Well, a total different blog today from the passage above. On my heart today is families - in a major way. Not just because of the new message we start on September 20 on building great families. Families are on my mind and heart because I know the tremendous battle being waged against the family today. My prayer is the the things written below will encourage you heart today. Would you read Matthew 6:33 today and 1 Corinthians 10:31. How does God uses these verses to speak to your heart and mind? For me, I have written below....For years we have been in a values vacuum. We've been in a permissive society where basically, out of the 60s, anything goes and now we're reaping the results. Every 30 seconds there is a divorce in America. Every fourth child born in America is born to an unwed mother. AIDS is an epidemic. Everybody says we need to get back to family values but nobody is defining them. William Bennett recently said in a speech, "It's now politically correct to believe in family values, but it's not politically correct to get specific about them." Because then, all of a sudden, you start dividing people up. Newsweek was right on with their cover a couple of years ago "Whose Values?" Whose family values? -- because there are a lot of different kinds of families. When you look on television whose family values are you going to follow? the Simpsons? the Cosbys? the Waltons? People say, "We've got to get back to traditional family values. You've got to go back a whole lot further than Ozzie and Harriet to get to that.
Thousands of years ago God gave 10 values for family living, God's Big Ten. They're called The Ten Commandments. These are not values that are fads that are going to last only as long as the presidential campaign. These are values that last for a long, long time. In fact, they are the bedrock of western civilization. They are the foundation on which our entire judicial and law system has been built. The Ten Commandments are about the only thing that Jews, Moslems and Christians will agree on. All three religions accept the Ten Commandments as the commandments from God.
Why did God give the Ten Commandments? He gave them not to hurt us but to help us. Not to hamper us but to release us. Not to punish us but to protect us. When I tell a child, "Don't touch the hot stove" am I doing that for their good or for my good? I'm doing it for theirs. Every time God says, "Don't" in the Bible it's always for a positive purpose. Always. The negatives that God gives are always for your own benefit. If you ignore them, they are to your own hurt.
God has lined up the universe by universal laws. There are certain physical laws that the universe operates by like the law of gravity. If you ignore it you only hurt yourself. You have to cooperate with it. If you jump out a ten story window, and you ignore the law of gravity, you don't break God's laws they break you. Likewise there are spiritual laws. God says these are tracks by which to run on.
They are not the ten suggestions; they are the Ten Commandments. They're not optional. God says, you do these things and things will go fine in your life. If you don't do them, you're going to really mess up. Psychiatrists now are saying in the 60s when there were no boundaries and everybody grew up during that time, do whatever you want to, they're saying we need boundaries for emotional and mental health. We need parameters for people and children who grow up without boundaries grow up being extremely insecure. We have an extremely insecure generation in the baby boomers. We need to know what's right and what's wrong -- what are the parameters in life.
What's the principle? Put God first. In my life and in my family. God says, I demand top priority in your life. I'm not going to play second fiddle to anything. He deserves to be number one in your life because He made you. If He hadn't made you, you wouldn't even be around. Everything you have in life is from God because He's given it to you. He's allowed you to have it.
What does it mean to "have no other gods before Me"? No other gods? I thought there was only one God. There is. The word "gods" is written with a small "g". He's not talking about "the God"; He's talking about little gods.
What is a god? A god is anything that dominates your life, anything that controls your life. Can a career be a god? You bet it can. Can another person be a god? Yes. Can golf be a god? Even good things that God has created for us to enjoy, become gods when you give them first place in your life. God says, "Wrong. I deserve first place in your life." This is the foundation -- put God first.
Today, in America, families are dropping like flies. They're falling apart faster than we can put them together. Why are so many marriages crumbling? Because they're built on the wrong foundation. It doesn't matter how much money you put into it it's not going to last unless it's built on the right foundation. What's the right foundation? God and His word.
Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says, "Never forget these commands that I am giving you. Teach them to your children." He says two things: remember them and teach them. Do your kids know the Ten Commandments? How many of you would say, I try to live by the Ten Commandments? What if I said, name them. How can you live by them if you can't name them?
SO WHAT? (what will I do with what I have written today?)
Lord, help me be the man of God you would have me be in my home and in my marriage and in my relationship with my kids. Lord, I commit to You to put You first above all else in my life today and Lord, help me now - everyday.
I love You Lord. I am owe you everything. Lord, watch over Drew has I drop him off at school today. Protect his heart and mind. Protect his purity. Walk with him and birth within him a new heart everyday to be Your man. And Lord, fill the hole in my heart that will be there when drew is at school.
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