Family Matters

17 June 2007 – Family Matters

Colossians 3:18-21

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord.

Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.

Children, always obey your parents, for this pleases the Lord.

Fathers, do not aggravate your children, or they will become discouraged.

It is common to know a saying of idiom: “Like father like son”. I bet you know the meaning of this idiom; the children will have become the shadow of his parents when the children grew up, not only in terms the outward appearance, but inward personality. As a result, the main emphasis today is that Family is Important for all of us in building our personalities!

Children learnt from their parents, as the time that a kid spent with is with their parents. So, the majority of character was built up during their early years of lifetime, it has an old Chinese sayings that ‘an attitude built up from 3 years old will be determined for the rest of his 80 years (三岁定八十)’. God really take a family important than anything else after Him, if a person loves the family, they will have good relationship with each other and it ends up with harmony and happiness.

God also emphasized in the Ten Commandments that we should honor our parents, so that we may live long in our lands (Exodus 20). People may not have all own a family to have children, but we are all the children of our parents, God knew this point very well, so He make the move from the children. God has make family so important that He said that salvation will come from family member when one of them has saved:

Acts 16:31

“Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, along with everyone in your household.”

As a result, for everyone who wanted to devote themselves to God’s work, we should first work out with the family matters first, as it will become a hinder of God’s anointing, in no doubt. So, God tells us that a wife should honor and devoted to his husband, husband should love his wife; Children should obey their parents! Did you get the point? Family is significant! So, relationship does not work in one way, it must cooperate in two ways, as children obey their parents, parents should also be understanding that they shouldn’t provoke their children, but to encourage them, build their confidence, so that they won’t be discouraged.

Franco