“Those two words should never go together (miserable and Christian), but more often than not, they do.”
I counsel people often that are miserable. These people are usually professing Christians. I used to be a miserable Christian. Those two words should never go together (miserable and Christian), but more often than not, they do.
I want to speak directly to those of us with children. They are watching every move we make and listening to every word we say. Every single day, our lives and our words are saying, “God is real, He is good and I trust Him completely.” Or… “God doesn’t care, He is not good and He is not trustworthy.”
“Our bodies take up a certain amount of space, but our attitudes fill the entire house.”
We can’t have it both ways. They hear our grumbling. They feel our moods. Our bodies take up a certain amount of space, but our attitudes fill the entire house.
“Miserable Christians do something with far greater consequences… they ruin their children in Jesus’ Name.”
Some people just simply ruin their kids. Miserable Christians do something with far greater consequences… they ruin their children in Jesus’ Name. For an unbeliever, misery shouldn’t come as a surprise. A kid living in a home with hopeless parents may someday hear about the hope of Jesus Christ and come to faith in Him. But a kid living in a home full of talk about Jesus without the love of Jesus, inoculates them against the real Jesus.
When we quote Bible verses, have them on our mugs and t-shirts and hanging on our walls, yet grumble about circumstances, worry about the future and fight with our spouses, we do a soul damage to our kids that should literally scare the hell out of us.
This was the catalyst for me personally to get up and run after God with everything in me. My children were small (thank God they don’t remember), and I was so religious that it makes me want to vomit thinking back on those days. I was forever trying to get my husband through the doors of the church, changing the radio to Christian music or sermons, and just generally trying to manipulate him all the time. I was constantly frustrated with him because he was the problem.
“Not one single person will stand before God on judgement day and be able to say, “It was their fault.””
Truth bomb…any time in the history of our lives we believe another person is our problem when we don’t have the power and presence of God in our lives, we are wrong, one hundred percent of the time.
We have personal access to the King of heaven 24/7, His Spirit living inside of our souls, and every promise in the Bible from the God who cannot lie. If I am miserable, it is my fault!
Not one single person will stand before God on judgement day and be able to say, “It was their fault.” We will stand before Him alone and give an account of why we lived as we did when Jesus paid for our salvation and according to 2 Peter 1:3:
His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
“Ruin our own lives if we want to but how dare we ruin the gifts God gave us.”
His divine power has given us everything we need. No exceptions! How do we get what we need? We get to know Him. Moms and Dads, we have no excuse. Ruin our own lives if we want to but how dare we ruin the gifts God gave us.
Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring.
Malachi 2:15
“We don’t get married so someone can fulfill us. If the Spirit of God can’t satisfy us, what in the world makes us think a human being can?”
We don’t get married so someone can fulfill us. If the Spirit of God can’t satisfy us, what in the world makes us think a human being can? Our self-centeredness has taken marriage and family to a whole new level of a mess. We think our spouses and kids are to make us happy. God means for us to be so full of Him that we become “one” with our spouses on such a level that our kids see us and in seeing us, see the beautiful mystery of Christ and the church lived out through mom and dad.
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Ephesian 5:31-33
When we live in love like that, our kids will naturally want what the world can never fake for duplicate…the presence of The Living God. The opportunity we have to impact our kids inside the four walls of our house is beyond comprehension. That’s exactly why God puts so much emphasis on family.
“No one can fix a shattered life or marriage but God.”
If your marriage is in shambles and this blog has devastated you, good. Devastation will usually come before liberation. No one can fix a shattered life or marriage but God. Those two words are two of the most powerful words on the planet. But. God.
“There is no greater power on earth than a human filled with the Presence of the God of heaven.”
Your marriage may be dead, “but God” can take dry bones and bring them to life. Therefore, He can also take a dead marriage and bring it to life. Believe it or not, it only takes one person to get up and get to God to save a family. Through the person who becomes a vessel of God’s Spirit, He will do what He wants to in everyone else. There is no greater power on earth than a human filled with the Presence of the God of heaven.
Excuses are just that, excuses. We have one life to live and we don’t get a do over.
I got up from a dead marriage and went to God.
After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.”
Nehemiah 4:14
“What are you afraid of? Whatever it is, it is not as frightening as facing the Living God at the end of your life after you have ruined your family.”
What are you afraid of? Whatever it is, it is not as frightening as facing the Living God at the end of your life after you have ruined your family. I could face a lot of mistakes, but I could not face God knowing I was the reason my three children rejected Him and went to hell.
Even though I was afraid of God and afraid of His Presence, I became more afraid of the damage I was going to do to my children if I didn’t get His power and His Presence.
The Lord is great and awesome. He wants to be great and awesome inside of us and inside of our homes. There is only one reason we will not get to God in this life.
We don’t want to!
There is no other reason. Period. Anything else we say is not a reason, it’s an excuse.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13
