Life is fragile. Difficulties such as illnesses, accidents, betrayals, job losses, and grief are part of every person’s experience. We need to be ready as individuals, couples, and families, to weather the storms. And to do that we must build our homes on the Rock, Jesus Christ. We must recognize God as our authority and exercise godly authority in our homes. When we’ve done so, we can cultivate healthy environments in our homes. Revival inside the doors of our own homes can spread to our churches, our communities, and beyond as we demonstrate Christ-like love to others.
If not, you might be interested in hearing the transformational story of Barry Puckett.
Barry grew up in a Christian household. He confessed Jesus and was baptized but he did not follow Christ. As a teenager, he hung out with older boys who introduced him to the party scene. By his twenties, though he was married and had a decent job, he was a self-confessed mess.
“All the stuff I thought would make me happy started breaking down. I was lost, looking for something. Why am I here? What is life about?”
Barry started going to church again and never looked back. “I thought I was rededicating my life to the Lord, but at some point, I realized I’d never been saved. As Pastor Rogers put it, I had put my baptism on the wrong side of my salvation. Barry was baptized, this time as a Christian. He drank in Pastor Rogers’ messages on marriage and family and made a serious effort to reconcile with his wife.
“Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, but I joined a class, met some guys who discipled me and taught me how to study the Bible.”
In time, he also met a beautiful Christian woman. Barry and Pat Puckett were married in 1999. This time, he would build his family on a strong foundation.
“Christ is at the center of our relationship and has been the whole time. We put him first. God said love your wife like Jesus loved the Church and lay down your life for her.”
Now in his sixties, Barry can testify about the difference between building on the sand and building on the rock. “We’re dedicated to biblical principles for our family. We had three kids who grew up seeing us serve in the church. They have that servant spirit as well.”
One of Barry’s favorite resources from Love Worth Finding is “A Future for the Family,” a nine-message audio series from Pastor Adrian Rogers covering engagement, marriage, family relationships, and child-rearing.
Barry learned that when the bottom falls out, the best thing you can do is go straight to Scripture and rebuild.
Pastor Adrian Rogers put it this way: “You examine the foundation when the bottom falls out.
In Matthew 7:24-27, the Lord said:
“Whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
“Life is in nature tragic,” Pastor Rogers said. “All of us sooner or later are going to get sick. All of us sooner or later, if Jesus does not come, we’re going to die. Sooner or later, one by one, our loved ones will be taken from us. Now I’m not morbid about that and I’m not even negative about that, but we may as well face it, life in its very essence is tragic apart from God. What our Lord is doing here is talking about our lives as if they’re houses. Now we all need houses to live in. What’s a house for? Well, a house is for shelter, a house is for security, a house is for sufficiency and satisfaction, supply. It’s our place where we retreat. A house is for serenity. And so we, we provide for ourselves some kind of a house. Well, your soul also needs a house. There needs to be a sanctuary for the soul. There needs to be a place of security and sufficiency that your spirit can dwell in. That’s what our Lord is talking about. All of us are building that kind of a house. You are; I am. I can’t live in the house you’ve built and you can’t live in the house I’ve built.”
Whether you are single, a newlywed, an “oldywed,” someone who has chosen not to wed, or are widowed—whether you live in a family or on your own—you need to build a strong foundation as a place of security, sufficiency, and serenity for your spirit so that you can take shelter when the bottom falls out. Pastor Rogers said that to build this place you must have the Word of God, hear the Word of God, and heed the Word of God.
For more on this topic, read the story, “How do Christians Overcome Adversity.”
If you’re going to build a solid foundation on which to build a successful life and a successful marriage-a strong marriage and a family that can weather the storms—the cornerstone of that foundation is love.
To lay the love cornerstone, you must first believe that God loves you; then you can share His love with those in your home so that your home becomes a place of loving shelter, not only for those who live there but also for those you and your family members touch in every sphere of life.
Pastor Rogers said, “If today, you feel that God does not love you, that’s a lie out of Hell. God loves you!” For more about God’s love for you expressed in the best-known verse of the Bible, John 3:16, go to the “Discover Jesus” page on the LWF website.
Jesus not only loves you, but also commands you to love others.
John 13:34
A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
Jesus gave this command just AFTER washing His disciples’ feet at The Last Supper. It was the final command He gave to them before His death.
“Our world is starving for love,” Pastor Rogers said. If we’re going to give a love worth having, we must give love in a Christ-centered manner as Jesus did on that last night.
Pastor Rogers said Jesus’ love—the kind He gave His disciples and that He gives to us—is selfless and steadfast; it serves and it sanctifies. For more about how to give this kind of love, read the article, “How to Cultivate Selfless Unconditional Love.”
The next stone in your best home foundation is servant leadership. Jesus not only taught how to love when He washed the disciples feet; He also taught how to lead. He was the authority in the room; He led by serving.
“You cannot function in any area, in the church or out of the church, if you don’t believe in authority and don’t understand authority. It’s everywhere,” Pastor Rogers said, adding that authority requires responsibility.
“We need to see as fathers, as husbands, as dads, our responsibilities, not our rights. When the Bible speaks of the husband being the head of the home, that’s not speaking of his rights; it’s speaking of his responsibilities.
“Marriage is a covenant, not a contract. If you think of marriage as a contract, you’re going to be looking for loopholes, ways to break that contract. But marriage is a covenant between a man, a woman, and God, and it brings with it awesome responsibilities.” The husband is called to exercise servant leadership and he is to love sacrificially and passionately, Pastor Rogers said.
This is the message the Apostle Paul taught in Ephesians 5.
Ephesians 5:25-33
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
If the wife is to benefit from this servant leadership, she must submit to being loved in this way, acknowledging God’s plan for Kingdom Authority within the bonds of marriage. She is not less than her husband, Pastor Rogers taught; the two are equal and at the same time one. But God has given the man authority in the home and the tandem responsibility to lead with Christ-like love . This leadership begins first in the marriage relationship.
For more about how to lead like Christ in the home, read the article, “Servant Leadership: Key to a Strong Christian Marriage.”
When our marriages are strong, we can build strong families.
Matthew 19 explains what marriage is so we can build our marriages in the name and power of Jesus Christ.
Matthew 19:4-6
“Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Marriage is a divine institution made by God to meet the deepest needs of humankind. When we become married couples, we leave our mothers and fathers and unite with our spouses, becoming one flesh. We are called to join together physically and multiply; we also become one flesh psychologically and in spiritual communion.
Adrian Rogers says, “It is not love that holds your marriage together; it is marriage that sustains your love.”
God has said in His Word He hates divorce. We are commanded to love continually; a marriage rooted in conditional love produces fear, guilt, and anger. There is no fear in perfect, unconditional love; only peace, security, and joy.
The KJV says in Genesis 2, God commanded Adam to “cleave to his wife.” To cleave means to weld, or glue; to put together in a permanent relationship. Marriage is to be permanent. You cannot please God by breaking up your home.
It is our duty to dispel the lies from Hell, to attack the problems rather than one another, and to change the direction of a broken marriage. God has joined us together, and where there is God, there is always hope.
We do this by making Jesus Christ the center of our homes and by continuing to feed our love day by day, nurturing and caring for it so it will grow.
And if we ever find ourselves in a broken home, we must remember God’s forgiveness is always available for those who seek to honor Him in their relationships; we need only ask for it.
For more about the biblical definition of marriage and the design for a godly marriage, read the article, “How to Build a Strong Biblical Family.”
