Passing On The Story Of Your Family's Spiritual History

There is a reason why our Father gives us occasions to  store away testimonies of what he has done; he knows we easily forget. We could be facing disaster today, call out to him and have testimony of his rescue. But next week something similar could happen and we are once again filled with fear and anxiety because we forget what he has already done for us.

Remembering is important in our developing relationship with our Father and in our growing understanding of how the Kingdom functions. He takes us through things so that we will develop, grow, mature and gain testimony to teach others.

"But be on guard and watch yourselves closely so that you don't forget the things your eyes saw and so they never leave your mind as long as you live. Teach them to your children and your grandchildren." (Deuteronomy 4:9)

We understand the importance of teaching the instructions of the Lord to our children and grandchildren but in this case it is the testimony that we are told to pass on. We are to tell our  children and grandchildren about our story with God. We are suppose to tell them of what God has done, answered prayers, miracles, interventions, rescues, provision. They need to know more than theory, they need to hear the practical application of being a child of God.

It is more than the testimony of your salvation moment; it is your ongoing story of you and your Saviour. It is about your spiritual growth. It is about your increasing revelation. It is about the Lord's constant interaction and intervention in your history.

Yesterday I was in Walmart with my wife and I saw a baby's album for grandmothers. I scoffed at it at first because I thought it was an album for recording things about the baby. I figured it was just another thing to make money but when I looked inside I realized its true value. It wasn't the story of the baby but of the grandmother to pass on to the baby. It was all about the family history so the baby would understand his roots.

This is the idea of passing on your testimonies, what you have seen and experienced with God; your family's spiritual roots. Every family needs a book of testimony!

Because Of God's Grace, I Am Thankful For You

"I thank my God always for you, because of God’s grace that was given to you in Christ Jesus. That is, you were made rich through him in everything: in all your communication and every kind of knowledge, in the same way that the testimony about Christ was confirmed with you." (1 Corinthians 1:4-6)

The world is getting to be a very hostile place for people of faith so we better start appreciating the Jesus in each other. Imagine thanking God for a brother or sister in the Lord, not for what they have done, but because Jesus saved them. Do you ever marvel at God's grace in a person's life instead of looking at what they used to be?

I have heard mature Christians respond in such positive ways when gossipy people have tried to bring up someone's past: "Did you know this Mrs. White used to ____________?" Response: "The emphasis is on the "used to ". What a wonderful trophy of God's grace she is now, all praise to Jesus." It is amazing how quickly a mature Christian can chase those spirits right out of the room with a wise response.

I have always said there are a lot of bullies in the Church, who try to make themselves feel good by pushing people down. But we don't have time for that in the Church, never did. We need to come back together as a family as the world heats up against us. We need to appreciate the one Spirit we were born from, the one Lord who is our head, the one grace that sustains and empowers all of us. It doesn't matter what we have been forgiven because we all have been forgiven more than we deserved.

We are family and in the months to come we are going to discover the value of our spiritual family. May that day start today. "I thank my God always for you..."

Satan Knows How To Destroy You

The enemy of your soul wishes to destroy you today. He won't be in your face about it but instead will use the natural weakness of your flesh against you. He will initiate something that you will continue with and he is good enough at it to make you think it is God's will. Consider Eve.

Eve's big mistake was answering the serpent but she did handle herself well. When you read this passage realize that Eve responded to the serpent's twisted truth in the same manner as Jesus did, with the exact words of God. But little did Eve know that by continuing to entertain the serpent she had already started down the slippery slope. I am sure the serpent had studied Eve and knew that her weakness was her curiosity which he worked on to overcome her obedience to God. All Satan had to do was nudge Eve's curiosity enough to get her to look at the fruit, then Eve did the rest. This is what Satan did to King David.

Often we consider David's biggest sin was his sexual sin with Bathsheba which led to the murder of her husband but there was another sin that resulted in the death of thousands of innocent people. It started off with Satan:

Satan decided to cause trouble for Israel by making David think it was a good idea to find out how many people there were in Israel and Judah. (1 Chronicles 21:1)

It is only natural that a king would want to know the strength of his army. All it took was a little nudge from Satan to push David in that direction. But God had ordered from long ago that Israel was never to take a census of its strength. The reason is a simple one: the strength of the army was never what the king of Israel was to rely upon. His true strength was found in his relationship with God, who is the defender of Israel. David did wrong and thousands of people paid the price.

Satan hasn't changed. He still uses his little bag of dirty tricks because they still work. He is very good at separating us from dependence on God. He is very good at working on our weaknesses. He is very good at nudging us in the direction of relying on our "armies" instead of God, and it keeps us weak. He does it in such a way that we think it is normal, natural. After all, it is only natural that we would keep a census of our wealth. It would be crazy not to. How else would we know what we need to pay our bills?

Yet Jesus told us to have nothing to do with fear or worry. He said not to chase after the values of this world as the people of this world do. In other words, we do not conduct business with the same set of values as the world; we have Kingdom values. We do not use the same wisdom or approach; we have God's wisdom. Whatever we have that comes from this world we give it away so we can receive Kingdom riches. We rejoice when we look weak in our finances and health because God is about to glorify himself in our weakness. We are a crazy bunch according to the principles and practices of this world, and that is what Satan wants to prevent. He does not want us discovering the Kingdom principles. He does not want Jesus to be our strength.
 
It comes down to this one basic truth: Your strength is found in your relationship with God. Anything else is a lie and will end up being your death. You will die on the riches of this world. Your bank account will be a dry twig and when you lean on it, it will snap. Your health is like the mist, a strong breeze will blow it away. Your family will be scattered with one simple crisis. The only true strength you have is Jesus Christ and that strength preserves finances, health and family. Without him you have nothing and you are nothing.

If the enemy of your soul comes whispering today rebuke him with the Word of God and press in to Jesus.

My body and mind may fail,
    but you are my strength
    and my choice forever. (Psalm 73:26)

We Are Family And That Means Something

I have ten children and it is not very hard to tell they are related. Some of them have the same features yet they are clearly distinct from each other. It is strange, some are short and some are tall. Some are blonde and some are not. Some are bulky and some are thin. Some are dense and rather heavy to pick up yet others are as light as a feather. Some laugh easily and others are a little more withdrawn. Some are soft spoken and others are as loud as a freight train. Still, it is easy to tell they are from the same family.

My children share many of the same experiences. They have memories that tie them together. The vocabulary they use is similar. Some of their mannerisms are common between them. They share many of the same likes and dislikes. But the thing that ties them all together is their name. They are tied together by the same name due to their common parentage. It is the same with you and me.

You and I belong to the same family. We may live on opposites sides of this planet, come from different races and nationalities, have different likes and dislikes and we probably don't look anywhere near the same, but we are still family. In fact, you and I have the same experience in common that changed how we look and act, our nationalities and race. We are no longer identified by anything from this world because we belong to God's family; we have common parentage:

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. (Ephesians 3:14-15)

I don't need to know anything else about you; tell me you are Christian, a follower of Jesus and you are already precious to me. You are family to me. That is suppose to mean something between me and you. It means we have a privileged obligation to love and support each other. I have a responsibility to encourage you as you have that same responsibility to me. Sometimes we forget when we allow the system of this world to rule over us, but the Bible makes it clear:

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. (1 Corinthians 12:12-13)

It doesn't matter where we go in this world, if we are in the company of Christians we should always feel welcomed and at home. It is the same if someone joins with us, we should always make them feel welcomed and at home because they are our brother and sister.

Maybe the practices of our congregations are a bit different,  it doesn't matter. What matters is that we have the same Father, we are under the same King and we were birthed in the same Spirit. We have the experience of the cross in common and we are all clothed with the same spiritual garments. Gone are the nationalities, races, colour of the skin, different languages, all borders are erased. The only national pride we feel is that of the Father's love. All ties to this world are cut and our identity is only found in Jesus Christ. This is quite the family we belong to and we have much to celebrate together.

A Mistake We Make In This Modern Age Of Parenting - We Forget What It Is To Be A Teen

This may seem a little off beat from my usual blog but a verse really grabbed me the other day as I was doing my daily reading. It struck me because in this modern age of communication we have greater access to people's thoughts and communications than at any other time in history. We get to hear things that in the past we would have no access too:

Do not pay attention to every word people say, 
   or you may hear your servant cursing you— 
for you know in your heart    that many times you yourself have cursed others. (Ecclesiastes 7:21-22)

When I read this I actually read it like:

"Do not pay attention to every word your children say,
or you may hear your children cursing you -
for you know in your heart
that many times you yourself have cursed your parents."

Think about that for a minute. When we were young our parents didn't have access to our FaceBook and they weren't able to check up on our histories to see our conversations. Imagine what may have resulted if they had heard some of the private conversation we had with our friends. We all have frustrating days, especially children who have to deal with the inconsistencies of their parents. As parents we try our best to be consistent but there are days when we are overwhelmed, distracted, stressed and we are less than our ideal desire as a parent. Our children don't have the maturity to understand this and or what we are dealing with. All they see is that last week we said that and now we are saying this.

You know our tendency to complain as adults but do you also remember that we were complainers as kids? Who did we complain to? Our friends of course. On the way to school, at school, on the way home, at the neighbourhood hang out, we voiced our complaints, opinions and desires about our parents. It was not always kind but it helped to vent our frustrations. But we didn't stay there in that place of immaturity; we grew up, matured and came to appreciate our parents for everything they did and put up with and we never stopped loving them, even in the midst of the complaints.

Fast forward to today, the age of social networking and parent policing. In our desire to protect our children from the evil that is in this world, from people who would want to harm them, we have access to the conversations they have with their friends. It is like our parents riding the school bus with us or listening in at the neighbourhood hang out. We have an unprecedented access to their complaints, opinions and thoughts which are sometimes about us. It is not abnormal the things that they say but we take it personally. All I can say is, imagine if our parents had heard us, yet we turned out to love and respect  our parents.

Children, teens, youth need to have some space to vent, even if they are off the wall wrong about what they are saying. I have made the mistake too many times to count, not understanding that fine line of protecting them from evil and allowing them some freedom to express their frustration. The only thing it accomplished was causing my children to take a step further away from me. Instead of looking at the natural need to vent frustration, I wanted to correct their perception. Not the wisest thing to do in the midst of venting. Now I hear Solomon's words:

Do not pay attention to every word people say, 
   or you may hear your servant cursing you— 
for you know in your heart 
   that many times you yourself have cursed others.

We still need access to their FaceBook and we still need to check their conversations but we need to apply a filter so we are only looking for the really dangerous stuff. We need to get a thick skin, filter out the complaints and venting with their friends and allow them that time of awkwardness while moving from child to adult. Some of the things they say may be unjustified and may even sting but remember what you said about your parents and let it go. If you have been training them in the way of the Lord it will all even out when they are adults.