New to home in him?
Have you ever thought:
“I do not expect much blessing from God because I’m not doing as well as I should spiritually.”
“Reading God’s Word is hard. It just seems dry and disconnected from the things I’m facing in life
We struggle to see how Jesus helps us overcome our differences...
Our marriage would be better if we each could just get better.
I am timid about sharing my love for God with my family.
My failures as a parent affect my joy in Christ
… if you have thoughts these thoughts and ones like them, you are not alone.
Each of these thoughts exposes our tendency to measure our joy in Christ with how well we perform for him or how good things are going for us at the moment. This kind of thinking is common. Certainly, we should want to obey God in all that we do. This is a good desire.
But what motivates that?
What happens when we fail?
There will always be struggles in this life. However, when the gospel shines brightest is when we see how our hope, peace, and yes—our joy—are not dependent on our performance or our circumstances.
You might think, “But I’m a Christian and I already know the gospel!
The gospel is not just what makes us Christians, it is also the way we grow as Christians.
But how does that work?
How does it help us grow?
That is what we want to help you and your family do. And why? Is it simply to be a strong family? Certainly, God wants our homes to be places of refuge, peace and joy. Jesus lived, died, and rose so that we could enjoy that. By itself, that’s not all. There’s greater purpose for our homes that is dependent upon our homes being that way.
Our homes have dynamic purpose in God’s work. Our homes are not cul-de-sacs but conduits of God’s love and mercy to a lost and dying world.
Our homes are critical ministry partners with the church.
People want an authentic faith. Not pie-in-the sky but a faith that really works in the trenches. There is perhaps no better place to see authentic faith than how we live in our own very struggling homes.
Our homes are authentic connections into the communities our churches are called to reach for Jesus Christ.
But again, it all begins with a rediscovery of the joy of the gospel; how we grow in it so we change and we live like the new creations we are In Christ.
