The Lay of the Land (5): The Right Foundation

When you start building house on the wrong foundation and figure it out in the process, you don’t finish it that way. It is difficult and sets back the work but it is better than having a house that won’t last.

I don’t know who would say they would settle for multigenerational unfaithfulness but that is what is happening in the church of today. If we have been doing things in a way that can’t bring multigenerational faithfulness then will we do the work to bring a change?

Deuteronomy 6 gives a non-sophisticated blueprint. Anyone can do it. First you have to live it and then you can give it. Living God’s way and teaching God’s way every moment we live is simple yet it takes intent and commitment.

What has our commitment? It is frustrating to look back and know that we may have lost ground. Gather everyone together and call the past what it was and start laying the right foundation. Get into the fight and ask for help when you need it. Lay it all before the Father and let him guide you. Live it and give it.

The Lay of the Land (4): Give up or Get in?

(WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS STRONG STATEMENTS AND HARD QUESTIONS TO INVOKE CRITICAL CONSIDERATION OF THE ISSUES THEREIN.)

Whether you agree with the author or not about marriage, it is interesting that dating is starting earlier in the lives of young people and marriage ends up being later. Dating/courtship, whichever you choose, are precursors to marriage. If they are not precursors for marriage then they are precursors for fornication.

After a life well lived, what is the most rewarding memory? Is it the trips that were taken while single? Is it the traveling, freedom, etc? Rather, is it the 25, 30...50 years of commitment and faithfulness that were experienced with the wife of God’s favor.

Would you agree that we live in an anti-marriage culture? Do you think it is better to marry young? Why?

Overall there is a difference between China and America. In China the government says that you can have one child. In America the dream is that we can have two. It sounds like in both societies humanism is the victor. God said to multiply and fill the earth. Humanism says that we can’t because there is not enough food, water, land, etc. to handle the overpopulation that would occur. I am not sure we could overcome God’s power in creation with overpopulation. There is not doubt in scripture that God desired for his creation to be filled with His image.

Possibly parenting is an abhorrence because our culture has become more selfish. It is absolutely selfless to invest your life in another. Children are a blank slate. They bear our sinful nature yet they can be crushed by abuse or blessed by value, direction, purpose, and hope.

Mohler’s statement about rebellion against parenthood is a fulfillment of the rebellion against God and his design.

I can’t begin to consider which of my children I would give up for luxury, travel, automobiles, homes, etc. It is the most challenging and fulfilling journey that I could have ever imagined. The rewards of the investment has been unbelievable and I am just in the middle of the journey.

God is the one who opens and closes the womb. Birth-control is man’s way of preventing pregnancy. Do you think God’s people are even asking Him about the family HE dreamed for them or simply settling for what the cultural norm is?

How is it that people who profess Christ become skeptics and even critics of those who seek to “be fruitful and multiply?”

Whether God leads you to have 10 or 1, the question is where is your life’s most important investment? Why did you have 1 or even 10? What are you doing with your 1, 3, 5, 7, or 10 kids? Are you investing?

Do we give up and coast along with the culture or do we get into the life that God desires for us and live it to the fullest?