-fulfillment where their fathers were very successful in pastoring the local church but failed in minister to their own families, leaving the children to mend for themselves when it came to their relationship with their parents and their relationship with God. Many pastors and ministers of the local church and beyond have overlooked an essential and fundamental biblical principle, where its states a requirement for anyone that desires to be an overseer, pastor or church leader:
So as you can see the first line of ministry where a man of God must prove himself and prove his competence to lead God's church is in his household. But as stated before this biblical principle is often overlooked.
As we read the Bible we discover God's heart and plan for the family. It begins with the first marriage and family of Adam and Eve in Genesis and it ends with the wedding of the lamb between Christ and the Church in the book of Revelations. Jesus ministry begins with the wedding of Canaan and it ends in the Last Super where Jesus was offering his disciple to drink from his cup, which in Jewish culture referred to the offer of marriage, become one with me (Note: Jesus was in no way or form promoting homosexuality as those that love to twist the scripture would like to falsely teach). When the first couple fall from grace, God promises redemption to mankind through the seed of the woman, a son Genesis 3:15, when the world is destroyed by a flood, God saves Noah and his family as well as the families of each species. When God calls Abraham, He calls a family and promises Abraham a family and in Abraham all of the families of the earth are blessed Genesis 12:3. The blessing continues to Isaac's family, Jacob's family the 12 tribes of Israel, Elijah is send to a widow and her son, a family, Elisha was sent to the woman from Shunem who was barren but God bless her and her husband by giving them a son, a family. As we continue through the Scriptures we find that God has always dealt with and is interested in blessing the family. God asked of Abraham to sacrifice his son to God and although God did not allowed Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, God knew Abraham's heart that he was in fact willing to do so. And God was also willing to sacrifice his own son. In Jesus who by blood the Son of Abraham and who is also the Son of God, this sacrifice was fulfilled. God is the Heavenly Father, Jesus is the Eternal Son of God and everyone that receives Jesus those that believe in His name are made sons of God, who are not born of the flesh of by the will of man but by the will of God. A family! God desires to turn every household into a HOUSE OF BLESSING, while it is Satan's purpose to use every arsenal and weapon of destruction against the Christian Family. Regretfully Satan has been quite successful in this area because the church community has taken their focus from this important ministry while in many ways selfishly working to build names and individuals rather than the family, as God has always planned. How do we begin to fight back and overcome the gates of hell and Satan's plan to destroy the family? First we must begin by turning every form of discipleship in the church to the family and make the Christian Family the center of all ministry. Preaching, teaching, discipleship, worship etc. When Obed-Edom received the Ark Of The Covenant in his house, the Bible says that God blessed Obed-Edom and his entire family, 2Samuel 6:11. Jesus resurrected the widow of Nain's son, a family, Luke 7:11-17, Jairus Daughter, a family Luke 8:52-56, Lazarus of Bethany, his friend and the brother of Mary and Martha, a family, John 11. The jailer of Philippi heard the words from the apostle Paul: "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your family, Acts 16:31. The Bible says in James 1:17, Every good and perfect gift comes from above from the Father Of Lights. Jesus is the light of the world, the Son of God a family and we who have become sons and daughters of God, we are the light of the world, the children of light just like our heavenly father. Jesus instruct us, not to cover our light but to put our lights on a stand in the center of the house so that everyone in the household would benefit from its shine and our father in heaven may be glorified. SHINE WHERE YOU ARE The Bible narrates Joseph's dream, the son of Jacob in the following way:
The Bible also tells on one prophecy of Jesus concerning the last days as follows:
The Bible interprets itself, and the scripture of Genesis 37 sheds light over the meaning of Mark 13:24-25. The father is represented by the sun, the mother is represented by the moon and the children are represented by the stars. There will come a time in human history where the family nucleus will be destroyed, that is Satan's plan all-along. That scenario will take place immediately after the great tribulation. Although that should not yet take place, Satan full program against the family and consequently the church of Christ is taking place right now. The sun, the father figure that belongs to the man the male counterpart in the marriage and family nucleus have been strategically under attack for a very long time with the aiming of making the image of the father disappear altogether. As the sun shines and the moon receives its light and reflects the light of the sun into the dark sky where we could observe the beautiful stars, so should the father shine in his home with efficient and godly leadership that should reflect in his wife, the competent helper that God created for him, is not good for a man to be alone Genesis 2:18 and consequently in his children, covering the the whole family with his light. Clearly if Satan is to destroy the family he must destroy the father.
We must save the Christian family and the church from the schemes of Satan and we must begin by equipping the fathers. Father must begin to once again shine in their homes, their houses, their families. One of the passages in scripture that have come under attack by an ungodly worldview, by the feminist movement and feminist ideology is found in Ephesians 5 and 6:
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The Christian Family must experience a TRANSFORMATION! In order for this to happen the Father and the Mother must present their bodies in living sacrifice as instructed in Romans 12:1. Before Christ, all sacrifices were sacrifices of death, but when Christ becomes the last and perfect sacrifice of death for our salvation he cleans the altar and now we, each one of us, must be on the altar, but not as a sacrifice of death but as a sacrifice of life. Paul continues in Romans 12 saying, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service (true worship) And do not conform to this world (ungodly culture, worldview) but be TRANSFORMED by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God (for your life and your family).
OBED-EDOM FAMILIES We must become OBED-EDOM Families. The Bible states that Obed-Edom received the Ark Of The Covenant in his house and the Ark remain there for 3 months and Obed-Edom was blessed and his whole house was blessed. This story represent the perfect foundation for the HOUSES OF BLESSINGS. What was the Ark Of The Covenant? The Ark Of the covenant was a box with two cherubim on top facing each other and extending their wings towards each other in a position of worship. God instructed Moses to make this box according to God's design and instructed him to include three items inside the box: 1 The tablets of the Ten Commandments, 2 A jar with the Manna that fell from the sky and fed the people of God for 40 years in the dessert (which represents the word of God) and 3 the staff of Aaron that budded. (see picture below), |
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,The bible further states that God presence would manifest between the two cherubim, which were specifically made to serve as protectors of the covenant. When we read many of the symbols of the Old Testament, we must keep in mind that they represent the shadows of something that would be revealed in the New Testament as the essence. In Mathew 18:19 Jesus speaks of two coming together in agreement and asking for the same thing, my Father that is in heaven shall granted. He further states: When two or three come together in my name I shall be in the midst of them. There is no better or more godly and holy agreement on earth that the agreement of marriage where two come together and become one according to the scriptures. It is also in marriage where two become three when a child is born. Jesus states that in this nucleus of two or three He shall be present in the midst of them, just as God's presence would be manifested in the midst of the two cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament. In this sense the Husband and wife are both represented by the two cherubim. Therefore the husband and wife must be the protectors of the covenant. The family nucleus must cherish and protect the three items inside the Ark of the covenant. First they must keep God 's commandments, this is the way that we demonstrate our love for God, that we keep His commandments. Second, we must cherish God's word and receive it into our Spirit, soul and body as the bread of life, daily, to sustain everything that we do. Give us today our daily bread. Third we must uphold God's design and purpose for the Father (the sun) to exercise his rightful place as head and spiritual leader of the household. Aaron leadership was challenged by the leaders of the other tribes and God asked Moses to put the twelve staffs of the leaders of each tribe together including Aaron's staff, and the staff that would sprout overnight would be the staff of the man that God had chosen as God's appointed leader. The next day Aaron's staff had not only sprout, but it had budded and produced nuts. Once this miracle happened everyone accepted God's will and submitted themselves to God's appointed leadership.
Just like Obed-Edom we must teach every Christian Family to bring the Ark Of The Covenant into their homes. The fathers must make sure that the commandments, the manna and Aaron's staff (the right succession of leadership) is observed in the Home, putting down the foundation for a successful House Of Blessing, where he will be blessed and his whole household will be blessed as with Obed-Edom. SUBMITTING TO CHRIST Everything that we do, we must do it as submitting to Christ. This is what the apostle Paul prescribes in Ephesian chapter 5. When both cherubim submit to Christ (the living word) according to the scriptures, they will accomplish the oneness necessary for a successful House of Blessing. The figure below will give a clear picture of this. As we stay at the bottom of the triangle there will be a significant gap between the husband and wife where Satan and the ungodly culture of our times will have plenty of room to work and destroy the family. But once both cherubim begin to seek the Lord, the gap disappears until the only one in between them is Christ himself.
The local church must understand this culture of God's plan for the Christian Family and work to create a cell of each family nucleus, that will ultimately come together with every other cell to create what is known as the body of Christ. See example below.
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