#3Lifestyle/The First Family

We all pray to be blessed with a good and wonderful family. A family is where we are nurtured, grow and flourish. A place where basic requirements of life that encourage growth, love, friendship, health and support, self-worth and confidence are formed before being thrust out into the larger society. The continuous mass movement of people devalue and rob them of cultural identity especially when exposed early in life.

Reason this generation has seen the greatest social engineering which exposes innocent lives to abuse and trafficking has been the result of rejection of God.

The foundation needed for success later in life is cultivated within the framework of a loving home; mother, father and extended family, where discipline is upheld and right attitude to life and people is promoted.

The world itself was meant to be One Family if we base our understanding of family on a man and a woman coming together to produce children as was in the Garden of Eden with God as the Head and Father. This would benefit society, but the one that will not benefit is the devil and his organs of deception and oppression.

Within a loving family, children grow to meet other humans through whom they procreate and the circle continues generation after generation. Unfortunately, as it was with the First Family, the enemy lurks and whispers by planting discord, turning one against the other, children against parents or plant sibling rivalry---Matthew 10:36.

#The larger Family

Family can be extended to include other associations through which humans interact and flourish; schools, work places, spiritual and non-religious groups. Each type of family structure influences how people relate based on the aims and principles, what makes each special, the deep values they encompass.

If there is one thing we must learn from the First Family in the Garden it is that no matter how good the family, all are open to enemy threats even if they do nothing to invite such attention. It is all part of being God's creation [light as opposed to darkness], which opens us to an enemy that is simply against us because we were created and loved by God. Adam and Eve owed the devil nothing, yet, their existence in God's scheme found them a target.

#Our protection is in God

We can only succeed against the enemy by giving our lives to our Creator who hides us in His quiver [The LORD our Shepherd, Psalm 23]. On our own we face a fierce enemy without a powerful weapon to overcome. The weapon that overcomes the enemy is the Name of JESUS. For He is the Supernatural weapon, the Armour that we deploy through the help of the Holy Spirit in faith, not physical weapons. [Joshua 5:13, God sent the Commander of His Army ahead of the battle of Jericho].

As the story of the Garden showed, Satan also started his own family by planting a seed through Eve. It is the reason the Bible speaks of Jesus as the true Vine and the other, the false vine. Jesus is the Good Shepherd while the other is the evil shepherd whose desire is to kill, steal and destroy through the false seed [weed] that was planted due to the sin of rebellion.

In spite of the good investment, preparation and love that went into creating Eden, a perfect family was not the result because the enemy had an evil intent. But with Jesus, we are made perfect through His Blood.

#We need understanding of the spiritual

Unfortunately, the world system does everything to prevent knowledge that real power is not based in the physical but in the spiritual realm, because those who have knowledge of the Supernatural work of the Holy Spirit are a threat to the kingdom.

We need Christ to prevail against the pressure the kingdom of darkness thrusts on our world by viewing life as incomplete without the Living God. If we are to succeed in this present Age, we must upgrade our knowledge with the instructions of Christ which is found in John 14, as the pillar of every family and society.

But the Enemy wants people to remain blind because his operation is based on secrecy, deception and manipulation.

With the plague of sin on the First Family, we see how the evil thread spread to the second family, when murder was committed by Cain, when he betrayed and killed his brother Abel. An evil seed had been planted and one of them inherited it. Cain's heart was not good, God rejected his offering of crops but accepted Abel's offering of lamb which led to envy and bitterness. [A man's enemy are members of the same household. For Satan to succeed against the church, his strategy will be to invade the body and subject her to his manipulations by elevating academic knowledge [human wisdom], above the operation of the Holy Spirit]. The Church operates through the Holy Spirit--Acts 1:8, Christ the Rock on which the church is built.

#The existence of Evil in the world

As the Western world prepared to celebrate Halloween on the night of the 30th of October last week, my sleep was disturbed as the enemy swooped down for an attack. But the Holy Spirit was awake as God does not sleep or slumber, [Psalm 121:4].

What woke me was the fierce sound like a speeding truck that crashed into my room and interrupted my sleep. But the Holy Spirit swung into action and raised a Standard against the Evil. The Standard the Holy Spirit raises, our Strong Tower is the Name of Jesus.

I am thankful to the Most High who also revealed the source.

We all need Jesus because without Him, there is no Hope for us or our world. He is the only true source of knowledge of good and evil, the Tree of Life.

A Christian or church that operates only on academic knowledge based on man-made rules and regulations without the Holy Spirit, are afraid of exposure because their operation is darkness. Darkness hates light and will not come to the Light so that their deeds will not be exposed.

True Wisdom and Spiritual discernment is only possible in Christ through His Holy Spirit.