Daily Devotions
Marriage and Family
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.
Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road,
when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy 6:4-7)
What is the 'curriculum of life' that we need to learn and pass on to our children?
The answer is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your might.' That is the curriculum.
It all centers around the fact that God is the beginning of life.
A devotion introduction for April
The family is the oldest institution known to man. It is coexistent with the human race, and predates by considerable time the other great institutions of humanity — human government, the school, and the church.
There seems to be no question in the minds of thoughtful biblical observers of the present-day scene that the Devil has launched an all-out campaign to destroy family life.
Home used to be a place where you hang your hat.
Now it has become a place where you hang your head! Even in Christian homes unhappy conditions prevail.
Often a spirit of anarchy and rebellion enters the home and there is fighting and shouting and physical attack.
The atmosphere is often one of nervous tension, or, at best, an armed truce.
All of this, we must recognize, is part of a Satanic strategy, a deliberately planned attack to destroy what has been one of the bulwarks of morality, religion, and faith — the atmosphere of the home.
An attack like this calls for an intelligent counter-attack.
We cannot sit supinely by and allow our homes to be destroyed, as they certainly will be unless there is a counter-attack.
But we must also recognize that the weapons we employ must not be the weapons of the world.
The Apostle Paul writes, The weapons of our warfare are not carnal,
(2 Corinthians 10:4a KJV).
They are not fleshly, they are not the usual means the world employs, but they are
mighty through God unto the pulling down of strongholds, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ,
(2 Corinthians 10:4b-5 KJV).
We wrestle not against flesh and blood. It is not by these means we shall win, not by the usual methods of the world — psychiatric counseling, police supervision, new legislation — these things have their place but they are not the weapons that will win this battle.
No, this calls for a return to the wisdom of God and an understanding of his principles for the home.
If we come back to these we shall discover weapons of mighty power that can counteract the strong forces that are at work to undermine and destroy our homes.
