If there is one thing that is important to almost every human being, it is family. In this series, we are taking a look into the word of God to see the heart and will of God, not just for our lives but also for our families. We discover, without doubt, that it is the perfect will of God for us and our whole house – in other words, family – to be saved! With this confidence, we pray bold, faith-filled prayers for our families to be saved and fulfill their destinies in Christ together as a family!
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It’s A Family Affair (Part 1)
In this episode, we’re going to be starting a new series titled, It’s A Family Affair. Before we get ready, do that and dive into what God has for us, receiving His rhema word, we’re going to take the time to do what we always do and that’s to acknowledge God and pray. I thank you, Heavenly Father, for your presence in our life. I thank you, God, for your presence during this time especially. I thank you for every seed you plant in our hearts. You cover with the blood of your son, Jesus. You cause it to not only bear fruit but to bear much fruit that remains. We cover every word and revelation and your purpose behind it with the blood of your son, Jesus.
May you, the God of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the father of glory, give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus. I pray that the eyes of our understanding will be enlightened, that we may know what the hope of His calling is, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in us the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of His power towards us who believe according to the working of His mighty power.
I thank you, Lord Jesus, that you’re going to expound to us on the scriptures about the things concerning yourself. I thank you, Holy Spirit, that you are leading and guiding us into all truth and you are teaching us all things. I thank you for causing us to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. As we behold Him, I thank you, Holy Spirit, that you’re at work in us, transforming us into His very same image. I thank you, God, for your promise. In your light, God, we see the light. I thank you, Lord, that you’re going to give people direction, God. They’re going to hear you, God. They’re going to see your Son, Jesus. They’re going to behold Him, God.
Wisdom and revelation, even for their practical God needs and practical things that they’re facing, God will come to them with ease, Lord. I thank you, God, that we’ll return back to situations, God. Circumstances and they will be no more God, but your perfect will, will be in its stead. I thank you, Heavenly Father, for the overcoming power that’s in the blood of Jesus being released God through your word, through the expounding on the scriptures about your Son, Jesus God. As we do this one thing that is needful, I thank you, Lord Jesus, that you’re adding all things God that we need and even desire God to us. In Jesus’ name, we pray.
We’re going to be starting a new series. It’s something especially, for me, heavy on my heart in a good way. When I say heavy, it’s about family. Not just about family in general but discovering what the will of God is. Many people, wives, mothers and even children are praying for their family members, spouses and children to be saved. It’s important for us to pray, not just prayers but to pray with boldness and confidence. That usually comes when you know what you’re praying for is the will of God. We’re going to start by laying a foundation with God’s word like we do on this show because His word never fails. It never returns back to Him void or empty.
A Family Affair
We know that the word of God is the will of God. When we know we’re praying the will of God, we know we have what we’re asking for. We’re going to start this series titled, It’s A Family Affair and begin with the truth about God’s heart concerning you and your family, which includes your spouse. God wants you and your whole family saved. That is and that always will be the perfect will of God for you and your whole house to be saved. You know how it goes on this show. I don’t like to rely on myself, go with my opinion and expect you to do so. I don’t even do so. We go with the word of God. It’s solid, true, unfailing and unchanging. It’s an anchor for our very souls and lives. It’s the only thing that is constant, sure, and never changes.
We’re going to start with our key scripture for this series, which comes out of Acts 16:30-31. I’m largely going to be reading like I always do from the New King James version. If I differ from it, I’ll try to remember and tell you that for those who go back. I encourage everyone to do that. Go back and meditate on it. If God speaks something to you, if it highlights something, if something is a confirmation to you or there’s something that spoke to your heart, I would encourage you to do what God has led me to do. That’s to focus on that, chew on that, meditate on that, read about that, think about that, speak about that and declare that. Let that be your nourishment for the day.
Even sometimes, in the days to come, things are so rich. You chew and meditate on that same verse for days. It nourishes and gives you what you need in that time and season in your life and even the times to come. Let’s not just allow God to plant the seed in our hearts. Let’s meditate on it and let that seed germinate, take root and bear much fruit that remains. In Acts 16:30-31, it says, “He brought them out and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They said, ‘Believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.'” This is the word of God. The word of God is the will of God. No one questions that.
Nicodemus Up In The Sycamore Tree
This also is telling us right off the bat when God gave me this verse that God is telling us, “It’s not just His will for you to be saved, but God wants your whole entire household to be saved.” It reminded me of Nicodemus in the gospels when Jesus came to not just Nicodemus, who was up in the sycamore tree and Jesus saw him. He came to see Jesus. Jesus saw him and had a divine appointment with him that didn’t just change his life. It changed him and his family’s lives for the better. Jesus just didn’t have the conversation and pull him over to the side of the road and say, “Come down from the tree and chat with me for a bit or have this encounter alone.” He did it and then Jesus said, “I’m going to come to your house.”
That’s demonstrative of Jesus coming and not just touching Nicodemus but touching his whole household. Remember, the Bible says, “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is not a respecter of person.” It’s not like, “Nicodemus must have favor with Jesus.” He did, but so do you and so do I. “God is not a respecter of persons,” the Bible says that twice. I like to say it like, “This is so nice. God said it twice.” We can know if you had a doubt with the first scripture, you know by the second one, God meant what He said. The Holy Spirit didn’t use people to pin down something wrong. God is not a respecter of persons. Meaning what He does for someone else, He is both able and willing to do for you.
That All Should Come To Repentance
We’re going to lay the foundation with the word of God, not with man’s opinion. We’re going to look at 2 Peter 3:9. This is the New King James version as well. It says, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” We have to know that’s the will of God. God sent His son into the world. The Bible says, “For God so loved the world.” That’s everyone. That includes you, your spouse, children, friends and coworkers. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son.” God did this for us all because God’s heart is that He is not willing to lose one. The worst one, God doesn’t want to lose.
I don’t want to rank them. I know the Bible discussed some things being worse than others, but I want to bring home the point is people who we think have done the most heinous things have the hardest of hearts or walked in levels of pride as you’ve never seen before. It is the will and heart of God that they be saved. God doesn’t want anybody to perish. He didn’t send His son, Jesus, to go through what He went through to suffer what He suffered. Watching Jesus go through that, hearing His cry and refraining from helping Him to allow Him to die in our place and bless us with this eternal gift of salvation, the forgiveness of all our sins and so many other things and blessings, making us heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. He did not send Him to do that so that a few could be left behind, let alone a multitude.
God’s will is that we would all come to repentance. This way, when you pray for your family and spouse, you do so with boldness, knowing that you are in agreement with God. This isn’t your idea. It’s not my bright idea for my entire family to be saved. That’s God’s loving idea. He has worked that in you that desire so that you would work it out by praying, believing and decreeing a thing over them. Preferably the word of God and it would be established. God did that on purpose for a purpose, for their salvation, and for them to fulfill their destiny. Every joint supplies. We’re the body of Christ and the whole body is important. The eyes can’t say to the mouth, “I don’t need you.” I beg to differ since I use my eyes and mouth every day. I think we need it all. God’s perfect will is that not only are you saved, but your entire family is saved.
Set Apart
Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 7:14. It says, “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified. Set apart, made holy, in other words, by the believing wife. The unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Otherwise, their children would be unclean, but now they are holy.” Do you see how God encapsulated the whole family? In that verse, God is showing and telling us repeatedly that His heart is one for family and for the whole family to be saved. God went above and beyond making provision for this to happen, so the unbelieving husband, full-blown atheist, Anti-Christ. God is saying, “He has become one with his wife. She is a believer. She is the bride of Christ. She is born again.” This man is sanctified, set apart and made holy onto God because of his believing wife.
What does this do? This blessing comes down upon their children. They’re holy before God. God is good and that our whole families be saved. It is the perfect will of God. When you know what you’re praying and asking for is the perfect will of God, you can pray with boldness. What we’re doing here by the spirit of God is firmly establishing in our hearts based on the word of God. God has never called you to rely on my opinion or a personal revelation that I received. Any revelation God gives me is backed up by the word. It’s in agreement with the word. It confirms the word of God. It will not contradict it. That’s for me and anyone else that you are gleaning with that God is using to give you things or feed you.
You got to know that it will be in alignment and agreement with the word of God confirming it, not contradicting it. That’s how you know whether or not it’s God what they say when people say this is what God showed them or this is the revelation that God gave them. We know, based on the scriptures, not on me, that it is the will of God for your whole family to be saved. Because of that, you can pray with boldness and absolute confidence for them to be saved. Not only to be saved, you can pray with boldness and absolute confidence that Jesus is not only their Savior, but He will be Lord of their life. He will lead them and guide them. They will be one with Him, in step with Him and in agreement with Him for His purpose and for their lives individually and collectively as a family.
In Agreement With God’s Will
Let’s look at 1 John 5:13-15. It says, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may continue to believe in the name of the son of God. Now, this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. If we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” We have firmly established by the Spirit of God that it is the perfect will of God that not only you but your entire household be saved.
Now that we know that’s the perfect will of God, we can do what the Bible says. We can have confidence in Him. That is what we’re asking. It is His will. His will is His word. God hears your prayers. Praying wives, moms, children and fathers. God hears your prayers for your family. Not only that, it’s time for you to know and believe not only that He hears you, but what you’re asking Him for, He is granting that petition. You have a yes from God. Give Him your amen. It’s finished. All the promises of God are yes and, in Christ, amen to the glory of God. He gives the yes, you say the amen. It’s a done deal.
Will the devil try to steal the word from you, rattle your cage and get you out of a place of believing, resting, and trusting in God? He will. Jesus said what he is going to try to do, kill, steal, and destroy. Sometimes we think when Jesus called him, the thief, which he is and that he comes to steal one of those things, we let our minds lean towards material things, but there are things that money can’t buy, that moth can’t eat up. I’m telling you what I have gotten to know about this evil thing. That’s what he is after, more so than anything. He doesn’t want your house.
He is not interested in having your car repossessed. If he did do that to you, those were means to a greater end like, “Don’t believe God anymore. I know you have faith, but let it go. Can you trust God?” Casting doubt and things like that. He wants something bigger than your car. It might have been big to you. If he noticed it, that’s probably why he touched it. If you can hold on to your faith and keep believing God, you know how God is when He restores. He is going to do something like this to give you that back, but it will be a greater quantity and quality. He makes you a gainer if the enemy comes and takes anything.
You Can’t Lose With God
That’s what happens. You can’t lose with the God I choose. I continue to declare that truth because it is the absolute truth. God has allowed me to lose things that all the money in the world collectively couldn’t buy a fraction of so that I would testify now to you, not just telling you what is in me and what I internally believe, but what I have walked out. People who know me, I’ve walked this thing out is what I’m saying and I say it with confidence and boldness. God so much so is a restorer and a lover of you that when the enemy comes to try to touch you, it is almost better than He did the way that God restores you, but for that trouble, you wouldn’t have had the double.
From Ashes To Beauty
God knows how to make something that was tragic and turning it into triumph. I don’t quite get how He does that. He takes a pile of ashes, works it together for your good and hands you back beauty. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is amazing. He is with infinite wisdom. That’s crystal clear. I don’t consider myself a dummy by any means. I cannot figure out even a little bit of how He does that and how He manages to do that. No matter what I’ve been through when I say, “Lord, I know you did it before, but this time, God, no, because look at this, God. I don’t know how you’re going to make me say like, ‘Thank God,’ even for this.”
I see how God worked that together, but I don’t know how anything good could come out of this one. Not in regards to or notwithstanding the one million times, you did it before and I said that same thing. He continues to do that and make me a gainer when the enemy tried to convince me I was a loser. You can’t lose with the God I choose because He works all things together for your good. God goes before you anyway, not just knowing the end from the beginning, but determining the end from the beginning. God has plans for you and me and our families. No plans of God can be throttled. You think, “You should know my family members, Ms. Vaughn. If you could see them, what they’re doing, and how they’re talking, they’ve been like that for years, Ms. Vaughn.”
I know what you’re saying. I know when it looks ugly and a mess. I’ve seen God more times than I probably wanted to, turn messes, the worst of them, into the most beautiful, glorious miracles. Glorifying His solemn improvement to me, once again, He is more than enough and I got you. The relationship with God is amazing. Walking with Him and being on this journey with Him is amazing. There’s nothing on the face of this Earth like it. Nothing else satisfies like it. I can say that with truth because God has allowed me to experience many things that the world deems important, that the world deems is the key to success, happiness, edification and all these things, fulfilment. God has allowed me to taste, chew and swallow almost all of it to come back to this day, at this moment, right here with you and say nothing but Jesus satisfies.
I know that for myself. It’s not something I read or heard about. It’s not something someone said to me or tried to teach me. I actually walked that thing out for quite some time. I can come out myself and saying this, “I know what I’m saying.” Nothing and no one else satisfies but Jesus. It is His heart to restore and save. After all, He is the Savior. It’s not just that God sent Him to save you and I or most of our families. God sent Him for He so loved the world. That’s us. That’s our family, friends and even our foes. I know I hit a button. Somebody felt that even our foes. Don’t shoot the messenger. God loves them too.
The Bible tells us something else too. God gave me this from Joshua 24:15. It’s the reason why Joshua boldly declared this. Remember, the Bible talks about coming to the end of the life of Joshua. Those people entered into the Promised Land after Moses had gone on to be with the Lord. Joshua was someone who wholly followed the Lord. He was someone who possessed his possessions. He entered the Promised Land. He got what God promised him and continued to believe. Others look like they were falling away. They were in doubt and in unbelief. They were doing this and that. He continued to believe God, no matter what he saw. Even with the behaviour of people in his own family and tribe, he continued to believe in God.
God’s Yeses
He fulfilled his destiny to the fullest and then some on top of that. It’s wonderful and it’s why he was able to declare what God wants us to declare. Joshua declared boldly, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Remember, he was a part of that generation that the Bible says that everything God promised them came to pass. Not one word failed of any good thing, which the Lord has spoken to the children of Israel. Joshua was a part of them and that’s a promise from God. We can lay hold of that promise and claim it now because all the promises of God are yes and, in Christ, they are amen. God has given the yes already. The yes is Jesus. The answer and solution is Jesus. “For God so loved the world that He gave Jesus.” He has done His part. Ours is to say amen. That’s our agreement with God.
Agreeing with God is believing God, no matter what we see and what people say. It’s us believing God so you can declare boldly like Joshua, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Don’t let anyone or anything, including those in your house, deter you or take you away from what God said. People change. God is the potter. We’re the clay. Clay is being molded, shaped, broken, put together, added on and taken away. He is doing the mold and the shaking, the this and the that. No one is doing that to Him. He changes not. The Bible said, “He is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore.”
With that being said, put your faith and confidence and set your focus upon. Let it be ever before you an unfailing, unshakeable, unbreakable, unchanging and everlasting solid foundation. That’s only going to be God, His son and His word. We change. Sometimes we feel good. Sometimes we don’t feel so good. Sometimes you feel like you’re bold and you got robust faith. At other times, it’s full of doubt, shaking and quaking. It’s like, “Are you an earthquake? You are nervous. What happened? Last Sunday, you were just ‘Woah.'” We can’t even put our faith in our faith. Faith is like, “Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief.” Do you feel me? Is it like the man in the Bible? That’s me keeping it real, “Lord, I believe,” but I’m like, “How? Am I going to be like John the Baptist when the angel comes unannounced to me?” It happens.
To Err Is Human
That’s why God says for us to put and He gave me this revelation, but I know it’s not just for me. It’s for the entire body of Christ. You put your faith in His faithfulness, not in your faith because our faith can waver. Let’s keep it real. The truth sets free, not lies and pretenses or pretending. The truth is what liberates. Let’s stick with the truth and the truth is we’re human. To be human is to err. It’s cool because the love of God is unconditional. The blood of Jesus covers. Thank God for mercy because our faith does waiver, but God’s faith is unwavering. Jesus is the one who always believes. “All things are possible to the one who always believes.” That correctly translates that particular Bible verse.
All things are possible to Him. He is always believing, never doubting. We put our faith in Him. We put our trust in His love for us, knowing if He has given us heaven’s best, which is Jesus, the rest is lesser. The lesser is always included in the greater. Mathematicians aren’t the only ones who know that. I know it has been the bulk of our time, but I wanted to do it because I felt from God to lay that foundation. You have a solid foundation from the word of God that is declaring to us repeatedly in multiple scriptures, Old Testament and New Testament, throughout the Bible. It is the perfect will of God. That’s what God is establishing in our hearts, His unfailing truth and revealing to us His heart, the heart of His Son. It is His heart and His will that our whole family and we be saved.
He tells us this and feeds us the truth so that we can know and pray with boldness and believe Him for their salvation no matter what. Fix your eyes on Him. He wants them safe. Can you tell me of an instance where God wants something and it doesn’t happen? I can’t think of anything. Let’s row with God. Let’s pray with confidence. Let’s decree a thing with confidence. Let’s decree His word over our family with confidence, knowing that He wants them saved.
Instituted By God
I want to begin the actual teaching because that was the introduction. Our family is important to us and it’s more important than we know. They’re even more important than God. Let’s start with Genesis 1:26. I’m going in the order that God gave it to me. I’m giving it back to you. One of the first things God did for mankind was to institute family. We’re in Genesis 1. It doesn’t get any more preliminary than that. God wasn’t just demonstrating. It’s His will, family for mankind. He also was demonstrating to us in Genesis 1 that He had already begun a family. The Bible says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.'” God was not alone in doing, desiring and causing this to happen. The Father was with the son and the Holy Spirit. That is family. Father and son speak of family.
God was there in the beginning. As the Lord was making us, the Bible says, “Everything that was made was made by Jesus.” It was their will and heart. There was no one there praying, decreeing and exercising their faith, “Lord, I believe I received.” There was no one there saying, “Touch and agree with me that God does this.” You didn’t have to pull God’s hand and on the strings of His heart. It was God’s will before there was any man or woman to pray, desire, or even know their need for this, even know this is something of value, family. God is all by Himself. The Father and the son, this is all by themselves, decided, “Let us.” Nobody made them do anything. Nobody prayed that they would do anything. We weren’t here yet.
God’s will is family. God’s will is not the I. It’s the us. It’s not the me. It’s the our. That’s the perfect will of God. That all speaks to family, people. It’s the will and idea of God. We know that Genesis is a book of beginnings. We can see that from the very beginning, “Family is in the heart of God.” Nobody prayed it that way. Don’t even think you got to like, “I got to pray more. Probably I need to fast.” There’s nothing wrong with that, but I mean this feeling of like, “I almost got to convince God and persuade Him.”
There’s no need to convince or persuade God that His will is good, right and should be established on Earth. That He knows we’re waking up to it and realizing it. We’re getting an agreement with God. We’re not convincing God to get an agreement with us, not when it comes to this. Praise be to Jesus. Praise be to God. Thank God for the Jews who wrote down The Oracles of God for us. I thank God for the Bible and His heart. It is a heart for our family.
We’re going to pick up in the next episode where we left off and continue to let God build upon this revelation, principles and truths about His heart and will for us and our whole house so that we pray with boldness and confidence, knowing that what we’re asking God for is His perfect will. Because of that, the Bible tells us God hears us. Not only does He hear us, but we have what we’re asking Him for. It is a yes from God. We are simply giving Him our amen. I love you very much. God bless you all and keep you. May God continue to protect you, lead you, guide you and give you everything you need, supply. I pray God calls you and you’re both willing to do this. Receive from Him that grace. Without effort, receive from Him because He gives graciously and God gives freely in Jesus’ name. I love you, guys.
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