How your view of the Savior can affect your family

Here are a couple of big picture thoughts that we hope will be helpful to you to give large perspectives on your current situation, if you are struggling in your most important earthly relationships.

As you know, the core fallout from the Fall was alienation—terrible alienation not only between Adam and Eve, but also between man and God—and the Creator would have been a perfect spouse!  But even there we have problems!  How?  Well, we often want to avoid Him, don’t want to love Him on His terms, want to cover our sins and not fully declare them even in front of His perfect love toward us, etc.  All of this shows how very egregious this situation can be with a mere fellow human being in close relationships, most especially a marriage.  Only the Spirit of God can pull us out of alienation.  It is too deep-seated for mere human effort to accomplish it.  Conclusion: in our own strength we cannot do any significant relationship “right”—even when the other person is perfect.  So that’s our starting point :)

Secondly, often widely disparate things in reality are tightly connected spiritually and we sometimes don’t know it.  For example, it may very well be that the Almighty has his thumb on American economics while we continue to keep aborting babies . It might have been amazing to see the American government get out of debt and the economy make phenomenal profits years ago if we had stopped aborting babies—stopped ALL abortion—and cried out in repentance.  But we did not choose that route as a nation, and now we, as a people, are over the cliff in fiscal trouble, never to be repaired again.  Most citizens of western civilizations, however, haven’t a clue that these two realities (the moral life of the nation and the fiscal issue) may somehow be connected.

Something like this may be happening in your marriage (or whichever important relationship of yours is foundering).  God may not let that relationship advance until root issues are resolved.  He certainly did that with Moses when an angel impeded his way when he was returning to Egypt to set the People free, and with Balaam and his donkey when an angel halted him, too, in his way.  They were not allowed to advance until they dealt with some core issues.

If you are struggling relationship, consider whether a similar dynamic may be at work: the root of your relational problems may be in a place you do not now suspect.  If so, that key issue must be resolved before you can progress relationally.  One key issue is a spiritual one that is centered in who you say Yeshua (Jesus) is [that was His key question for His apostles and for others during His years of ministry] and in what place He is in your life.  If, in your daily life, you do not love and honor Him whom the Heavenly Father Himself loves, the Lord may not let up on your relational challenges.  This is a serious and very sobering state of affairs.

Have you rejected the Savior’s great mercy to you in shedding His blood?  Have you, through sinful actions and neglect of fellowship with Him and His people, presumed on His work of redemption in your life?  In Revelation it is clear that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Yeshua (Jesus) is Lord.   Until He is enthroned as Lord in your life, the earthly relationship that is most crucial to you may not improve, regardless of what human strength you throw at it.

It is important to realize that the Heavenly Father authorized His Son to be loved and honored by His creatures. The Father centered the locus of His own love there.  To say the least, it is displeasing to Him when His followers despise or ignore what He loves.  In the Gospel of John 10:30 it says that He and the Father are ONE.  He who has the Son has life.  Choose life today!

Maintaining any slight of Yeshua—wanting to do life without Him, displays arrogance toward Him.  Ignoring Him or shoving Him out of the controls of our life denies Him of glory.  Who knows: He may not fix your relationship until the heart of it is fixed.  Your very life may depend upon this overhaul.  Not only is this a huge issue, it is the only issue in life that ultimately matters.