We all know that's true. And we all long to live in such a home. Yet time and again, we shortchange our families. We spend our kindest words and our most winning smiles on those beyond our front door. Despite our best intentions, we fall prey to temptation, to selfishness, and impatience at home more often than anywhere else.
Have you ever wondered why?
The answer is simpler than you may suspect. Spiritually speaking, your family is under attack. You see, it is not only one of your most precious gifts, when it's operating in harmony, it's one of your most powerful resources. Satan knows that, even if you don't.
And he's out to destroy it.
His battle plan is simple. He will do everything he can to create strife in your home. He'll stir up feelings of self-pity and jealousy. He'll encourage you to nurse resentments and harbor bitterness. And through it all, his purpose remains the same: to divide and destroy your home.
Why is he so terrified of your family living in harmony? Look at Matthew and you'll see. There Jesus says,
Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.When God's people get in harmony with each other, miracles start to happen. Their agreement creates an atmosphere in which God's supernatural, miracle-working power is free to flow!
(Matt. 18:19,20 KJV)
Extremely Dangerous Business
So Satan is constantly tempting us to spoil that atmosphere, to foul things up by being at odds with each other. And all too often we fall prey to his tactics simply because we don't realize just how dangerous strife really is. One close look at the Word of God will solve that problem, however. It says in no uncertain terms that strife is extremely dangerous business.
Second Timothy 2:26, for example, says that those who are in strife are taken captive by Satan at his will. James 3:16 (KJV) says where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
That's how many Christian families are destroyed. They allow themselves the "luxury" of a few quarrels, a few disagreements without realizing they're offering Satan an open door into their home. And before they know it, he's tearing their lives apart.
How can you stop the destruction before it starts? Anchor yourself to God's Word. Find out what He has to say about the power of agreement. Stop looking at your marriage from your own limited human perspective and start seeing it as God sees it. That way you won't drift helplessly into an argument every time a gust of emotion blows through your home.
One Flesh
According to the Word of God, marriage is not an arrangement based on convenience or on emotion. It's a covenant between two people, each promising to give himself to the other in life and even in death if need be. It is so serious and so sacred that the New Testament frequently compares the relationship of the husband and wife to the relationship between Jesus and the Church.
Of the relationship between Christ and the Church, Ephesians 5:30 (KJV) says, "For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." And of the relationship between a man and his wife, Matthew 19:5 (KJV) says, "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh."
Just as the Church has been joined with Jesus in spirit to actually become His Body on the earth, so marriage partners are joined spiritually and physically to become "one flesh." The two relationships are so similar that one version of the Bible says that by rightly discerning the Body of Christ, you rightly discern the marriage union.
Are you beginning to see how powerful God intended the marriage relationship to be?
You don't have to be the victim of your circumstances! You don't have to sit around and let the devil steal your kids or your health or your money. If you'll just get in agreement and pray, you can run him right out of those areas of your life.
Eagle Mountain International Church, Inc.
aka: Kenneth Copeland Ministries