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Matters of Faith

Difficult home issues can run rampant within the Christian household if allowed to do so. It is important to protect yourself and your family from these destructive devices.

Every Christian home will have its times of struggles, temptations, betrayals, non-compliance, bad behaviours, addictions, and what have you. This is quite normal for the believer’s home life because Satan is hard at work, making sure he has done his part in breaking up the family unit.

Many Christian families experience various hardships, difficulties, and challenges on a daily basis and find it hard to pull out of them or have the victory over them, chiselling away at the peace and joy they so desire to have as a Christian.

Some of these concerns within your family unit may have deeper ramifications than what might appear on the surface of the issue itself. Difficult issues can have devastating affects on every member of your family, including outside of it as well. 

What makes these issues so difficult?

The world has so much to offer in terms of things we can gain, do, or become in life that it also brings about temptations for sinning and for allowing or creating evil situations and consequences to happen to us. At times though, we endure pain and trials because God has allowed them to come into our lives as a way of testing our faith as well.

God’s Word speaks on this subject and gives us instruction on how to view and react to them whenever they present themselves in our lives. We are to expect that there will be hard things to come into our lives. Consider these verses when dealing with difficult issues in your home:

James 1:2-4 reminds us, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect, and entire, wanting nothing.”

1 Peter 4:12-19 says, “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part He is evil spoken of; but on your part He is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men’s matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf. For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?”

2 Corinthians 11:3 says, “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”

Matthew 4:1 reports, “Then was Jesus let up of the Spirit to be tempted of the devil.”

Matthew 10:21-22 says, “And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for My name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.”

Luke 12:51-53 gives an account from Jesus, “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

So basically, we cannot escape some of these issues that plague our families, but to root out what is harmful and wrong, not allowing evil elements to penetrate our home life, and to accept and endure those trials and tribulations that the Lord gives us to strengthen our faith and to put our trust in Him.

Solutions for difficult issues

These challenges can bring the family unit clear down to a halt! But you cannot allow these issues, nor Satan’s influence, to get the upper hand; otherwise, you take the chance on giving up, and ultimately, losing family members to these sins, addictions, and various tragedies. 

This is where you must get tough with yourself, your kids, and perhaps even your spouse (Warning: this may or may not go down very well). But sometimes these difficult times call for difficult measures! Much of the battle we have is with our minds, and what we put into it. Whatever the mind is exposed to, whether it be good or evil, our bodies and behaviours tend to follow or act on it.

Determine that your home will be a godly one. No one could have said it better than Joshua did as he took a stand for what was right for the nation of Israel and within his own home. He said it all in Joshua 24:15 as he proclaimed, “And if it seems evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” – Christianliving today.