Psalm 127:1-5

Our families are important to God.  He created the family and He cares for the family because He desires that the family be a means of bringing glory to Himself and revealing His glory to others.  Our churches, institutions and our society in general rise and fall with the families that compose them.  God must be the central person of the family and the central purpose of the family.  Satan is working very hard to destroy the family because he knows how dangerous the family is to his evil schemes.  The Lord loves the family and serves the family because He know how vital the family is to His purpose of giving people from all nations the privilege of worshiping Him.

GOD BUILDS OUR FAMILIES THROUGH CHRIST: All of us want our children to be men and women of strong character.  However, all of the members of our families, adults and children, have a character that is fallen and corrupted by sin.  We have no way to build true character in the lives of our families apart from God.  All of our labors to teach our children, all of our efforts to protect our children and all of the work we put in to provide for our families are in vain apart from the work of God.  The transformation of character is a supernatural work that only God can do.  We, through our own efforts, may be able to modify external behavior but only God is able to transform our hearts.  That is why the priority of every family must be the salvation of each member.  When God builds a family He begins by redeeming the members of that family from sin through a personal relationship with Himself based of the work of Christ on the cross.  The Spirit of God moves in our hearts that we might trust Christ and then transforms our hearts so that we might become like Christ.


GOD BLESSES OUR FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN: From the very beginning God blessed families with children and purposed to populate the earth through the propagation of children.  Men are created in the image of God and He desires that His image be spread throughout the entire world.  Tragically, sin has tarnished that image so that much mankind is now reflecting a distorted and destructive image of God.  That is why God sent Christ to die for us so that His image could be restored in us and we might glorify Him.  God calls children a blessing and an inheritance because He desires to redeem these children and then use these children to spread His glory through all the earth.  God uses the illustration of arrows when He speaks of children.  We must recognize that, as believers, we are participants in a war for the hearts of men.  One of most effective weapons that we have to be able to wage war are our children.  Unfortunately, so many parents are self-centered that they view children as interruptions and treat them as inconveniences in their lives.  On the other extreme many parents worship their children, have their identities wrapped up in their children and use their children for the purpose of promoting their own happiness.  We must remember that children are blessings but that children are also arrows.  Christian families ought to fill their homes with children, sharpen those children with the Word of God and then shoot those children out into the nations that they might spread the fame of Christ and raise up worshipers around the globe for the glory of God.   

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