Topic(s): Christian Life, Family, Home

The home, civil government, and the church arc divine institutions. God ordained them. Each was planned with man in mind. God planted the first home in the beauty - and serenity of Eden. The home is God's - "family life center." Each room in God's blueprint is designed for man’s happiness and well-being.

There is the instruction room. We are all - the products of what we have been taught. Children receive instruction from various - sources and upon the basis thereof, they build a life. God's formula for child-rearing is threefold: love God with all your being, receive His Word into your heart, and teach it incessantly to your children (Deut. 6:4-9). Children are admonished to hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of the mother (Prov.1:8). There is no substitute for parental instruction.

There is the example room. The best of instruction can be quickly nullified by a bad example. Children must have parental visual aid to accompany their teaching. Jehoshaphat walked in all the ways of Asa his father, and he turned not aside from it, doing that which was right in the sight of the Lord ( 1 Kings 22:43). Ahaziah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father and in the way of his mother (22:52). The difference is Jehoshaphat and Ahaziah was the difference in the example of their parents.

There is the entertainment room. God's blueprint has the entertainment room in the home, not in the church. Zechariah pictures the return of God to Jerusalem and the restoration of the city with the delightful scene of children "playing in the streets" (8:5). There is a time to play. Families need to spend some fun-time together. Instead of "go play," there is a time when parents need to say "let's play."

A humanly devised family life center as an adjunct to the church is a counterfeit for the real thing. Let us strive to make our home a real family life center.

-Prank Chesser