FAMILY

In a most strategically placed position in God's perfect plan is the Family. What better plan for enlarging the Kingdom of Heaven than reproducing after your own kind, the fruit of God fearing and loving parents, generation after generation as we wait for Jesus to return. Well, look around, it is easy to see that since the fall of man, God's plan is not exactly being adhered to by a great multitude. The consequence of sin is all around us.

"And God blessed them and God said unto them Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Genesis 1:28

i came from a family of 5, plus a Nonni and Nonno 2 doors down. There was Mom, Dad, my brother John and my sister Lauri. i had an atheist Dad, a Catholic Mom and us three kids that just wanted to be kids, soaking up our environment like sponges. My mom and dad reproduced after their own kind. We had alcoholism, violence, anger, sexual immorality, divorce, dishonesty, you name it. We looked like the world around us. We grew up in the generation of the cocktail hour and dads that go to work early and come home late. Moms that took Valium, prescribed by thousands of doctors to thousands of moms across the country, to "steady their nerves" while taking care of us kids. We were lost. Mom and Dad had no personal relationship with Jesus so we kids did not either. i do not know where our family tree ever served God, because going back there is historical evidence of alcoholism, divorce, adultery, violence. The same things we saw in our family. So going into adulthood, we were pretty messed up.

"Even so every good tree bringeth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit." Matthew 7:17

By God's great love, mercy and grace upon my life and heart, i made it from the family i was born into to where i am today. Today i have a personal relationship with God, and my mom sister and nephew do too. Dad and brother are still lost and i am praying for God to work in their lives.

Family is family, whether it be the one you were brought up in or the body of Christ. They all come with challenges. The challenges to fit in, grow, share and love still exist, except with a God perspective, i am changed. God knows what he is doing and if we listen to him we can know exactly what he is doing in our lives.

i have been in Florida for a year and a half now. This family is different for me in that it has a man of God as the Spiritual Father as our head and who has Jesus as his head. Like Paul was to Timothy and so many others, like Jesus was to Mary and Martha. God intended the family to have a Spiritual head to nurture, teach, reproof, rebuke and guide them into the Truth of God for themselves. Now, as in any family, not everyone will get it at the same time or the same way, not everyone will take advantage of all the Father has to offer. But as Jesus teaches, i have learned, love is all that 1 Corinthians 13 teaches and more (past blog). Love is unconditional on my part. i am to Love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, body, mind and strength, and love my neighbor as myself. No exceptions. Love covers and never harms. Please Lord make me more like you. Amen.

"But i would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man and the head of Christ is God." 1 Corinthians 11:3

i hope that each one has a family with a earthly spiritual father that can lead them deeper into Gods truth, to a genuine relationship with Jesus, and the assurance that when Jesus comes for his church He will find faith in us, he will find us without spot or blemish, walking in holiness and righteous repentance. To live this life with Jesus in us, with God's perspective, with our view on eternity, changes everything. Amen.

"Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created , that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by and for him:
And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; And, through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him. I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard , and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; I Paul am made a minister." Colossians 1:12-23