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Marriage Alive!! Heaven Ministries Newsletter Keeping Families Together |
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Articles What
Can Families do To Keep The Light Lit? 2. Know What You Want For Yourself and Loved ones 3. Put More Importance On Your Roles and Responsibilities 4. Never Stop Searching For The Truth In All Things
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Christian Families Bring Light Into The World
But from where do these standards and beliefs come from? How far is someone willing to go to live their life? Hearts of despair and heaviness are everywhere. The decay and rot of society around us exist because of the gradual transformation of family values running their own course outside of the "God established design". The simple Truth is, God's plan is the only one that works! It is the only design that brings Hope, Love, Peace and Forgiveness. This life and what people base their life upon is only temporary. Jesus Christ is for eternity. Wavering hearts where beliefs derive themselves from uncertainty conform to what they see and hear. Societal pressures have overwhelmed the burdened soul into spiritual bankruptcy. Anytime we do something that we know to be wrong or that is against conscience we are in opposition of the will of God and in opposition of who we really are. God has already spoken and what He says does not
waver, for it has been established. What has been and is now created
within the design of God, such as the many degenerate societal changes
that have taken place cannot be labeled to be a part of God. When parts of a society or culture implement their own design into God's design, the light dims and chaos transpires. Because of weakness, there are those who conform to the ways of these new changes. Weakness derives itself from lack of knowledge and unacceptability of Jesus Christ. Knowledge gives us the capabilities to understand and accept our Savior. Without that knowledge we can only lip serve and pretend. Pretend to be something that we are not! Conforming to this new design that is not established by God, causes confusion and imbalance where many families today melt under the ill informed influence. Also, those who take out part of God's precepts to fit into their own agenda and beliefs cause more confusion and chaos for those who are searching for Truth. When the Christian veers from Truth with the
majority, or does not follow his conscience because of lack of
spirituality it does not justify in God's eyes any special leniency
into eternal life. Nor does simply employing self made ideas into
God's design to make it "seem" as though it is part of God's
plan.
Fads, fashion, movies, TV, art, sciences, medicine,
technology; etc; do change. They are all things that we can use for
the good in God's design. When we use these things out of the context
of God's design and make up our own standards of living with them, we
fall from God's plan. Here are just a few example. Abortion is so easy and cheap, women can continue getting pregnant, killing their babies and living in their sin, hating themselves more and more each time. (There are many loving families who can not have children who would absolutely love to adopt a child and make them their own.) 3. Much of what we do in life and who we are derives from what we think in our mind. If our mind tells us that we like the same sex then we invariably mold ourselves more into that situation. Sexual depravity is becoming one with our thoughts and then acting upon those thoughts because of spiritual weakness. No one is born with this weakness. It becomes apparent only when the realization of it's presence exists. At one time or another we're all spiritually weak in some ways
until we realize that the blood of Jesus has actually saved us from
that weakness. If we never come to that realization of this Truth, or
realize the presence of Jesus in our lives, our weakness will become a
belief and will feed off our weakness until it is a conviction. We
will actually believe that sinning in this way is okay and that there
is no other way and so we will remain in that sin. This
weakness of the mind is labeled homosexuality and lesbianism. The Christian family established under the blood of Jesus Christ does not adhere to the culturally made standards for living, but uses the resources given to them in a manner consistent with the morals and precepts set in scripture. Because of a believers faith, they are not tempted to sin in this way. God has set certain standards in His design for families and marriage that cannot be changed without compromising certain values. If we value the chastity of marriage, then it would certainly go against our Christian standards to commit adultery, wouldn't it? Traditional Christian families retain the mores and values that still exist today in society. Without the family structure establishing godly beliefs, opinions and examples and by retaining those already established, society inevitably would fall even quicker. Christian families are the light of the world. This being so true, families and marriages under the umbrella of Christ have an obligation to honor and obey the precepts set forth in scripture and to retain the family structure under the plan designed for them by God, no matter how anyone else may be living. Justification for our actions does not come from the majority, remember that!
Have you ever made a snowball? You keep rolling it in the snow, over and over again and the snowball gets bigger and bigger? The depravity in the world that is upon us is a snowball. It keeps growing and growing. But this does not mean that we need to conform to the standards of it. This way of living melts away when the weather warms up while a new way soon establishes itself within society. The snowball keeps growing because it has established its own way and design for living. Marriage and family ever-so-fast is falling apart because of the snowball affect of feminism, Lesbianism, homosexuality, religion, pride, selfishness, war, sexual depravity, drugs, hatred and bitterness. But this is not about God or following to do what God wants. This is following the uninformed individuals and groups stuck in the snowball. Some of us think we know how to run our family life
and marriage. Maybe some of us do, but have you ever asked yourself if
you were doing the right thing for your family, or been displeased
with a decision or had regrets? When was the last time you asked God
for guidance when you felt unsure? |
What Can Families Do To Keep The Light Lit? Get out of the snowball! Stop conforming to the ways of the world and the standards it lives by!
We get so caught up in our daily lives that we forget about God and what God wants for us. We follow the wayward crowd and soon enough we become one with the crowd instead of one with God. We humble ourselves to strangers, but can not do the same to the loving God--our Creator! Quit straddling the fence and figure out what you believe in and then live it! If you really believe that all that you are doing in your life is the right way to live, and your conscience never bothers you, then you shouldn't be reading this newsletter. But if you feel unhappy, angry, unsure... We know what our friends and family want, and we know what society wants for us, but does that make our decisions right ones? What does God want? If we do not follow the perfect design that was created for us, pretty soon we are doing what everyone else is doing--getting rapt up in the cultural whims of society and not even realizing it. It could be that some of the choices we make for our marriage and family go against our very nature, yet, we sacrifice and justify those choices to continue feeding the ego. What if we do not believe in something to be right, but do it any way? Obviously we are not living to fulfill our purpose the way God intended, but the way WE intend to fulfill it! Self-serving fulfillment is only temporary and does not satisfy our needs and purpose. God does not care about our ego in that sense. Of course He does want us to love ourselves and love others, but choosing to follow Him, even if others around us are against it. Christian families who strive to follow the straight and narrow path in their lives make sacrifices everyday. But these sacrifices are not the kind that make us feel empty or lonely or unloved inside. Just the opposite. Learning to do what's right and following through with those beliefs is what gives us the purpose and contentment we have been looking for all along. What else is there? Know What You Want God has given each and every one of us a gift. This gift is a means to reach our purpose and commitments in life that normally we might leave unattended because of fear or just not knowing that we have been given such a gift.
When you identify your own gift (and this list is far from complete), ask yourself how you can use your gift to build up your self and family. Put More Importance On Your Position And Self Through the understanding of self and realizing what your purpose and role is in your family life, we can begin to base our beliefs upon these things. When we have something of value to base our feelings and actions upon we become better people for our self, family and others. When we are not sure about our position and purpose for life that is when we conform to outside circumstances. This only means that we are not sure of ourselves and what we want. If we truly know that God loves us no matter what we have done in the past, we will in fact begin building a new ego based on His love. This is the satisfaction that Christian's feel when they are following Christ's example. Isn't that what Christian's are supposed to do anyway--follow the path of Jesus Christ - to Jesus Christ - for Jesus Christ? Ask yourself when not sure about something, would Jesus do this / believe this? Yes, it is true, the road is narrow that leads to eternal life, but there is room for you, if you will follow. Why wait? The fence is not very high, and we can be on either side and blend in with everybody else. But God knows our heart, and we surely know our conscience. Living as though God doesn't see or know the bad things we do is being extremely careless, not only with yourself, but for those little eyes who look up to you in your home as a role model. So remembering that God values each and everyone of us the same no matter where we are at in life or what we are doing, gives us more of a reason to follow His example. For who else can love us, with all our faults and failings, but Him who created us and KNOWS US! Know that you are an important person and that someone needs you. The duties and responsibilities that you undertake in your position should be carried out with the peace of knowing that you are trying to follow the example of Jesus Christ and that He is your guide. For example, cooking a meal for your family should be looked upon with more importance then some of us have stamped it with. If these duties make us feel useless, unwanted and unloved, think again. Preparing a nutritious meal for your family is a wonderful responsibility that should be taken with more importance. As wives and mothers we should want to please our family with good and nourishing food for the body and do it with a joyful heart. Just think, it is because of your due diligence in the kitchen that your family is healthy and happy in heart and stomach. Why, if it weren't for wives and moms preparing meals everyday, the family would eat TV dinners and soda pop for dinner. The balancing act is staying on track to the realization of who we are and living our purpose by sustaining our beliefs, values and standards in the design that God set out for us. We can not waver on what our conscience tells us because we feel something is easier, or just because the crowd is doing it, or because we think we'll have more friends, etc. Once we stay firm and stand on our real beliefs we realize that the past is washed away with the old person. This happens when we realize with conviction what it is we want for ourselves and family. We may lose friends, but only to gain better friends. We may lose entertainment we thought was fun at the time only to find out that the old way of entertaining ourselves really wasn't all that fun after all! By placing God first in our plans our purpose and goals for life become worth living. Responsibilities and duties we undertake seem more worthy and permanent. We feel more important and useful being who we are. This means we do do not feel the need to follow societies standards anymore for self fulfillment. Through Jesus Christ we already are fulfilled! The more that we follow God's lead the more we value who we are. It is not that we do not know what is right and wrong, but that we do not place enough value on what is right. We do not place a grain of salt upon our beliefs to carry out righteousness to the extent of it becoming a conviction. But that's the problem. Everything that Jesus did for us helps us to see the truth and the light. It is then that we transform into who we are and what God intended for us to become. Beliefs, when based upon the wisdom of scripture and the love of Jesus Christ sustains the Christian, and helps him to attain goals for his family In essence we must become real and stop playing around in the snowball and adjusting to the culture of today's society. We need to nurture our beliefs and make them come alive into our everyday lives, by being who we are. We do this by accepting Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and then praying for His love and guidance to lead our heart in all affairs in our lives.
Let Your Light Shine Before Men. That They May See Your Good Deeds And Praise Your Father In Heaven. Matthew 5:16
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