How important are family lines?

Extremely important!

The bible is filled with evidence that family lines are important to God. Many pages have large spaces dedicated to careful tracking of genealogies, descendants, tribes, names, births and deaths. Such detailed accounting indicates God has selected each birth date and knows the span of our lives before we are born.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:16)

Why is God keeping such close track?

Each individual on the earth was created by God in His image. Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness… (Genesis 1:26a) Each family line was intended to fill the earth with God-honoring people. In Eden, before Adam and Eve broke relationship with God, God blessed the first couple and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” (Genesis 1:28a)

Why do we pray?

How we live our lives influences our family lines. …showing loving devotion to a thousand generations to those who love Me and keep My commandments. (Exodus 20:6) I am currently walking with God to the best I know how, but God is not going to answer my prayer that He bless 1,000 generations beyond me because I loved or obeyed Him well enough. My life is too riddled with moral failure, honest mistakes and naivite to entertain such thoughts. I am not trusting God to answer my family line prayer because of how well I have lived the Christian life, but because I have invited Him in. The glory of prayer is that it invites God’s power into whatever we hand Him. God will not ignore an open invitation into our family lines. He is longing to rush into any space where He is invited: For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. (2 Chronicles 16:9)

What do we pray?

Personally, I ask the Holy Spirit to sweep through my family line and get the full heart of every family member. Not every family member loves the Lord wholeheartedly yet. Sometimes I feel silly praying such grand dreams for a family that is filled with people of varying levels of spiritual interest and maturity. Some family members even express complete disinterest. I suspect this describes your family too, but no matter how hopeless things look on some days, I believe we must still squeak out the words with what faith we have — even if only a whimper — or while crying, anxious, fearful, or embarrassed if someone were to hear us. Only God can win over this chaotic world, Satan, and our sinful flesh that wants to live independently from our Creator.

We must pray!

I think about Abraham a lot. God promised him more descendants than can be counted, then Abraham waited 25 years for Isaac to be born. When Abraham died, the promise had not yet been fully realized. Only Isaac and Ishmael had been born, yet Abraham never stopped believing. I don’t know if anyone ever told Abraham to his face that he looked foolish, but I feel certain people had such thoughts about him when he introduced himself as “father of the nations” for 25 years with no children, and then for the rest of his life with only one or two.

Yet look at things now.

Every Christ follower in history is a descendant of Abraham. Galatians 3:29: If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

So let’s pray for our family lines.

Pray for God to sweep through and get the full heart of every person. Things will get messy. If the Spirit of God is going to get a person’s entire heart, it means He must allow all the things a person is trusting in apart from God to fail, but don’t panic. Just keep praying and placing your faith in God who is far more interested in your family line glorifying His name than you are.

Let’s pray for our spiritual family lines too.

The body of Christ rises up from the geographical nations on earth to form a united spiritual nation filled with individuals after God’s own heart. As Christ followers — now adopted into the family of God — we are to be a source of power and beauty to the watching world.

All Christ followers are our spiritual family. Someone told a person about Christ, who then told another, then another, then another, until someone told you. That is your spiritual family line! We already know we are going to be with each other forever. Just like the enemy does not want people in our earthly bloodlines to come to know Christ, he does not want people in the family of God to be united or live lives that are healthy and strong for the Lord,either.

Once again…

Things will get messy. If the Spirit of God is going to get a Christ follower’s entire heart, it means He must allow all the things a person is trusting in apart from God to fail.

Don’t panic. Just keep praying.

Picture Explanation: The next little one in our family line is a boy. Prayers have begun.

If you are interested in being contacted about participating in a One Gritty Blink bible study in 2023, click on the Oaks Ministries link below and contact Laurie by email. Let’s focus on things that count for eternity.

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