Here’s another tremendous excerpt from It Starts at Home: A Practical Guide to Nurturing Lifelong Faith by Kurt Bruner and Steve Stroope. In this passage, Kurt Bruner shares about the power of incarnational living . . .
No matter how creatively we proclaim God’s Word to children at church, they are more likely to believe their experience of the faith at home. That’s because incarnation trumps proclamation.
Incarnation literally means “en-flesh-ment.” God became a flesh-and-blood human being to reveal Himself to us in a way written words could not accomplish. . . . . No wonder every major heresy in church history has been an attack on the doctrine of the incarnation. Satan hates that God became flesh. He also hates healthy families because they serve as flesh-and-blood icons of the unity and love that flows within and from the Trinity. The Scriptures tells us that when husband and wife become one flesh in the pleasure of marital union, it creates a picture of the beautiful union between Christ and His church. It also reaps the gift of children, filling the world with more fleshy reminders of Satan’s mortal enemy.
Life comes from unity with God and others—moving toward others. Death means separation—moving away. Happy homes echo the intimate joys of heaven. Broken, troubled families, by contrast, imitate the loneliness, isolation, and anger of hell.
Do you want to make the Devil cringe as if hearing scratching nails on a chalkboard? Then celebrate fifty years of marriage or enjoy laughter with your children around the dinner table. Satan does not fear a religion that merely stencils words on a stone wall, or even preaches them in a sermon. What he dreads is when the Word becomes flesh and blood in the tangible context of a God-honoring marriage and family.
Let’s become a “flesh and blood” picture of Christ in our homes today!
No matter how creatively we proclaim God’s Word to children at church, they are more likely to believe their experience of the faith at home. That’s because incarnation trumps proclamation.
Incarnation literally means “en-flesh-ment.” God became a flesh-and-blood human being to reveal Himself to us in a way written words could not accomplish. . . . . No wonder every major heresy in church history has been an attack on the doctrine of the incarnation. Satan hates that God became flesh. He also hates healthy families because they serve as flesh-and-blood icons of the unity and love that flows within and from the Trinity. The Scriptures tells us that when husband and wife become one flesh in the pleasure of marital union, it creates a picture of the beautiful union between Christ and His church. It also reaps the gift of children, filling the world with more fleshy reminders of Satan’s mortal enemy.
Life comes from unity with God and others—moving toward others. Death means separation—moving away. Happy homes echo the intimate joys of heaven. Broken, troubled families, by contrast, imitate the loneliness, isolation, and anger of hell.
Do you want to make the Devil cringe as if hearing scratching nails on a chalkboard? Then celebrate fifty years of marriage or enjoy laughter with your children around the dinner table. Satan does not fear a religion that merely stencils words on a stone wall, or even preaches them in a sermon. What he dreads is when the Word becomes flesh and blood in the tangible context of a God-honoring marriage and family.
Let’s become a “flesh and blood” picture of Christ in our homes today!
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