How Can I Lead My Family to Pursue Righteousness?

In the first part of his series, "Bless This Home", Craig Groeschel (www.lifechurch.tv) opens with the theme, "Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness".  How many of you want your homes to be blessed?  We ALL want our families to be blessed, but in most cases when we look at other families, the word that comes to mind is NOT "blessed".  There are so many financial problems, infidelities, children problems, blended families, health issues etc.  Life at home can be overwhelming!   There are a lot more temptations and the world today is so complicating as well.

We are are going to use the teachings of Jesus, specifically from the book of Matthew, to help families to create environments where a home can be "blessed".   Matthew lays out the Beattitudes, which is the baseline for Craig's series.  "We are going to use a number of these principles to bless our homes.  Next week, we are going to look at 'Blessed are the pure at heart, for they shall see God'...Most of our homes would not be characterized by purity but rather by impurity.   In week 3, we will cover 'Blessed are the peacemakers'...Often we have homes where there are 'peace takers'.   In week 4, we will look at 'Blessed are those who are persecuted for (Christ's) sake'....We need to stand out in this world."

Much of the series, for Craig, is going to require him to be largely transparent.  He will commit to share what happens in his own home.  "But we are sooo far from perfect", he admits.  It sometimes surprises people when the pastor's family isn't perfect!  One day his daughter was in class and all the kids were talking about how their parents were always yelling at them. His daughter said, "my daddy doesn't yell at us" and the teacher thought, "well there you go. Of course the pastor doesn't yell at his kids". But then Craig's daughter continued, "they yell at each other every day, but they don't really yell at us" (!!)

None of us are perfect, but we are being perfected by the power of God.  In Matthew 5:6, we read, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for you will be filled".  So many homes are not filled with that that matters most.  Rather, homes fill themselves with other things in an attempt to be fulfilled. In your home, what do you hunger for?  What are you pursuing?  What matters most to you?  Some of us might say, "we are here to please God", but then what would our kids say if we asked them?  Some people might say they are trying to relax, to have fun or to be liked.  "Image management" is a priority for some families.  For others, it could be just the wind; more money, a bigger house, the smartest kids, the most athletic kids...

If you're like most people and if you're really honest, you might admit that you are not hungering for righteousness. So, what do we do when we realize that we don't have an appetite for righteousness?  We change our appetite!!  How many people love pizza? It's hugely popular but not very good for us on a regular basis.  At one point, Craig, changed his diet from too much pizza to fish, chicken, vegetables and fruits. After a couple of months eating like this, he decided one night to eat pizza and it made him sick. Why? because his appetite had changed!  Pizza no longer satisfied him.   This is what it's like when we pursue God! After we begin to feed our minds with the purity of God, we have not appetite for what is impure.

However, even if we change our appetite by pursuing God, we should first be aware of what DOES NOT work with our faith; legalism and lukewarm Christianity!

Legalism doesn't work because this is when we change Christianity to a bunch of rules that are way too many for us to keep.  Rules without relationship lead to rebellion.  This is why some pastors have rebellious kids.  The kids know about the life style but early on, lack the relationship and become rebellious.  

Lukewarm Christianity is when we believe in God, but don't have a real passion that brings glory to Him.  How do we know if we're a lukewarm family of faith?  "The way I know the temperature of my family's faith is when I think of the last time we prayed as a family".  If we haven't talked about faith at the dinner table, chances are we are lukewarm.  If I am not leading my family out of circumstances that are not consistent with our faith, like inappropriate music, inappropriate television shows or events, chances are we are lukewarm.  If the family is not reaching out in the community to help others, chances are we are lukewarm.


What DOES work to change our appetite when pursing God?  As a family, we should not just be a christian family.  Instead, we should think of ourselves as more of a Christ-centered home.  Unfortunately, many people can call themselves christian families, but they are often NOT Christ-centered homes.  Right?  We can all say we are ducks, but that doesn't make us ducks.

David explains this Psalms 63:1, "You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water...David does not look for God when it is just  convenient for him.  If we were to edit this verse and apply to our families it might sound like this;

You God are our God. Earnestly we seek You. We thirst for You.  Our whole family longs for you.

What else is there to pursue, truly?  Popularity?  "Oh popularity, you are my God!"  Or, "Oh championship of the soccer league...!   Oohh new car..., my rump longs for your car seat warmers and a good ride."  This sounds ridiculous, but this is the way many families live and we wonder why they are so empty.

As a leader, teach your home to see God as loving, approachable and involved.

This past week Craig had to travel and beforehand, his daughter Mandy came in to his bedroom.  She wanted to talk, but he was busy.  Working on this sermon, Craig asked her what she would give as advice to another family to have a Christ -centered home.  Mandy replied, "You should create an environment where you kids want to have discussions about God so it's not something they feel they have to do but something they want to do."   It was no surprise, when later that night, Mandy came back in and asked Craig to pray for her future!  But the Groeschel's had long ago committed to a Christ-centered home.  So, if this isn't the culture in our own homes, how do we do this especially now when our kids are older?

1. Involve God in daily conversations.  This may start out by just seeing a beautiful sunrise.  If we comment on it, glorify God in our comment.  If there is a conflict, remind yourself and everyone that God is the resolver of conflict.  Remind our family daily of their godly blessings.  Craig's 12-year-old son, Sam, was talking to his friend recently and pointed out to his friend how God had blessed him with various things in his life.  Craig realized that pointing this out to his own family was spilling out into the community through his kids.  

2. Make church a non-negotiable.  faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God.  Surround your family with the fellowship of believers.  It then becomes something that they want to pursue and something they want to be a part of.

3. Show how seeking and serving God is FUN.  Craig's family has "popcorn prayer time".  They sit together in a room, eat popcorn and pray for people and things that need prayer.  In the mornings, when Craig gets up, he will see his kids studying the Word and it is a blessing to him.  How did they start doing this?  They saw their parents do it and now they do it!

We don't have to tell our kids how to be good if we are pursuing the one who is good.  Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.

These things may sound very rough to do and totally counter intuitive because of all the problems in your home.  But if we commit, we can do it!  Can you make seeking God Fun?  Yes!!  Can you make church non-negotiable?  Yes!!  Can you involve God in conversations?  Yess!!

Joshua 24:!5 says, "Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

You choose this DAY.  You choose THIS day.  You choose THIS DAY.  Then your home will be blessed.

How Can We Connect With the Holy Spirit?

Beginning his new series, "Spirit", Erwin McManus opens by explaining that he is going to spend the next 5 weeks talking about the Spirit.  Some might ask, "Are you talking about the human spirit or Holy Spirit?  The answer is yes.  "We are going to talk about the relationship between the human spirit and the Holy Spirit.  In order to help you understand, I am going to have to change your perception of the spiritual realm."  Light is a good parallel to the spiritual world because you know there is a source of light and then there is the object itself.  But the relationship is complicating because there are millions of particles being illuminated by the source and thus, light can be hard to describe.    

Today we need to change our minds about reality as we know it and how the Holy Spirit impacts this reality.  If you have been in Los Angeles for any period of time, you know that it is easier to talk about God than it is to talk about Jesus.  It's easier still to talk about spirituality than it is to talk about God.  Spirituality is an incredibly popular topic because it soon takes the intellectual to theologically challenging conversation.

Long before his relationship with Jesus, Erwin's brother took to atheism, But Erwin took to mysticism.  His brother didn't choose to believe in anything, but Erwin had this acute sense of himself being a spiritual being.  He sensed a reality around him that no language could describe.  It was real and it was drawing him to it.

To further the conversation, let's talk about our worldly senses.  What would we be missing if we didn't have our hearing?  Music is extraordinary whether it is the Josh Groban, Taylor Swift or Depeche Mode.  There is something that stirs us when we hear music.  It draws on our emotions.  Our sense of smell is really connected to our sense of taste and both give us an experience that is almost indescribable   When you can cut into a great fillet, ore smell the aroma of a cappuccino, it is almost a spiritual experience right?  It brings us to a place of exhilaration   But without these senses, we might well never know what we are missing. We might find we can't identify with what people are trying to describe and we might even consider hearing and smelling as almost mythology.  So, is there a sense in the soul that is not currently resonating within us?  Have we stunted our ability to perceive the Holy Spirit?  When we would only connect to the Spirit, it can change how we interact in this world and how we perceive life itself!

Already, most people have a sense of spirit and we even tend to attribute this sense to the Divine.  We might loosely connect it with God, though.  For some people, this divine essence translates to "an energy" or "a force".   The more you live with an awareness of your spiritual world; you are likely, then, to experience a visceral life force that awakens you a little bit.  What we find is that God is not a force or an energy.  Rather, He is actually a being.  The spirit of God is not an "It".  The Holy Spirit is a He; the image of God translated to us.  "It bothers me when (followers of Christ) identify the Holy Spirit as an 'It'".  He is a person!  He has intelligence and thought and emotions!  He has ESSENCE.  Can you imagine talking about someone in your life who is an "it"?  Imagine if your wife saying, "It is always late"!  If, ladies, you are going out with a guy and he talks about you as an "it", cut him off!!  It's not going to work!

If God were an "it", there could be no relationship.

But the God in Spirit seeks a relationship and He energizes us!  We call our touchy-feelly physical God "Father Abba" and "Jesus walking among us", but the Holy Spirit seems to be a nonessential.  We baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and it feels like He is in the third position, right?  He's third string.  We dismiss Him by this point   Even the people who focus on the Holy Spirit often seem to be weird, bizarre and isolated.  But when we investigate the Spirit, we find He is powerful and at the core of Creation.

Let's go all the way back to Genesis 1.  We find, in this book, that there is a unique relationship between God's Spirit and the creation of the Earth.  The Hebrew mind understood that when God creates, the Spirit of God is always present.  The Spirit is essential.  It's critical.  Without Him, we inevitably become materialistic and embrace everything in this secular world.  You see, for those who don't believe that God created the earth, they have to believe that everything comes out of nothing or Creation without God.  But yet popular science, by definition, believes that everything comes out of something else or everything.  Science defines and explains.

Hebrews 11:3 says, "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible." 

So, if everything came from that which is not visible, where did it come from?  According to the Bible, it came from the invisible.  All of creation, then, is an expression of its creator.  Because God is a spirit, everything that is material came out of that which is spiritual.  

John 1 says "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.  Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made."  There is this intimate relationship with everything that has been created and the Creator.  

Colossians 1:15-17  "The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him. ¹⁷ He is before all things,and in him all things hold together.

The scriptures say that all things are being held together by Him.  The proper relationship or definition says there is a creation and it is a reflection of the Creator.  But we tend to think of creation, this "reflection" as more of an object (like a mirror).  We see it as spiritually separate; as secular.  The spiritual realm, to us, is when we are doing something like going to church.  We go to a spiritual place that is sacred.  Sacred is what we are doing when we are not doing everything else, before we go back into the secular.  We then hope that the sacred will get us "pumped up" for the rest of the week.  It is like the "Red Bull" for the secular.  We say, I need some God word or some God passion to make it through.  How spiritual we are then becomes how long we can carry the sacred into the secular, right?  We have our sacred life and we have our real life.  But what the scriptures tell us is that this way of thinking is false.  There is no division between the sacred and the secular.  God would be more like a gas station in a desert if this were so.  All around us we have distractions like food, sports, work and friends.  All are in the secular space.  



We forget there is an invisible dimension.  Its like a blind man saying, "nothing exists that I cannot see" or like a deaf man denying the existence of music. Here is a part of our dilemma:  If God is this unique person, a being of intelligence, intention and He is creator, we tend to create this huge chasm between the creation in which we ourselves live and our creator.  To our credit, we want to make it clear that the Creator created creation but where we often draw the line is by then saying that creation is not of Him.  We tend to say, "Okay, God is here and all the 'stuff' is over here".  We don't include God in the stuff.  See, the moment we start thinking of creation itself as being God, we become a pantheist, which is an incorrect way of thinking. But, when observing the line of thought, it is understandable why some people fall into the trap of pantheism.  Yes, god is not the stuff and the stuff is not God, but we tend to act like there is no connection at all.  

What's interesting is that, you never see the phrase "the Spirit of God" without something always happening.  There is never the Spirit of God just sort of sitting around.  Are you ever in the moment when you are truly getting something done; when you are really on your game?  That's the way the Spirit always is.  When the Spirit of God is present, He is about to create and stir something up.  Let's look at a few places where this is demonstrated.  

Matthew 1:18   This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

^{Mathew 3:11}   I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Acts 1:8  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Scriptures tell us that the Spirit is always moving.  So, when we choose to live in a relationship with the Spirit of God, it stands to reason that our lives will begin to move.  There will be powerful activity.  

Romans 8  Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.  

You are designed to live in the Spirit of God!  It is a design where God comes in and gives you peace.  

The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.


The moment the spirit of God lives in you, you no longer identify a separation. You act, then, in response to everything that is spiritual.  If we don't have the spirit, then how do we get it?  If Jesus' Spirit is living in us, He promises to give us life.  

But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit who lives in you.

Paul is telling us that the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead can come in and live in us.  It is more than enough; more than we could ever ask for.  Yet, it is strange that we can believe in Jesus and still live a powerless life because of a misperception of God's Holy Spirit!  The intimacy and power of the Spirit brings about life here on earth.  

Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again;rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.  And by Him we cry, “Abba, Father.”  The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 

Your human spirit longs to be with the creator!  You are NOT a material being. You are a spiritual being.  
Have you ever seen a great movie and you realize that the score is driving much of the emotions in the movie?  Drums or violins tell us that something is about to happen.  Someone is about to die or something is about to be found.  For Christians, the Holy Spirit is the score of our lives.  He is not an appetizer; He is the meal!   He empowers us.  So how do we know if our spiritual experiences are from God?

1 Corinthians 12  tells us that God approaches us through His spirit long before we react.  He guides us and moves us.  He gives us the sense that there is more to this world than we see.  He lives there and He draws us.