God’s Family – A Sword and a House of Refuge
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.” Matthew 10:34-35.
While He was still talking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with Him. Then one said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.”
But He answered and said to the one who told Him, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.” Matthew 12:46-50
*all scriptures are taken from the NKJV unless otherwise stated.
Introduction
It is not a coincidence that the last days which we already are in, according to Christ, will be in the similitude of the days of Noah and Lot. There is a lot to talk about the story of Noah and Lot and you can find some of those things in my latest book titled, Like The Days of Noah and Lot: Living in the Days before the Third World. But one thing that remains very crucial for these days of the end time, and which are highlighted in the story of Noah and Lot, is the issue of family and how it is the tool in the hand of God that will be used to both gather God’s people together, and also usher them into the new that is coming. I will try to explain as much as I am given to explain in the paragraphs below. But do your due diligence, take these things to God for deeper understanding and clarity.
A physical Family blessed of God
One thing we must keep in mind from the way that God set out to create the earth and then set up Man (Adam) and Woman (Eve) and blessed them to be the custodians of the things He made and the various processes of emancipation going forward, we can be sure that God’s plan from the beginning was inclusive of the family system and how it is the image and the likeness of the kingdom of God. All these things were finished in God from before the foundation of the earth, so it’s not like God suddenly realized He would need someone or a group of people to take care of the things He made. Family was always in His heart, and not just family as only the biological unit, but much more, the divine family not based on race, biology, country, color or whatever else. I know it’s quite difficult to come to terms with having a divine family comprising of different races and colors of the world, especially if you consider the many racial atrocities that history and our present-day are filled with. But God will heal those wounds.
The immediate physical family that God set in place from the beginning comprises male and female and their children. This is the physical family system that God set in place and which He Himself blessed to have dominion over all things created. So, you can take it to the bank that every physical family that God orchestrated the joining of, is blessed. And that is irrespective of what state of finance or wealth they may be in. So, without mincing words, gay marriage, LGBTQ and the many other weirdnesses in between cannot carry the blessing of God, and thus they are all a rotten stench in His nostrils.
To understand the blessing of God in a marriage, we must first of all be clear that money, wealth, material things, fame etc., are not necessarily the blessings of God. Satan gives such things much more to those who are aligned with him.
The blessing that God puts on a man and his family is to make that man and his family a channel or conduit through which the mind, thoughts and purposes of God are made manifest on the earth. You may want to ask, why is it that when God blessed Adam and Eve, He added all that was created as part of their blessings? Or you may also want to ask why is it that God’s blessing on Abraham also produced an abundance of wealth in goats, sheep, cattle, gold and many servants?
Here is the thing. God’s blessing is not material but because the earth always responds to God and His purpose, such a spiritually blessed man is also blessed materially by the response of the earth and nature to the purpose of God in his hands. Earth, or creation, is groaning to be set free from the futility that God placed on it in hope. So, whenever a man and his family respond accurately to God, to be a conduit of His purpose on earth, creation begins to respond to that man because in him lies the freedom from futility that it seeks. If this is true, like I know it is, then imagine for a moment what it really looks like when a man comes into alignment with the purpose of God for the earth, and also what it is like for the earth to align with him because of the purpose of God in his hand. It is unimaginable. It is huge. It is eternal.
Blessing from God always leads to birthing
Blessing from God and birthing for God are two inseparable twins that must walk together. For where there is a blessing from God there is a birthing for God. Meaning that every man or woman or family on earth that is blessed of God was blessed so that they can birth something new for Him on the earth. Meaning that the story of everyone that scripture says was blessed by God, is actually the story of bringing forth something for God on the earth. Take for example when God blessed Abraham that through him the families of the earth would be blessed. He, God, went ahead to promise him a Seed which is both Isaac, but much more, Jesus. Meaning that Isaac, as his physical blessing, fulfilled the physical promise of God to him that he would be the father of many nations (the twelve tribes of Israel) but the Christ fulfilled God’s promise to him that through him the families of the earth would be blessed which is salvation for all. And the latter is what happens when you birth something for God on the earth. It is huge, incomprehensible and eternal.
There are lots of useless marriage seminars out there, both in the church and in the secular spaces, which are hyped beyond reason but, nonetheless, are producing more separations and divorces. The truth is that they keep missing the foundational precepts of what marriage is, so they build and also teach others to go into marriage using the principles they find in Hollywood movies. They do useless seminars about family finance, family diet, how to satisfy your husband in the bedroom, what school your kids should go to and all manner of things that breed wastage. But one thing they always leave out, and for which reason there are failures and troubles in marriages globally, is that a true marriage that is set up by God must have a covenant backing it in God. The blessing I mentioned earlier is the covenant that God has with a man and for which his family is now set up. So, whether the marriage lasts for a year or a thousand years, that covenant that backs the marriage and for which the family was blessed by God, must fulfil the purpose of God on the earth. Have you ever wondered why after Isaac, the seed that God promised Abraham was presented to God on Mount Moriah, the very next chapter was the story of the death of Sarah? Or have you ever wondered why a few years after Jesus was born, the story of Joseph disappeared? Could it be that the moment they fulfilled the reason why their marriages were joined, they were free to leave? Let me leave you to think about those two scenarios.
What’s your family covenant and blessing?
What blessing did God give your household and what are you meant to birth for Him on the earth? No union put together by God is without a blessing and no marriage that God blessed is without a reality of God that they must give birth to on the earth. It is your duty as a man or as a woman or even as a child growing up in a family to know the answers to these questions. It is your job to find out what the blessing of God over you is and what covenant backs it up and then live out the reality or realities attached to them. Mind you, that hell has fought your marriage with everything it can gather does not mean your marriage is not blessed. In fact, the reality is that the marriages and families that carry the blessing of God are the ones with the most pain, attacks and shakiness. Why? Satan, the accuser of men and contender against God, will not leave in peace the purpose of God to be manifested on the earth, nor will he leave in peace those in whose hands God has placed that purpose. Make sense?
The divine family of God is not against the physical family
Jesus did not come to destroy the physical family unit like many allude to; He came to give it purpose and meaning. Meaning that nothing stops the physical family unit from becoming the spiritual family unit of God, as long as the patterns of dwelling in the same tent by faith are adhered to. The title “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” simply means the reality of a physical family which followed the patterns and principles laid down by God, backed up by the covenant of faith and which, by that, became a divine family. So, a physical family unit does not have to be broken down in order to create a spiritual family. And this is much more possible if the male and female of the family understand God’s pattern of marriage prior to their marriage. Meaning that they won’t have to learn the pattern through divorce or breakage. And that’s why Jesus pointed out that even though God allowed divorce based on sexual unfaithfulness; it was actually imputed due to the stiffneckedness of the Israelites.
The physical family is very important to God, but much more important than that is the divine family, which may or may not include those of the same biology. It is this divine family which may have come out of the physical family that has understood covenant and God’s blessing, or not, that God will use as His sword and His house of refuge in this age. The sword to separate men from the foolishness of their minds and this world, and the house of refuge to give them shelter from what can come upon a man that has just been separated from the foolishness of his mind and of this world. It’s like using the sword to separate a man from this world and by that making him an orphan, then the house of refuge becomes the place where that man can now have a new family, safe from the influence of the world he is coming from. This, amongst many others, is what Jesus meant when He said, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.” See Matthew 10:34-35.
This divine family is dear to the heart of God. In fact, this divine family is what is known as the Bride of Christ or the New Jerusalem which comes down from God. And it is for this family that the reality of the coming third world was set up. It is the eternal home of the Family of God right here on the new earth. But the truth is, this family has a critical job to do before the third world comes. Scripture says creation is groaning and waiting in labor pains to be set free by the liberty of the sons of God. But who are these sons of God whose liberty will set creation free from futility? You got it right. The Family of God. They are the ones who, having known their identity in God – which is really what their liberty is, will snap creation out of the futility which it has been subjected to from the days of the fall. They are the ones who will stand in the gate of governance and declare the mind of God over a nation, a city, a community and the global space. They are the sword in the hand of God with which He cuts asunder anything that stands against His counsel. But they are also the refuge of safety for those who must be saved, and the enemy cannot be happy with them. So, they are made to go through stuff that many ordinary people will not be able to go through. They don’t often come as you think they will come, nor do they appear as carriers of authority in God, like men think they should, and the reason is simple: God has ground them in the mill of His humility, and thus, until God decides to show off in them, they really don’t have anything to show you as carriers of the divine. In fact, when God shows off in them or through them, they may not even be aware of what God has done if God does not tell them. Their humility and brokenness are their power and authority over the earth.
Beware of drunkenness
Every covenant of God in a man’s life comes with a blessing that births something for God on the earth and every such birthing attracts the enemy of God – the devil. It is inevitable, and so each one must be aware of it.
Have you ever thought about the fact that the end of both the physical lives of Noah and Lot had compromises that were instigated by drunkenness? I intentionally used the term physical lives in that even though the wine and the intoxicating effect of it got to them, and they created a lineage of people carrying curses, they did not lose their eternal realities. Noah and Lot were still called righteous. See 2 Peter 7:8 and Hebrews 11:7. You can also read Genesis 9:20-25 and Genesis 19:30-38 for context about the drunkenness of Noah and Lot.
But like I wrote in my book, drunkenness is not really about the drinking of physical alcohol, even though one has to be careful of that, drunkenness is to be under the control of the serpentine spirit that rules this world through sorcery and magic. The world system called Babylon is depicted as a woman who sits upon the nations of the world with a cup of wine of filth and abominations with which she has made the nations drunk. See Revelation 18 for context. Meaning that every time a person or a family says yes to God to carry a blessing backed by covenant, and they give or begin to give birth to God’s reality on the earth, Satan will do all by the workings of the woman of filth to present them with the cup of the wine of fornication. This has been the reason why most intentions of God on the earth, which He gave to men to do, don’t stand for long. The cup of the wine of fornication is always going around for anyone who will drink of it. May God keep His Family from the drunkenness of this wine of sorcery in this age.
Turn on your light
I recently released a new music single titled Light for a Blind World. The song was released at the time it was released and on the date it was released to remind those of the household of God that the world is in a dark space because many are not turning on their lights. They have allowed the weight and the frustration of this world to make them hide their lamps and candles under clay pots. They have forgotten that a city that is set on a hill should not be hidden but can actually be hidden if men set walls around it. So, you see the high walls of concealment and not the beauty of the city, which is what is happening to many right now. Cities on hills but with walls of insecurity, walls of fear, walls of ‘I am not good enough’, walls of shame of the past etc.
Just this morning I was asking the Lord what it means to turn on my light. Don’t be surprised if I tell you He has told me these things before, but I kept going back to ask, for I did forget them. Anyway, I asked again today and He gave me a fresh understanding. To turn on your light is to rise up in the identity that God has given you and for which you carry covenant, blessing and authority in the area of your influence. Meaning that when Gabriel told Zacharias in Luke 1:19 that “I am Gabriel who stands in the presence of God”, he was turning on the light of his identity before God and for which he had the authority to speak to Zacharias about what God wanted to do. Another example would be the example of Elijah. See what he said to Ahab, the king of Israel, “As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except at my word.” See 1 Kings 17:1.
In both examples, it is clear that both entities know and understand who they are in God, know and understand the power and authority that comes with the covenants of their ordinations in God and by that, they switch on their lights in every situation where they are needed. The question now is this; do you know your identity in God and will you turn on your light to diffuse the darkness that is covering the entire world right now?
The truth is that the extent to which our world has fallen into darkness is the same extent to which those who are supposed to be the lights of the world have hidden their candles. The time has come when we must shine our lights brightly, and by that, save this blind world from total collapse.
You are called of God and His name and authority are in you. Will you allow God to use you as His sword and a house of refuge for His people?
Turn on your light and let the darkness be pushed back. Blessings, from your brother.
