Understanding God's Design for the Family

1) God's design is the best!

2) God's Design for the Family

1) Gods design is the best!

The inventor best understands the intricacies of his product. Sure he might explain the functions to others, but in the end only the designer really understands how the individual parts fit into the whole purpose.

In order for us to understand the family, we need to go back to the Creator of the family. God formed and fashioned both man and woman and then ordered them into married units.

God's blessing upon each of these couples would be shown when they would bear forth a new person that united resemblances of both the father and mother.

God encouraged this process by commanding the couples to be fruitful and multiply and giving them an innate desire to couple up.

When something goes wrong with my printer, I don't turn to my radio owners manual for help. I look for the printer manual. The same is true with the family. If we have questions on how to guide the family, whether it be the individual parts or the whole purpose, we turn to God's Word, the Bible, where our Creator Designer has clearly spoken everything we need to know about the family (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

This doesn't necessarily mean we always listen to God's Word. Sometimes we hear so much about caring for the physical needs of a child that we forget the importance of his or her inner needs. What are a child's inner needs?

God told us in the verses above that man was made distinct from the other animals; the male and female human beings were made in God's image.

Man was designed to communicate with God a spirit. Man is more than his body; he has an invisible part which is partly comprised of a heart (seat of affection), a will, and a conscience. Man, for example, is set apart from the animals by his self-awareness. God also has a design for the family itself.

2) God's Design for the Family

God has not only formed male and female individuals, but He also has designed to use marriage and the family to accomplish His overall purposes.

a) God's Plan for the Family

The family serves a crucial part in God's kingdom plans on earth. The family is the means by which God communicates, preserves and further expands His holy influence. The home is the place in which His truths are lived out and taught.

By visiting a Christian family, one should be able to gain a good glimpse of God's goodness, love, order, communion, provision and law.

Pause for Reflection: Name three things a person would understand about God and His ways by staying with your family for a week?

b) A Brief History of the Family

God created the first family with Adam as its head and Eve as his helpmate. These became the first family and the origin of all the other families on earth. Adam, the male, was responsible for the decisions made in the family. When he made wise decisions, his family prospered. When he chose to disobey God's rules, his family and all the families originating from him were seriously impacted.

"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--" Romans 5:12

Adam's children, then, not only inherited a physical and invisible likeness to their parents, but also a sin nature (tendency to go against God's way). It would seem that God could no longer accomplish His purposes through man, but God didn't give up on the family.

We begin to see God's intention when in Genesis 12 God started a new family. From the then existing chaotic and rebellious society, God chose a man and his descendants through which His holy purpose would be preserved and multiplied. God chose Abraham to leave the world and go where He appointed him.

Abraham wasn't perfect, and yet God was able and willing to use him to bring great blessings to the world through his family. Even today God uses the family as a platform to expand His holy and good purposes.

It was through one of these good families that God brought Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, into the world. This righteous couple lived and taught God's Word to Jesus. Later Jesus would mightily use what He had learned early on as a child. God made a new family called the church. God the Father sacrificed His own Son so that others like us could be adopted into God's family as God's children.

"But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name," John 1:12

God has clearly instructed both the church and the family how to succeed in life. Without strong families, the church and society will be weak.

When the families are strong, then Christ can develop His wonderful plan for the church. God has given us His Holy Spirit and Word by which we can have godly families and churches. With God's Word in our hands, we can no longer say that God did not tell us how to produce godly families.

Pause for Reflection: What is needed to make a strong family? What are one or two things your own family needs to strengthen so that God can better use your family for His purposes?

=> Next: Learning God's Way of Rescuing the Family