Relationship Matters: Family Purpose
This week’s post is meant to help us prepare to move out of the way and allow God to sanctify us in our homes. It is our prayer that you will be edified and equipped. We also ask that you share our posts with others, tweet, repost, email them to your friends, or just tell someone about them. Enjoy the read!
Read & Meditate
Acts 16:32-34: And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.
Read & Meditate
The family unit is intended to add to and strengthen our lives and life’s mission. With Christ and Christ in us, we are to spur each other on to experience a refreshed and an optimistic sense of a purpose-driven life. The family unit lives with an appreciation for friendships and should be packaged with assurances to fulfill the great commission as stated in Matthew 28:19-20. Jesus gave all of us this mission to grow into Christ-likeness and go to the lost and fallen world. It is understood that we are worthy and selected to continue the work that Jesus started in the world. Jesus could not think of anyone more deserving of the chance to share the possibilities of God’s grace and love. If we had an important goal or task to complete, wouldn’t we assign it to the most qualified people? Our family and church should get energized and excited about every day waking up to serve God and serve people, we don’t have to, we get to! We are to speak the word of the Lord as the disciples did, as stated in Acts, in our household, so that we can get stronger in sharing it outside.
We have been assigned the great commission as stated, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you….”, Matthew 28:19-20. Are you taking time to teach obedience? If we are going to accomplish this mission, we must set smaller personal, relationship, and household goals. This serves as a continuous progression towards becoming a people and family that live on purpose. Deciding to put the smartphones away at 8:00 pm or turning the TV off to pray together and discover the layers within each person in our homes are just a few ways we move closer to a purpose-driven life. We must focus this year on setting goals and then get busy making the small choices to help us accomplish the goals. As a reminder, we set these goals out of relationship motives, not religious intentions.
An extraordinarily high percentage of successful people have a clear idea of what they want to accomplish and work diligently towards getting it done. Successful people end up helping others, even if they did not intend to help, and they learn how to be better. Simply stated, they set goals and then work towards them, improving themselves and their ideas as they go. Our daily habits are the activities that drive our outcomes and help us obtain the things we want in life. As an example, when we choose to get on the treadmill versus going to bed, or sleeping a little longer, we make a conscious, or in many cases, an unconscious, long-lasting choice that will impact us until we move on from this life. These choices help us form who we are and will be the difference between failing and succeeding. The simple hundreds of choices we make every day in every area of our lives are what will drive outcomes.
Respond and Implement
1) What relationship goals do you have in your household? Are your goals focused on God?
2) Does everyone understand the goals, and can they repeat them if you asked them to?
Grace and Peace Be With You