LOVE YOUR FAMILY NEXT

After filling your cup with LOVE, offer to your neighbors the same unconditional LOVE, forgiveness and reconciliation that you have received from God. Broaden intrapersonal to interpersonal. Help others to be soaked too.

²⁰ Remember this: Whoever brings back a sinner from the wrong way will be saving that sinner’s soul from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins. JAMES 5 tev

Christian churches usually equate soul-winning with taking the first available flight to one end of the earth. Please don’t do that. That is not how it works—especially if you don’t have the money.

God’s biggest challenge to each of us is to make LOVE work in our respective families. He prefers love-in-action to begin inside our own homes, in the family.

¹⁹ Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you. MARK 5

⁴ [The coworker of God] must manage his own family well. 1 TIMOTHY 3

⁴ [Children and grandchildren] should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. 1 TIMOTHY 5

Why family first? The logic is simple: Why go far in saving souls when there are souls that are wounded and dying right inside our homes?

Sad to say, many “coworkers of God” today are busybodies, helping to fix other people’s fences but neglecting their own. Isn’t it a tragic sight and a Christian contradiction? 

⁴ How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own eye. ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye. MATTHEW 7

“No other success can compensate for failure in the home,” declared David O. McKay, one of America’s greatest churchmen. “The relationship between society and family is like that between the human body and its cells. For the human body to function well, its cell structure must function well.” (Find Real Happiness, p. 53)

¹⁰ Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire. DEUTERONOMY 18

⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up… ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. DEUTERONOMY 6

Built-In Advantages. When it comes to saving our families, we have built-in advantages over the other coworkers of God. To begin with, the terrain is familiar to us. We know the weaknesses and strengths of each family member. We know the appropriate time to deal with each of them. We speak the family language. Inside our families are hearts that are readily available to hear us. We can identify them and focus the crusade on them first. After we win them, we can join forces with them in winning the rest of the family. The family member who resists love-in-action, if any, will not shoo us away because we are his own flesh and blood, a legitimate occupant of the house.

Speaking of resistance, it is likely when a seed or two of ill-will lingers between you and a family member. Y’shua said, “A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household” (Matthew 10:36). 

And how to deal with it? With the offensive remarks and actions that are thrown at your direction? Stand firm. Instead of being downhearted, accept it with gladness because it means Lucifer is trying to sidetrack you. Use the belligerence to mirror the rough edges in you and repair them.

¹ Follow the way of love. 1 CORINTHIANS 14 

¹⁵ At all times make it your aim to do good to one another and to all people. 1 THESSALONIANS 5

⁸ In Messiah Y’shua… the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. GALATIANS 5 

Words of LOVE might sound untrue but love-in-action cannot be denied. LOVE will remain an idle concept to the unbeliever, but once felt, it will melt every resistance there is. It will honor and exalt the God we profess to love. We will become most welcome to everyone.

¹⁸ We must not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 1 JOHN 3 

²⁶ Just as the body without the soul is dead, so faith without [righteous] deeds is dead. JAMES 2

Our families are meant to be our initiation and practice ground on LOVE. In the secular world before anyone becomes a full-fledged educator, doctor or banker, he is required to do “practicum.” In the spiritual realm, home is where practice makes perfect.  We experience the ups and downs of loving and mature into it. We save our families from the Second Death and win souls. We gain personal testimony and moral authority. The will of God is done on earth as it is in heaven.

Help transform your family into a God-loving family like to that of Joseph, Mary and Y’shua. It should be less difficult to win souls in it than elsewhere. 

Divine Vision.  Together let us visualize the neighborhood should everyone succeed in harmonizing his family in LOVE.

The entire neighborhood would be LOVE-infested and devil-free. Everyone would guard their thoughts, words and actions, not wanting to offend anyone, corrupt anyone, or prompt anyone to do wrong.

Nobody would have to face his problems alone. The bayanihan would come to his aid. God’s blessings would be shared in common. Covetousness, jealousy, “mining” (sense of ownership) and selfishness would be removed from everyone’s hearts.

Everyone would enter life. Nobody would be left behind; everyone would be restored. There would be no cause for sorrow. Immense joy, serenity and contentment would overflow. God’s LOVE would be made complete in us (1 John 4:12). There would be great celebration and merriment in the kingdom.