Monday, June 22, 2009

Filling My Home with Love ~ Ephesians 4:1-16

Unconditional love is the sign of a healthy, growing, unified, Christ-centered family. It testifies to the importance of Christ in the home, it leads to healthy growth of the family and the family members, and it unifies the family members into a well-funcitoning family unit. This, above all else, is why I want to fill my home with unconditional love -- why I want to teach my children to love eachother unconditionally and show them and my husband that same kind of love.

As Christians, we have been called to receive the love of God and to love Him back by showing that love to others. We do this by being humble, gentle, and patient with others. These attributes are best seen, in every relationship, but especially in the home, when we go out of our way to maintain an atmosphere of peace and unity with others. That means that we humble ourselves for the sake of curtailing an argument or fight. We respond with gentleness to others' harshness or hysterics. We put up with the shortcomings of others with *much* patience. All this so that we can have peace and unity and unconditional love in our homes. (vs. 1-3)

This is so much more difficult in practice than it is in writing. When it comes right down to it, when someone is angry, accusitory, over-reactive, or even just irritating, our nature is to bite back. But this only breaks down the home, the family, and the family members. As Christians, we are in a growing process. And while this is difficult, we must realize that slowly, we must be changing the way we react to provocation. We must stop reacting like children, and begin speaking the truth in unconditional love as Christ does to us (vs. 15).

When we react to others with humility, gentleness, patience, and kind and loving and true words, we build up our home and our family and our family members. We grow personally and encourage growth in others. (vs. 16) Most importantly, we show the unconditional love of Christ to our family and fill our homes with love.

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