18/07/2022
SINGLE FOLD (FOR MARRIED AND SINGLES)
Date: Sunday July 17, 2022
TOPIC:
THE CHRISTIAN HOME
DEFINITION:
The Christian home is not just a building. It is an atmosphere, a place you are always eager to be. A home is a place where a family lives. The first home was a garden. This gives two impressions of a home:
1. A place to enjoy – beautiful, peaceful, welcoming
2. A place to tend and make beautiful
The most important element of the home, however, is not the building (how large or how beautiful it is), but the relationship existing between the people within. A foolish son is the calamity of his father: and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping (Proverbs 19:13). It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman and in a wide house (Proverbs 25:24). A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. Whosoever hideth her hideth the wind, and the ointment of his right hand, which betrayeth itself (Proverbs 27:15, 16).
The home can even be in the slums and gutters or can be the bus stop, provided it is a place where two people who love each other have agreed to live and raise a family they can equally love. And he said unto them, Take head, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth (Luke 12:15).
IMPORTANT OF THE HOME TO THE HUSBAND AND WIFE
1. A place of relaxation – for the men
2. A shield and an insulation from the world and its pressures – for the woman
3. A place of refreshing and strengthening – for both
4. A place of training for the children
FOUR (4) STEPS TO DEVELOPING A CHRISTIAN HOME
A happy balanced home is always the dream of brides and bridegrooms. However, many people never experience the joy and bliss they strive for when they decide to get married. A happy home does not just happen. It must be developed. Nothing happens by chance! It does not drop from the sky. Where no oxen are, the earth is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox (Proverbs 14:4)
1. Christ must be acknowledged as the foundation and head of the home: Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: He is like a man which built an house, and diggeth deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock (Luke 6:47-48).
When God is the focus of the couple, they draw closer to each other because their closeness to God draws them to each other (fig. 2). As a result of that, they end up having a happy home. When God is the focus of just one of them, they do not get closer (fig 3). In some cases, they neither grow apart not draw closer (fig 5) but their relationship is stale, and home is not a really happy one. In the case where both the husband and wife are following their own dreams, and they are not involving God in their lives (fig 5), the grow further and further apart and this leads to a broken home.
2. Apply biblical principles: (a) The Word of God is his manual for marriage (b) Build your marriage around the church. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteousness. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish (Psalm 1:1-6). Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: (Proverbs 24:3)
3. Develop family worship (a) Ensure that you either hold regular quiet times (devotions) together or when that is not possible, each of you does it regularly. But by all means find time once in a while to do it together (especially with the children). (b) Attend church services and be involved in church activities. While in church, husband and wife must sit together (c) Train children to know the importance of Sundays.
4. Think as a Christian spouse: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourself (Philippians 2:3 – NIV). (a) Married people must reconcile plans that they held individually before the marriage, to suit the home (b) Be willing to give up certain interests, plans and preferences for the sake of the home (c) Do not always insist on your own way, be ready to compromise
Pastor Akan Bassey
THE ONE-FOLD MINISTRY – NIGERIA
Topic: The Christian Home
