Building a Strong Christian Home (Step 1)

As I promised, a blog on how to build a strong Christian home based on my experience and Biblical understanding. Here are the essential components for building a strong Christian home.  By the way, if you are single, this applies to you too.  I have had  a strongly held personal belief since I was about 18 that a single person is a unique family of one.  I personally wasn't waiting to build a Christian home environment for when I had a husband or kids.  The truths below are from the Bible and are applicable to a family of 1 or a mega family of 21+.

To build a strong Christian family the following is needed:

1.  There MUST be at least one adult Christian:  I'm not being flip or funny.  Its just that it is impossible to have a Christian home without at least one Christian adult. 

 So what makes one a Christian? 

• Believing that God exists? Nope!  Even Satan believes that God exists.
• Trying to be a good person?  Sorry!
• Living a life a sacrifice?  No...that is not it. 
• Loving everyone?  Umm...good luck with that...but no.
• Living at peace as much as is possible?  Afraid not.
• Doing more good than bad?  No, not a Christian, even if the scale is loaded with lots of good!

According to the Bible, none of us are perfect enough to be in a relationship with the holy God.  It is a bit like when our own children get dirty playing in the mud that they weren't supposed to go near.  We love them, BUT while they are muddy we probably aren't going to hug them tightly or invite them into our formal dining room until we get the mud cleaned off.  We don't love our children less because they got muddy! And God doesn't love the saint (forgiven cleaned up sinner) more than the sinner!  God simply cannot enjoy a full relationship with us until the sin is out of the way.  However, like our children will need our help to get clean, we ALL need God's help to get rid of sin that is keeping us from a close relationship with Him. 

In I John 1:9, the Bible says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."  The "He" in this verse is Jesus.  If we tell Jesus that we want forgiveness, believing in His power and authority to cleanse us, then we can be pure.  Completely pure and able to have a relationship with the Holy God.

In Romans 10:9 reinforces this simple path to being rescued from our sin, "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." 

You may be wondering how does someone ask God for forgiveness. Do you put it in a letter? Do you do something in return for Him forgiving you?  Do you need a minister?  The simple answer is you just pray to Him.  You can just talk with Him in your mind or right out loud.  He sees our thought and intents of our hearts so even if you pray silently in your mind, God hears and forgives!  There is no price to you. You couldn't earn this type of pure relationship. There are no special words.  Its just you being honest and humble before an awesome God who already loves you, but wants to clean you up so you can know Him better.  If you haven't done this before, you can even do it right now!  That is the most awesome thing about God, no prerequisites, no appointment needed, no special words...its just you and Him getting started on a loving long term relationship.
 
So after we ask forgiveness, does this mean that we will never sin again?  No!  In fact when I was a new Christian as a young person I didn't even understand many of the sins that I would commit along the way as I grew in my faith and maturity.  I would need to keep confessing my sin and learning about what is sin and what isn't and what my God expected of me.  This learning process is often called discipleship.  This is Step 2 in building a strong Christian home.  I'll discuss it in my next blog entry.

BTW-If the term Christian is offensive to you because of "Christians" you have met, then I have good news for you.  Jesus never called his followers Christians!  Christian is not God's word for us!  In the Bible, words like follower of Christ or believers were used.  You can have a relationship with Christ and reject the World's label!  As long as you don't reject Jesus in your description, you have great freedom in how you describe your new awesome relationship with God.