09/14/2023
*AUTHORITY AND POWER TO TAKE OVER AND TAKE CHARGE*
Part 1024 Discipleship .
How much on earth are you investing to win the whole world but not investing for the salvation of members of your household and family? Don’t you know that, the first church to build or disciple is your family? If you make your home a solid spiritual base, you will go far. If you fail to make your household into disciples, you have no foundation. Your wife should be your number one disciple that respect, obey, submit and follow you. Your children not opened to the change of being wild and disobedient but see that they obey you with proper respect. If not you are not qualified to be a Spiritual Leader or Shepherd of Gods flock.
Make a tree good and its fruit will be good. Your godly life as members of your home should preach to others to imitate. Are the members of your household always joyful, loving, friendly, welcoming and hospitable? Does your home give life to others? Are the members of your home living examples for others to imitate?
If you cannot manage your family well or direct members of your home, in the ways of the Lord how can you take care or direct the affairs of God’s church? 1Tim 3:4-5.
What are the things you do for them to see the love of God in you that makes them follow you and become disciples of Christ? Do you only preach to them but your light does not shine to make them smile. You don’t take care of your parents and uplift your sibblings or the poor, orphans or widows in your family and the family of your spouse? Who are you committed to take from grass to grace? Who have you taken the responsibility to educate?
Married women have a big role to play in disciplining the family members. If you fail to make your wife disciple they will not effectively do their duty to make others disciples.
How can you win your family members and disciple them when you are stingy and selfish? When you do not cooperate with them, and you are blind to their needs? How can they believe when they see faults in you that bring shame to the ministry. There is power in giving. For God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 2 Cor 9:7-8 .
If anyone fails to provide for his relatives, and especially for those of his own family, he has disowned the faith [by failing to accompany it with fruits] and is worse than an unbeliever [who performs his obligation in these matters]. 1 Timothy 5:8
Many believing wives attitudes is a disgrace to the advancement of the kingdom of God in the hearts of men. It keeps first the partner away from Christ. Is your character that which draws your spouse or family members to Christ or send them away? How can someone desire to follow you when they do not see anything good in you? If you change your attitude towards them and build relationships you will win them to Christ and they will hear your message and will follow you.
If you love your family you will labor to make them into disciples who will also make disciples. And the chain continues from generation to generation.
As Jesus concluded His time upon the earth, He left us with numerous commands. But the one we consider as “great” is, “Therefore, go and make disciples…” (Matthew 28:19). It is the task of every Christian individually and collectively as the church.
As we travel through the entirety of the Bible, examples are everywhere of discipleship. If you take a trip through history, the same shows up. When the church is at its best, we are making disciples.
There are numerous Biblical examples of how we can lead one another in the family to be spiritually healthy and reproducing disciples. Let me show you a few from the New Testament.
The women of Timothy’s family
Paul wrote two letters to Timothy on how to serve as a pastor. In one letter, the great Apostle highlighted the impact of our family in discipleship. He wrote, “I recall your sincere faith that was alive first in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I am sure is in you” (2 Timothy 1:5, NET). The first place we can look for discipleship to occur is in the home.
The values that you have will be passed on to your children; and to your grandchildren. It is not too much to highlight the critical work of discipling our children according to the Scriptures. Parents are first and foremost disciple-makers of their children. It is our one great work in all of lives that we can joyfully apply to our homes.
When we succeed in building our families, we make a better world. Family is a unit. Some in the past have called it an institution, an institution in the sense of school, government, a business. It has all of those functions. Family as a unit is first and foremost designed to pass on values so that children can take their place in society as contributing adults.
And the idea is that our children will have children who will undertake the same role. They w
