Spirit Filled; Family – 230325

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Spirit Filled - Family

We have a human family at home & a Church family

Am I qualified. Who is? Anyone here lives in a family that is marked for being filled by the Holy Spirit?..........Actually, all joking apart, yes we are, all of us who have been born again in the Holy Spirit carry Him within us, and imperfect as we are, He makes us better than we would be without Him, He is always encouraging us, not only spotlighting when we sin, but encouraging to go again, to be better next time.

Derek Prince quotes: It's Quicker to repent,than to apologise.

Biblical families:

Adam and Eves boys, Cain and Abel, Lot and his daughters in Genesis? Jacob and Esau?

Maybe Jacobs’ boys and how they treated their brother Joseph?

Even when we look at what little we know about Jesus’ family life at home with His parents, just about the only thing we learn is how He went AWOL for a period of time, at the age of twelve, driving His human parents to distraction with worry!

Jesus however is very encouraging when He talks through the pages of scripture about for example the model of paternal love, in the parable of the Prodigal Son, showing us that we are the disobedient children who so easily get it badly wrong and things don’t go well but the Father is waiting for us to return to Him so He can again bless us with His love.

What then does a Holy Spirit filled family look like?

Give a few suggestions, then say that actually it looks like us, and reflects our relationship with the father. Disobedient children, loving parent. Firm for our own good.

Hosea. Unfaithful, but He is.

Paul in Ephesians says this:

Eph 6:1-2 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”

Eph 5:21 – 6:5

Instructions for Christian Households

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “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. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Lighthouse analogy:

Church family, What unites us is greater than that which divides us.

When we jump between churches we are not fully committing to the relationship. We are not all in. When we leave one church for another, we are getting a divorce, we are giving up on that relationship when the Lord Holy Spirit would want to be working through us to restore the fractures and the cracks. We live in a World where we are given multiple choices, it is referred to as the free World, which is an interesting way to describe a situation where we are not actually very good at all at making the right choices, but the Lord Holy Spirit wants to help us with that.

God gives Hosea instructions to marry an unfaithful woman and he obeys. His unfaithful wife Gomer leaves him and finds another man. Hosea is faithful; he finds her, redeems her and brings her back home to him.

Hosea paid with everything he had to buy back his unfaithful wife, and Father God paid with everything He had to buy back the bride of Christ, the Church.

In my own life, I was the Prodigal Son. Even though I was saved by Jesus when He called me through the Holy Spirit when I was in my teens. I made all the bad choices, exercising my so called freedom to make bad choices. Father God is a good, good father, He doesn’t change His mind.

The Parable of the Lost Son

Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing.So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ²⁷‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

If today you are that person, if you have played the field, done your own thing for too long, and maybe all your results were bad results, then Father God is saying to you now “Come back”

9 episodes

#Religion #From Gods #Bethel Elim Church #Christianity