Good morning! Over the past three days Apostle Paul walked us through what it looks like to live a new life in Christ. Today we will read Apostle Paul’s instructions for the Christian household.

Bible verse – Colossians 3:18-21 NLT

“¹⁸ Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord.

¹⁹ Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.

²⁰ Children, always obey your parents, for this pleases the Lord. ²¹ Fathers, do not aggravate your children, or they will become discouraged.”

Reflection

These verses remind us of our relationship with the Lord and how important it is to allow our relationship with the Lord to overflow in our marriages, raising our children and building our families.

What stands out to me this morning are three lines:

• As fitting to those who belong to the Lord
• Never treat them harshly
• This pleases the Lord

Apostle Paul was careful in the way he presented this information. Each item that he listed connected to the relationship we have with the Lord. It is not self-seeking, abusive or harmful – it pleases the Lord.

When you consider how to treat your spouse or how your spouse should treat you have you shown them a godly example or a world example?

Sisters and brothers, these verses speak for themselves. However there are a few things that we can do to help our relationships at home. Here are just a few:

• Pray for your spouse daily.
• Pray for your child(ren) daily.
• Pray for God to give you the strength, wisdom and guidance to be the spouse and/or parent that represents Christ in conversations, with discipline/structure for your child(ren)
• Pray and ask God to let generational family disfunction to stop with you.

Prayer

Father God, thank you for this guidance. Not only do we want to be a great representative of you in the world, but we also want to be a great representative of you in our households. Lord, help us to be fully aware of who you are in our lives. Help us to lead our children and others in our household by example. Don’t let us live on words alone, but help us to live by it and put it into action through love. Lord, we need you and our families need you too. Lord, strengthen marriages today. Lord, rebuild broken marriages and increase healthy conversations. Improve conversations with the right tone of communication and with words that are true but with hints of love and honey. Lord, restore trust and love. Lord, strengthen parents as they raise their kids. Lord, help parents who have become teachers, after-school childcare providers and more due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Lord, we pray for those parents who are preparing their kids to return to school, those who are balancing work and others who are seeking childcare. Lord, give them the peace of mind that they need and help parents find safe childcare for their children. Lord, protect children from abuse and conditions that are creating harm in the home and keep them when they are away from home. Lord, give children the mental peace and protections that they need. Lord, build and heal families around the world. Restore, renew, and structure the family as you see fit. Help us to do our parts as Christians to be a reflection of a godly family here on earth – not just in pictures, but in everything. In Jesus name, amen.

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