Why raising your family is difficult work

challenge children family Feb 10, 2021

By Doug Snyder

“Family” is intended to reflect God on earth, namely in loving community. And this is why the Devil wants the family destroyed. 

Note, if marriage becomes outlawed, it will only be outlaws who have in-laws.

God is love. Love is other-centered. Love gives. 

A woman, struggling with her recent divorce, relayed how she remained loving under the stressed circumstances. My recent ex texted, “Sell the Mercedes and send the money. So I listed and sold it the same day for $100. I hope he’s happy.”

The fountainhead of generosity is God, who lavished His love on us. For God so loved the world that He gave… This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God is community. Think Trinity, three in one, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. God is forever community. Family is intended to reflect this community on earth.

Family begins, as God created, with love between a male and female. The Devil’s attempts to break it up and redefine it, is an attempt to defile what God has designed.

Just read that 4,153,237 people got married last year. Not to cause any trouble but shouldn't that be an even number?

And the two shall become one flesh.

Love between a husband and wife is twofold. Firstly, it is other centered and giving. Marriages disintegrate when “self” becomes predominant in one or both partners. 

In biblical love, individuality, while never lost, gives preference to one another. As love grows oneness grows with increasing measure through shared experiences, joys and challenges. Love’s constant refining, choosing “we” over “me,” is where our transformation occurs.

Jesus stated, “I and the Father are one.” The ultimate purpose of love is God likeness.

Secondly, the fruit of the husband and wife relationship is a child, the two becoming one flesh. What God creates, He gives seed to. Families are intended to be fruitful and multiply. 

I got a good laugh from local headlines years ago that read, “Manly man marries Fertile woman.”

Biblical Family is intended to be the foundational building block of every community, reflecting God, our Creator. It is also why the Devil is out to destroy it. Raising your family is indeed difficult work. 

Scripture Ref. Jn 3v16; 1 Jn4v7-10; 1 Jn3v1; Gen2v24; Mtt19v5; Jn 10v30



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