Today’s Thoughts – 20 January 2021

All of the characteristics that we will discuss in this post and in the following posts are rooted in the heart. You can see that there are 3 characteristics that are related to the heart: “lovers of their own selves”, “covetous” (which is a lover of someone else’s things and can be applied to money here), and “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” There are more than 18 characteristics here and each one is rooted in a sinful heart.

We will also see that each characteristic can be applied to the family as well. This is important to note because the family is and has been under attack. The devil wants to destroy God’s first institution and he’s doing a good job of it through people with these characteristics.

We must stay vigilant and guard our hearts against replicating these characteristics so we can keep our lives, our families, and our churches together and stronger for Christ.

Boasters/proud: This is an inward and outward show of arrogance. This person thinks they are all that and has arrived. Yet, we should count ourselves to have not apprehended like Paul said (Philippians 3:13).

In the family, we must not think of our family as better than any other family inwardly or outwardly. Instead of loving ourselves and “what our family has become,” we should love others and love other families. If another family is struggling, help them along and guide them to the Word of God and His will for their family.

Blasphemers: This is an abusive trait laced with unsavory words. This is someone who uses their mouth foully against others and against God. This is in the TV that we watch, the books that we read, and the programs we listen to. It’s in our workplace, our social gatherings, and our homes.

It should not be in our homes! Our families should not have to be exposed to abusive words or actions. Yet, there have been more home abuse reports in the last year due to the pandemic. This is sad, but if we put God first in our homes, He will help us to not be a blasphemer or an abusive person physically or verbally in our family.

Disobedient to parents/unthankful/unholy: These next traits all go together and are deeply tied to the family. First, we have a person who is without obedience to their parents. This leads to rebellion and ruin.

The Bible teaches that we must “honor our mother and father” (Exodus 20:12), yet that isn’t taught much these days since the Bible was stripped from our schools and prayer is banned in many places. How are our children going to grow up with respect towards their parents if they are never taught to respect their parents?

The second trait is being unthankful, and how true that is in my generation. We want everything given to us and we deserve it so we aren’t going to be thankful for it. Let it not be for us Christians! Instead, we must always be thankful (Philippians 4:6).

And in the family, we should be thankful to our parents for giving us life and making sacrifices for us. We should be thankful to our siblings for their support as we go on life’s way.

The third trait of unholiness could be said to be the root of this whole section. An unholy life will produce unholy characteristics such as disobedience, rebellion, unthankfulness, etc. Our lives instead must be “holy, acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1).

If we as parents lead our family with our example of a holy life, our children will in turn learn to lead a holy life. But, if we allow the world to dictate our we lead our family, our children will instead live unholy lives which will lead to disobedience, rebellion, and unthankfulness. Let us lead our family in holiness, thankfulness, and obedience!

We look at 2 Timothy 3:3 in our next post which you can view by clicking here.