Whenever there is stress in society, the first thing to be affected is the family. The family is the most important institution on planet Earth. The most important person in our lives is God Himself, and the first institution God created was not the government, not the school, not even the church.
The family is also the first community, the key to national success, and God’s ideal institution. That means the family is really the cure for all of our social ills, all of our psychological challenges, all of our emotional problems, and all of our spiritual ills.
Why is the Family Important?
The entrance of Jesus Christ into planet Earth was through a family. God refused to come to Earth as an angel. He refused to drop from the sky like Topsy. He made sure that He established the importance, value, priority, and the necessity of the family. He Himself, the One who created the universe, the One who spanned 500 million galaxies and created over 50 billion planets that they have counted so far, decided to come to a planet through a family.
Jesus grew not in a monastery, not in a convent, not isolated in some foreign place. He grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man in a family. And that is what God intended for you and me.
Your family is your history and your future. If you have an in-house maid or someone working in your garden, the Bible says they are considered a part of your family. If anyone is looking after your children during the day, they are not just an employee. According to God, they are family. That means they should not teach your kids what you do not teach your kids. They should not use words in your home that you do not use. This is why it is important to be careful who you allow under your roof, because they are supposed to be family.
Definition of the family
In the context of Scripture, the family is a dwelling created as a result of marriage between a male and female who become parents that produce or adopt children, committed to parental care and nurturing of the same, to reproduce themselves in character, values, and convictions through love and discipline.
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A) Reasons Why We Lost the Family
1) The ideal is replaced by the ordeal
We have taken away the ideal family structure and definition, and because of the ordeals we have gone through, we attempt to reduce the ideal to the ordeal.
Never teach the ideal as the ordeal. We have fallen so far from the standard of God’s definition of family that we try to drag God’s definition down to our experience, and we try to make God adapt to our situation, rather than teaching our children that even though my marriage did not work, I am divorced, or I am a single parent, this is not God’s will.
It is important to tell your children, “There is no father in this house; this is not God’s will for you. When you grow up, do not become a single mom or dad, but marry and stay married. Have a husband or a wife.”
2) We water down God’s standards
Never lower the standard to fit the circumstances because your marriage did not work, or because you had a child out of wedlock. You let your children know that your mistake is not God’s standard. Do not allow yourself to drag God’s standard down to your circumstances.
You are supposed to take your circumstances and lift them up to God’s standard. Compromise of the ideal devalues the original. You will notice that mothers and fathers who have children out of wedlock often raise children who also have children out of wedlock.
If you have a child out of wedlock and your daughter also has a child out of wedlock, you cannot say much to her unless you have been teaching her about the ordeal and the ideal. This is why it becomes difficult to correct your children when you have not pointed them to the standard.
God is not angry at the mistake you made. He just does not want you to teach it as truth.
3) Failure to teach the truth
If God forgives you, make sure it is clear that you tell everybody, including your friends, “What I did is not normal. This is not God’s standard.”
We talk about the single-parent family. Is there really such a thing? We have accepted that, but that is not what God created in the garden. Even though it sounds nice, do not teach it as the ideal. Your predicament is not God’s purpose—it is your predicament.
The Bible says God places the lonely in families. If you are a lonely single parent, God says, “I want to place you in a family.” That is why God becomes the Father to the fatherless.
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4) Supporting same-sex relationships
There was a time a ship came to the Bahamas with lesbians and homosexual families. Their children did not look like them because they had to borrow or adopt those children. How can two men be a family with a girl child?
In the United States, several states have legally ordained marriage between people of the same sex. That means when they come to your house, it is Mr. Miles and Mr. Miles. Which one is the wife?
There is no alternative to God’s ideal. If you want to have relations with the same sex, say that. But do not try to sanctify it or give it credibility by making it equal to husband and wife.
5) The family is the foundational unit for the reproduction of children
The family is the only qualified unit and the prototype of society. If you want to know what a nation looks like, look at the families. Society is only as strong as the family. When the family deteriorates, the nation deteriorates, because society is a reflection of the family. Therefore, the purpose of the family is to secure society.
6) The sanctity of the family is the bedrock of human survival
Suppose everybody were lesbian and everybody was homosexual. There would be no reproduction. I am not attacking your choice, but do not try to make your choice natural. Natural comes from the word nature.
You have the power of choice, but do not attempt to destroy the family by trying to sanctify and give credibility to your choice by making it equal to nature. Nature will always be right. Family is the key.
7) The family is not a product of the state
The government does not create families. Yet, we now have governments defining family. We have Supreme Courts defining what God already defined.
As a matter of fact, the family produced the state. Everyone in government came from a family. Therefore, the family precedes the government. We are not supposed to be controlled by the government as families.
When the state tells you how to discipline your child, there is a problem. We had a friend who lived in America. She was a Bahamian, and in her city, they passed a law saying you cannot punish your child. Her child behaved rudely for quite some time.
So, she decided to visit her family in the Bahamas. When she landed at the airport, she pulled out a paddle in front of immigration and disciplined that child a few times.
I am against child abuse. My mother and father raised 11 of us in Bain Town. Thank God for the rod and the staff that comforted us. When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I thank God for the reminders that helped tame us into sensibility.
They knocked foolishness out of our minds, and all my siblings are now safe and excellent citizens of our country. Thank God for good discipline.
My mother used to say, “It is not going to hurt you more than it hurts me.” No, it hurt me more than it hurt you. What she meant was, “I have to do this because if I do not do it now, the prison system will do it later.”
Prison is simply a big house where the parent is the state, trying to do what parents should have done 40 years earlier for those children.
If you do not correct your children now, the state may correct them later in prison.
8) The family is the first form of society
The family is the premier type of society. The family is a reflection of the condition of the nation, and society is only as strong as the family. Therefore, the family institution is a product of natural law.
The family is not a product of government, legislation, social science, or religion. It existed before religion, and therefore, it is the greatest protection from crisis.
The family is not taught in the Bible merely as a principle. God made Adam. God made Eve. They came together and produced a child. You do not get to redefine that. Nature defines it.
A male dog and a female dog come together and produce puppies. Nature defines it. Family produces the state, and therefore, it is not under the legal custody of the state.
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9) The dissolution of the family is the dissolution of the state
When you unravel the family, you unravel the whole country. Every social, mental, psychological, moral, and emotional problem can be traced back to the family.
Jesus healed a man who lived among the tombs and was possessed by demons. When Jesus found this man living in the graveyard, the question is: where was his family? You can’t be insane unless your family abandons you. In other words, his psychological problems were because he was abandoned by his family or he left them. There are some folks who walk around saying, I don’t need my family. Oh, yes, you do. And we try to walk away from family as if we don’t need them.
Mark 5:18: “As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged him to go with Him.”
Jesus did not let him go. Instead, He said, “Go home to your family.” He was restoring a citizen to productivity. He sent him back to the family, not to social services.
You are as safe as your family. That is why it is important to strengthen the family, because the family is the safety mechanism for society.
My parents had 11 children. We made a decision that none of us would ever run into a problem that the others could not help with. That means no one in our families would ever become destitute, poor, or beg. Poverty is often a sign that there is no family support.
Your crisis will test whether you are truly in a family. If you lose your job, where do you run? Who helps you pay your light bill, your water bill, or find food for your children? If you have no family, you are in trouble.
Exodus 12 says that each man was to take a lamb for his household and family.
1 Timothy 5:8: “If anyone does not provide for his family, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and has become worse than an unbeliever.”
10) God said if you do not provide for your family, you are an unbeliever
This is God’s will for us. The word husband is made up of two words: “house” and “bond,”—that which bonds the house together. A husband is not just a male, but the bond of the house.
The husband is supposed to be like the glue that holds everybody and everything together. This is why a single parent struggles so much, because there is no glue in that environment.
When those children turn 16 and start backtalking and rebelling, many parents cry out, “Please God, help me with this child before I lose control.”
I pray that every single woman finds a good husband—someone with sanity in his mind, sensibility in his head, a good spiritual life, and the ability to provide.
The father in the home is the source. The house is like a business. The man is the president. The wife is the vice president. The children are the board members.
When you make a decision as a man, you should consult the vice president. If it is going to affect the whole family, you call a board meeting. Do not make decisions simply because you are the man of the house.
You cannot just decide what to do with the house mortgage. I have seen men refinance a house without telling their wives, and the business failed. That is bad business management.
11) Management of the home is the greatest test of leadership
The male is the foundation of the family.
Malachi says, “I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. He will turn the hearts of the children back to the fathers and the hearts of the fathers back to the children, lest I strike the land with a curse.”
God is saying, “I have to restore the foundation.”
Ephesians 6:4: “Fathers, do not exasperate or provoke your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”
Most men allow women to discipline the children, but God says fathers should discipline and train the children. If there is no man in the home, then you need to connect to a good male figure who represents God in your life and can help guide that child.
When you look at a train, people usually see the long line on the track. But the actual train is the engine in front. Everything else is attached to it. The only way the consists can follow the train is by being connected to it.
As a father, you do not merely point your children in the right direction; you lead them in the right direction. Wherever you go, they go. If it is a house full of drinking, smoking, or immoral living, they are all connected to you.
Do not ever tell your children, “Do not do what I do.” Make sure you are on the right track yourself.
12) The family needs national investment
Governments invest in many things, but families also need investment. I want to encourage every country to develop a family desk in the cabinet—a cabinet ministry focused on the family alone.
The family needs investment and attention. There should be systems set up, not just in schools, but nationally, where families can receive help, training, and support.
Your family is not always only those you were born with, but also those who have become a dwelling place of support for you. Young people in our countries cannot find a family, so they create one called a gang. We have to rescue them and bring them back to their families.
The Bible calls the church the family of God. God loves family.
May God give us good families, in Jesus’ name.
Inspired by Myles Munroe Sermon
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