“Whoever hears these teachings of mine and does not OBEY them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. It rained hard, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house. And it fell with a loud crash.” Matt. 7:26-27Obedience to the Lord's commands in Matthew 5-7 is key to bringing about spiritual transformation in your own life and that of your family. The Lord has literally laid out a road map that starts with you and spreads to the rest of your family!
Today I'd like to share my own testimony of how through a focused practical obedience to God's word through the strength of Christ, the Lord rescued and transformed my personal walk with Him, my marriage and my relationship with my teens/young adults.
I've been reading Matthew 1-7 over and over this month. My focus this last couple of days has been on Matt. 5:3 and 4--recognizing our spiritual poverty and mourning over our personal areas of sin. You simply can't make any progress in your spiritual walk unless you start there. If you aren't there right now--go back and start over. Everything else the Lord commands requires a realistic appraisal of our spiritual condition. Spiritual pride will blind us to clearly understanding the rest of Matt. 5-7.
The 'big picture' of the first 3rd of Matthew 1-7 is the Lord Jesus coming to earth as King. Chapters 1-4 set the stage covering his birth, prophetic support, his herald (John the Baptist), his arrival on the scene, baptism, temptation, and affirmation as God's beloved son. Next, Jesus calls his disciples and demonstrates his deity by ministering to the crowds who flock to him like hungry sheep do. His compassionate healing of all their needs has got their complete attention. It's time for his first sermon and it's addressed to all who have gathered.
What follows is the most powerful and life changing sermon one could ever hear. Instead of lowering the standard, he raises it. He challenges them to follow not the 'letter of the law' only, but the heart of it.
The message of Matt. 5-7 is that it's not enough to not knowingly break one of God's commands, we have to obey and embrace them with our whole hearts and follow them from the depths of our soul! It's not about earning our salvation, but about how to be happy and share that happiness with your family.
Happiness is contagious--Righteous indignation is not.
For example, we are challenged not only to not murder, but to not even be angry with our brothers (husbands, children, friends, neighbors). In other words, if you want to be 'happy', you have to die to your rights in this world and your love of anything in this world, and instead set your heart on things above. Why do we get angry? Because there is something we want so much, we're willing to kill to get it, keep it or protect it. Even if it's a 'good' thing like righteous living or stopping bad behavior--, if we're willing to react in anger or become bitter, it's possible our children or spouse and their behaving properly have become an idol in our life. That's what happened to me. Anger leads to hate which leads to murder. Jesus considers all these actions equally sinful.
Of course we can't live up to this standard. Only Jesus can. But that doesn't let us off the hook.
What I have learned and experienced in this last couple of years is that when you have the attitude described in Matthew 5, considering yourself spiritually bankrupt in your natural self, daily mourning over sin, willing to give up all your rights, willing to suffer without retaliation, making peace instead of conflict, showing mercy to everyone regardless of whether you think they deserve it or not, you will find genuine happiness and peace. It's about letting go rather than clinging to this earthly life and everything in it.
Be Careful About Criticizing Others7 “Don’t judge others, and God will not judge you. 2 If you judge others, you will be judged the same way you judge them. God will treat you the same way you treat others.3 “Why do you notice the small piece of dust that is in your friend’s eye, but you don’t notice the big piece of wood that is in your own? 4 Why do you say to your friend, ‘Let me take that piece of dust out of your eye’? Look at yourself first! You still have that big piece of wood in your own eye. 5 You are a hypocrite! First, take the wood out of your own eye. Then you will see clearly to get the dust out of your friend’s eye. Matthew 7:1-5
That attitude of complete abandonment to God and complete dependence on Christ, moment by moment (not week by week mind you), will change your life! Our focus is not to be on others sinful condition or spiritual condition, but on our own.
As we do that, the love and genuine virtue that results from Christ living His perfect life through us, causes His light to shine through us.. and those we love are drawn to Christ.
If you want to see your family complete transformed, it's time to get your focus in the right place--on your own sinfulness and on your own walk with Christ.
Let your light so shine that they may see your good actions and glorify your Father which is in heaven! Matt. 5:16
No where did the Lord command us to correct, judge, or manipulate our family into spiritual growth or a relationship with Christ. We win them all without a word, not by correction or manipulation but by our personal, peaceful, godly and submissive behavior towards the Lord and our spouses! We will win not just our husbands but our children and neighbors. They will see something in you that they want.
If what you have--your attitude, actions and words, is not appealing--not joyful, peaceful, quiet, meek, gracious--they will simply reject you and all you stand for. It is indirect influence of a life joyfully and peacefully focused on Christ that will advertise better than anything you can say or do.
Leave your family in God's hands. He's far more capable of bringing them to Him than you are.
But if you really want to help bring healing and reconciliation to your family, pray pray pray and stay focused on your own personal walk. Keep your eyes off of your family. He will not fail them.
So how do you walk out relationships in the meantime? Matthew 5-7 is a road map. Make things right with those in your home you have offended. Turn the other cheek. Live humbly. Love. Forgive. Be quiet. Seek the Lord and don't worry. Leave everything to Him. Be patient. Change will not happen overnight but it will come. I should know. I've been there and I've seen dramatic change and healing because for the first time in 30 years I quit trying to 'help' God and focusing on my family members' sins and instead focused on my own.
I became a genuine disciple of the Lord and trusted God to draw my family to Him in His own timing.
I was shocked and at times overwhelmingly grieved to discover that the log was actually in my eye. I thought it was a splinter but it wasn't. I thought my spouse was the problem. It wasn't. It was me.
I was the self righteous woman who tore down her house with her own hands. But there is hope! God can restored the years the cankerworm has eaten. He will give you beauty for ashes and the oil of joy for mourning. He will make you and your family trees of righteousness--the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified. (Not you but Him.)
Now my message to my family, if I ever see them struggle with sin and they ASK me for advice is, "If God can help an incredibly sinful woman like me, he can help you too! Go to Jesus--he will help you. Pray. Read. Mediate. Obey." My transformation (completely fueled by God's word working powerfully in my life) inspired my family. Most of the time I didn't know it was happening. Two years have passed since I saw the depths of my spiritual poverty for the first time. Only recently have some family members told me that the dramatic change in my heart, attitude, words, and everyday choices had affected them profoundly.
My focus for over two years has been on obeying every single bible verse that convicts me. One painstaking verse at a time, I have focused on a lesson a day. I call it my 'assignment' from the Lord for the day. Andrew Murray calls it enrolling in the 'school of obedience'.
Abiding in Christ every single day is the key. Looking in the mirror of the Word and asking the Lord to show me my sin and not moving from that verse till I had practical victory in that area, has caused me to grow dramatically.
I still blow it in many ways, but I keep walking with Jesus daily, keep repenting, keep reading and meditating and praying. I know that apart from the vine I will never bear fruit.
I know fruit doesn't grow overnight. I am never too busy to spend time with the Lord because the Lord and his Word are my lifeline. Frankly, I'm afraid to even try to wing it. My own peace and joy, and the healing of my family are more important to me than any hobby, job, or entertainment out there. They are dung in comparison to the priority of our family's spiritual health--starting with my own.
The last passage of Matthew 5-7 is key. Refusing to focus on practical obedience to God's word is the number one reason your family life will continue to struggle. The Lord knows best how we can be happy and how we can be the catalyst for change in our home. Focus on Matthew 5 first. If you get the beatitudes right, your light will shine! Your whole family will be drawn to the Lord as a result. If you get it wrong, they will be repulsed by you and the gospel you are representing.
“Whoever hears these teachings of mine and obeys them is like a wise man who built his house on rock. It rained hard, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house. But it did not fall because it was built on rock. Matthew 7:24,25
The Lord loves you and your family but before you can see transformation in your home, at least one of you will have to get extremely serious with the Lord about their personal walk with Him.
We are so busy pointing out the specks in their eyes that we never see the sin in our own lives. If you will use that 'discernment' into others lives to pray and intercede instead of talk and manipulate, then the Lord can work. He just needs us to get out of the way and believe that He will answer our prayers for our loved ones.
We also need to 'make straight paths' for the Lord to come to those we love. That means we need to remove the personal hills of pride and the depths of sin from our own lives by God's power and obedience to His word. Then our friends and family will be able to see Jesus clearly and desire to know Him and obey him.
A voice is calling, "Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. "Let every valley be lifted up, And every mountain and hill be made low; And let the rough ground become a plain, And the rugged terrain a broad valley; Isaiah 40:3-4
The Lord showed me that I was the one blocking the Lord from working in the lives of my family. I was truly a terrible advertisement for Jesus! But thank the Lord, He showed me and He humbled me. I cannot even describe how humiliating it was. Personal failure stripped me of my unrecognized spiritual pride.
The Lord promises to protect and establish your home on a rock, if you will obey his words--not agree with them, read them, or teach them etc. Only as we OBEY the Word will we establish our life and home on the rock of Christ. Only by abiding in Christ and by letting his Word abide in us will this change take place.
Dear Lord,
My heart aches for those who are going through what I did this last 30 years. But if You can rescue me and my family, and just one person's spiritual transformation, you can do it for theirs too. I almost ruined my marriage and damaged our family members' walk with Christ and their own future marriages by my self-righteousness. But You rescued us all by your sovereign intervention--letting me fall on my face--which was the first step to restoration. Thank you!
I pray you do the same for every woman or man reading this. May they humble themselves before you and quit trying to fix their family members. Instead, I pray they will allow the Holy Spirit to work in their families' lives. Give them the faith to entrust their spouses and family members to Your faithful care. May they fall in love with You and be in your Word every day. Help them to not only hear your words but obey them and live them out. Help them to obey when they don't feel they can.
Protect them from false teachers, the lies of the enemy and the destructiveness of their own 'gut instincts'. We cannot trust our own intuition but only your Word. Your ways are not our ways.
Heal the hurting hearts who read this today I pray Lord. Help them to know the depths and magnitude of Your unchanging love for those who mourn over their sin and the contrite of heart.
Fill my readers with faith that what you have promised in Matthew 7:24-25 will come to pass! Give them peace that passes understanding.
In your precious and mighty Name I pray.
Amen
