Forging a Family

“The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God — he and his whole family.”   Acts 16:34
We are born into family.  It is in family we have the opportunity to love and share ourselves; to exercise patience, kindness, forgiveness, goodness, gentleness and self-control.  Those attributes in life are how we become strong and refined, but you or I, our families, can only be forged, transformed when the Spirit of God makes us into who we were created to be. 

When the Spirit of our Lord comes into a family, miracles happen.  I am reminded of how a simple man, a jailer who believed the witness of Paul and Silas and their encouragement when they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved — you and your household” (Acts 16:31). Then the “jailer brought them into his house” because of the joy he was experiencing in Christ.  The jailer “had come to believe in God — he and his whole family” (v34).  In the middle of the night, “he and his whole family” were baptized.  God wants whole families, not just a family member, He desires to bless your family in the joy that the jailer and his family had, the joy of Christ.
 

Chuck Swindoll once stated, “A family is a place where principles are hammered and honed on the anvil of everyday living.”  When we share Christ with the family, as when the jailer brought Paul, Silas and their message of the gospel into his household, he was ready to forge–reform–his family.  When you and I live in Christ, walk in His law of love, we live a life surrendered to the anvil, there the fire of God’s Spirit has made us pliable.  Prepared to be hammered, and polished into God’s good and perfect will.  His Spirit embraces our life: you and I are hammered – strengthened and shaped; and we are honed – sharpened, polished, and perfected in Christ.  To be forged is to be changed; it is to be wrought, hammered and formed, into what God intended you and your family to be – members of His family, full of joy.

Living on the anvil, being forged, daily,    

Owen <><

Jesus said, "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you."  Mark 5:19