A Strong Family – Dr. Charles Stanley

I want you to think about your home and how you can improve, how you can make it stronger wherever it might be. And don't give up. No matter what's happened, you don't give up. God placed you there for a reason. And if you will listen to Him carefully, He can make you a strong influence. And your children will grow up to have the right kind of influence and testimony. And they'll pass on what you pass on to them. And that will make a wonderful family for you. Today on In Touch, A Strong Family. God created a family. And yes, they're no perfect families. In fact, if you look in the Scriptures, you'll find pretty quickly Adam and Eve had a very difficult time in their family. Not only was there conflict between them because you remember when she said to Adam, why don't you take a bite? He told God, she made him do it. It's sort of that's what she said, he said. And then, of course, they had two sons. One of them killed the other. And Eli's sons, the priest, both his sons, the Bible says were evil. Abraham married Sarah. They're getting along real fine. And then Hagar comes on the scene and they have a conflict. Then you could move all the way through the Scriptures, but let's just take David who is the, he was the supreme of all the kings of Israel. There was lying, murder, rape, and rebellion in his family. And this was an awesome family. And he was an awesome king. And yet, their family was a total disaster. So, when you're thinking about your family and you're thinking, we're not doing too well. Well, just remember this, just because your family isn't doing too well isn't because you can't be better. In other words, you can improve what's going on if you're willing to work at it. It's difficult in these days to have a strong family. And yet, that is exactly what I want to talk about in this message. And God intends for us to have strong families, and proof of that is this. If you turn to Deuteronomy chapter six for a moment, I want us to look at a few verses that's absolute proof that God was very interested in His families being strong families. If you look in this sixth chapter, and I'll just start reading in verse three to save a little time here, and notice what the Scripture says. Scripture says, O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey. Then He says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, with all your might. These words which I'm commanding you today shall be on your heart, and then this is what He says about the family as proof that He wants strong families. He says to them, speaking primarily to the fathers, you shall teach them diligently to your sons, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. That is to teach the Word of God to His children's family. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house, and on your gates. And He was simply saying, the Word of God I want in your family, everywhere you turn, there's evidence that the Word of God is in your family. So, when you look at your family and you say, well, some of you may say, well, my family's gone now. I can't do anything about it. Well, gone where? In other words, if you can call on the telephone, you can reach them. Somebody says, well, I text them once in a while. You know what? That's so impersonal, there's no feeling in a text. You say, well, I tell them I love them, but that's still a text. It's something about, sweetheart, I love you. Honey, I love you. You're just fantastic, sweetheart. In other words, there's a whole lot of difference in that and I-L-U-V and a capital U. What's happening to a society that we can't even communicate with each other? God wants us to have strong, loving families. So, somebody says, well, so, how would you define that kind of a family? I'd simply say this, and that is, we mean by strong family, one in which the members of the family have a love and devotion to one another. Love and devotion for one another. No other substitute, just love and devotion for one another. That's the beginning of a strong family. And it doesn't just happen, it takes work. And I think one of the reasons many people don't have strong families is the father and the mother are one of the two. They're not willing to do what is necessary to build strength into their family. So, the purpose of this message is this, is to give you the characteristics of a strong family. It doesn't mean that you have to do every single one of these things, but it does mean this. These are the characteristics of strong families. Now, personally, I've been on all sides of this, and I'm simply saying this to you. You don't have to give up no matter what happens. You can keep moving on in your life and keep having an awesome influence in the lives of your children no matter what happens. But it depends upon us and our relationship to God. So, I want you to listen carefully to this message, and I want you to think about your home and how you can improve, how you can make it stronger wherever it might be, and don't give up. No matter what's happened, you don't give up. God placed you there for a reason. And if you will listen to Him carefully, He can make you a strong influence, and your children will grow up to have the right kind of influence and testimony, and they'll pass on what you pass on to them, and that will make a wonderful family for you. So, let's begin with the first one, and that is, and let me just say this right up front. When I say this first, and you're going to say, well, that's just counting me out. No, no, no, no, because I'm coming to the part where the families are divided and separated and blended and so forth. So, stay with me from the very beginning. First of all, godly parents. You want a strong family? You need a strong father and a strong mother who love God and are devoted to Him. That is the most powerful of all the elements in a strong family. Secondly, one of the very important things about having a strong family is that parents are consistent. That is, if you say something, do what you say. Because here's what children do. They hear what you say, but they do what you do. And children watch that very carefully. If you want consistency, you have to do what you say you're going to do, very important. Then, of course, you need to be a good listener. Everybody wants to be listened to, and children want to be listened to. And if you want to turn a child away and separate yourself from that child, whether it's a little boy, little girl, or a teenager, just get too busy to listen. Listening is a very important activity in a family. You may not always be interested in what they have to say, but remember this. They honor you as their father and their mother, and they think that you're smarter than they are, so they want you to listen to what they have to say because you may be able to help them. And everybody wants to be listened to. You want to be listened to in your job, in your family, among your friends. You feel like that's very important. To refuse to listen to somebody is to shut them out and really to make the statement, you're not worth listening to, you're not important, so I'm not going to listen. Be sure not to let that happen in your family. Then, of course, discipline them without rejection, a very, very important point, which simply says this. You don't discipline your children when you're angry with them. If you're angry at something they did, get over it. Walk away, do something to get over the anger till you and God can settle your feeling about that, then you come to them and discipline them. You see, if you discipline your child out of anger, you're probably going to hurt them. Secondly, they're going to feel, by your attitude, they'll feel your rejection. You don't want them to feel rejection. You want to say to them that you're doing this for a reason. So, I made it a policy early in my kid's life not to ever discipline them until, first of all, I explained what I was getting ready to do. I would never indiscipline touch my child with my hand. When you slap a child with your hand, whether it's a face or some other part, there's something about that that transfers into rejection. There's something psychologically very destructive about that. Then, of course, parents loving one another builds security in a child's life. If a child growing up, whether he's six or whether he's 16, and he sees dad and mom really love each other, they feel that love, they hug each other, they kiss each other right in front of everybody, and he talks about what a wonderful gal she is, and he's a wonderful guy. In other words, when that goes on in the family, what that does, that builds security in the life of those children. And here's what they say. That's the kind of love I want. That's the kind of woman I'm after. I want to marry a woman just like my mother. Do you remember that song? I want a gal just like the gal that married dear old dad. You don't remember that song? Well, it's a wonderful idea, and it's because two people genuinely love each other. And if you love somebody, you can't keep it to yourself. People who pout and go off and act like children, you know what, that doesn't build a strong family. It breaks it down. A strong family's built by mom and dad who love each other and don't mind demonstrating it in the right fashion. Then, don't play favorites. For example, let's say you have three sons, and you say, oh, he, listen, he makes straight A's, his teacher just loves him, and over here, two more saying, well, what about us? Or if there's a daughter who is especially beautiful, and the other two are just sort of, mm-hmm, and you are always telling her to have beautiful cheers, have smart cheers, she's probably going to marry some handsome guy. What about the other two gals who are just as precious? You can play favorites, but I'm telling you, it's destructive to the other two. And I think about some people who've come to me at times and said, you know what, I don't think my father loves me. Why not? And it's all about his attitude toward the other son, not anything he does against him, but it's the prejudice he's developed as a result of playing favorites. So, you don't want to do that. Then, of course, one of the things that we have to do if we're going to build a strong family, we have to admit that we failed. And if you can't admit failures on your part, they're not going to admit it on their part. And so, all of us have failed at times in our life. Listen, maybe we didn't keep our word. I think one of the difficult things, it's really inexcusable, when a father promises his son or his daughter he's going to do something, and you don't do it, you know what makes it worse? When you don't do it, you don't remember it, and you don't mention it. And what it says to a child is, I'm not important. His work's important. This is important. His car is important. Washing his car is important. All these things are important, but I'm not important. To a child, father is the authority. And that's the way God made me. He says the husband is the head of the home. And so, when father or mother make promises to sons or daughters, and they don't keep those promises, it builds distrust, it builds insecurity, because then when something comes along that's really, really major, they don't know what's going to happen, because you didn't attend to the small things. And people say, well, I don't understand why my kids don't listen to me. I'll tell you why. Listen, they will listen to you when you listen to them. And when they come to you to talk and talk and talk, and you don't listen to them, when they, listen, when they come to you about things that are really difficult, if you've not been listening, you won't listen to that. And all of these things just shout rejection. I'm not important. And so, if you've not listened before, they won't come when you need to talk to them and you need to listen. Then, of course, praying together about everything. And I think this is so very important. Parents say, well, you know what? Some things I don't want to pray about. Well, if there's something that's private, that's one thing, but for the most part, and we had a coffee table, that's what we called it, in Lowdown, and we could sit around it. And so, that's where we do our praying together. And we didn't pray together every single night. When kids get a little older, you don't. But at least once a week, we'd get around the table, and that's why we sort of brought up things and issues that we would need to pray about as a family. If there were financial issues or some kind of issues that we had to deal with, that was a good place for us to pray together. And listen, when you listen to your kids pray, you'll know when they know how to pray. Then of course, reading the Bible together. It'd be amazing to know how many Christians, Christian homes, as we would say, where the parents and the kids read the Bible together. There's not a dad alive who's too busy. There's not a mother alive too busy. You may make yourself busy, but what could you do more important to a young child? Now listen, to keep this Bible before them and to magnify the Word of God and to talk about the Word of God, and listen, and read it with them. And read it with the whole family. You may not read it with the whole family every single day, but you could read it at least once a week. But you could help them learn to read the Bible daily. And when my kids were growing up and I would try to get them to read the Bible, they'd say, well, I don't understand some of these words. Well, the King James Version written back hundreds of years ago, some of the words don't mean the same thing today they meant then. So I thought, okay, I'm going to settle this issue. So when the Living Bible came out, I bought both of them a nice leather-bound copy of the Living Bible translation. From the day I gave them that Bible, I never had to ask Andy or Becky to read the Bible, never. Because, and it has become the Bible that I read for my own personal private devotions because it's written in a different way and it's written in a more personal way and it's good for me. I wouldn't want to go with that all the time because I like to see what the verbs and pronouns and adjectives and tenses and so forth. But when it just comes to just ministering to my soul, you give your child a copy of the Living Bible translation, one that they can handle small maybe, that they can take with them. And they both took it to college with them and they're still reading it. And anything you can do to get your child into the Word of God, listen to me, you're saving yourself trouble, heartache, and tears. Because as they read the Word of God and find out what God says, and then they compare what God says with what you say, then there is authority in that. And let me say this, it's your guidebook for life. It's their guidebook for life. You're the one who is to instill within them, watch this, the wisdom, the wisdom of guiding their life by the Word of God. If I should ask you, well, do you want your children to read the Word of God and to be guided by that? Yes. Well, who's going to be the most effective? Not the pastor. I can talk about it, just an hour on Sunday, you've got six days and 23 other hours. You're the pattern. It's what you teach them about what they see, reading the Word of God together. It's an awesome, awesome lesson in that. Just being there with them and opening the Word. And for example, here's what they'll do. When you're gone sometime, they're going to find your Bible, look through and see what you marked and what you underlined. And all that says is this. My dad thinks there's something really important about this verse. I would look at this one again. And so what you're doing is you're enriching their life in ways that are very, very simple, but it will absolutely affect them as long as they live. And if I should ask you today, how many of you read the Bible with your children? How many of your children have seen you read the Bible, have heard you read it, have heard you try to explain it? Where's the Bible, the Word of, this is the eternal, infallible Word of the living God. And it's our God book for life and the book by which you and I will be judged. Where is it in your family? And if you'll think about it for a moment, your children probably, if there's none around, they probably wonder why you don't read the Bible. I cannot tell you how important this book is. It's the God book for life. We'd not be having the problems we're having. We'd not be in the mess we are in this country if the people in leadership and the people that's in towns or city, state, country, we wouldn't be where we are if the principles of the Word of God were lived out by those who rule over us. And that is true in the family as well as any other place in life. So you want to encourage them to have private devotions, not just what you all read together, but they need to get in the habit of reading it by themselves and just say, if there's something you read you don't understand, you come ask me, I'll help you understand it. If I don't, we'll find out the answer. Don't just leave them hanging, we'll find out what the answer is. Then, not just reading the scripture and so forth together, but you need to attend church together. Now listen carefully, if you happen to be one of those parents, whether you're in this church or some other church, and you go to your church or come to this church and you drop your kids off for Sunday school, you come to what we call big church, then you go pick them up after Sunday school and take them home. You know what you've done? You've said, number one, worship is not important, or big church is not important, hearing the pastor's sermon's not important, you went to Sunday school, you got some training, so that's it. What do you think they're going to do when they get a little bit older? You know what they'll do? Instead of coming to big church, they'll go somewhere else. And you think, what'll they do when they get to college? When all, listen, everything is stacked against most kids when they go to college because of what they're going to hear. If they're not rooted and grounded in the Word of God, they're going to come out of college, listen, having laid aside what truth you've tried to tell them. And if you look at the statistics, it's horribly unbelievable. How many kids leave college, do not believe in God, or do not believe anything about the church or anything about Jesus Christ anymore? And then of course, you need to explain to them how to handle money. Now, somebody says, well, yeah, well, somebody should have explained that to me a long time ago. Well, this is how simple it is. You can say to a little child, and give them like a few years there, well, here's what you do. You save some, you give some, and you spend some. Just those three things. And if you get them in the habit of saving very early in life, it may not be much. And one of my friends was telling me not long ago, his mother passed away when he was rather young, but she taught him, when he got his first job, to do that, to save some, and to give some, and to spend some. And so, he put aside a dollar. He said, I've been practicing that all my years. He's 40-some years old. He told me how much money he had. And if I told you the kind of job he had, you'd think, but you know what, those things multiply. And so, ask yourself the question, what about, how do you look at money? If you got a stack of credit cards, or do you have money? Do you have a lot of debt, or do you have money? And if you'll think about this, this is just my personal opinion, but it's worth something. The only thing I've ever been in debt for, if I had to say debt, is buying a house. That's the only thing. The only other time I've ever borrowed any money was when I had my first paper route. I had to buy the paper route. And so, it cost $125. My mother and I went to the bank because she didn't have any money. And so, I made a deal with them naturally. I'd pay them back $2 a week. So, I paid it back in such a way that I paid it off in a year. And the fact that I had to pay interest was terrible. So, it taught me a lesson. And so, we teach our children to save some, teach our children to give some, teach our children to spend some. And we teach them that the biblical example for that is tithing, that the first 10%. I taught my kids that. I never tithed. I always gave more than that because my attitude was it looked a little cheap to me to give God change. I made $4 and to give God 40 cents when I was thankful for a job, I gave him a dollar. And I've never tithed. I've always given more than that. I taught my children that. And to say, okay, here's how much you have. Now, if you divide this into 10, 10 pennies, and if you gave God one of those, how much would you have left? And of course, we got out of the penny age pretty fast. But I taught them what tithing's about. And both of them have tithed all of their life and stayed out of debt. And you say, well, it's too late for me. It's not, listen, pay it off if at all possible. Don't get back in debt. Listen, teach your children that to save some, put some aside. Because if you'll start now, one of these days, you don't have to borrow any money to do anything. Just start young, start early, putting it aside. If you will help them do that, you'll be grateful and they'll be grateful all the days of their life. Then of course, discourage any kind of criticism in your family. It doesn't do any bit of good. Just discourage that. You say, you know what, let's don't criticize him or her. Let's talk about this and see if we can't figure this out in some way, because there may come a time when you have the same problem. And so, just discourage criticism. And there are families that don't get along and he calls her something and she calls him something back. And it's just on and on it goes. The next thing you know, parents are in. She gets on his side and he gets on her side. I mean, a family can have an awesome, terrible fight over something that oftentimes isn't important. I'll tell you what will keep that from happening. Reading the Word of God, discussing the Word of God together, you get a whole different perspective on God and perspective on each other. And so, I would just simply say this, don't criticize each other. If you don't like something, keep it to yourself till you can figure it out or sit down and just talk about it. Criticism tears people down. It tears, listen, listen, you can take this from me and that from the other, but when you take away somebody's, when you take away something that is built within someone, their sense of self-esteem is who they are. When you tear away at that, you tear away at the very heart and core of that person. You can destroy them without ever touching them. You can do it with words if you're not careful. Then at the proper age, share your heartaches, disappointments, trials, and tough times. In other words, you say, well, what is the proper age? I don't know what the proper age would be for your children, depends on the problem. But for example, if you're going through a hard time, let's say on your job, and your kid's 10 or 12 years of age or whatever it might be, and you say, you know what? We need to pray tonight before we go to bed about that dad's job or around the table or whatever it might be. And just share, listen, if you will learn to, if you will share your heartaches, your burdens, and the things that you go through with them, then when they go through them, they're gonna share them with you. And what you want is them sharing those difficult times with you very early in life before it gets impossible. And if you will do it with them, they will do the same with you because they're gonna copy you in that. And then I would say, don't avoid the hard questions kids have. Kids have hard questions these days and times. Don't say, well, you know what? Ask somebody else. Or you may say, I don't know the answer. Call the pastor. Well, they're not gonna do that probably. If they ask you some hard question, listen, even try to answer it as best you know how. Or say to them, you know what? The truth is, I don't know how to answer that, but why don't we ask God to show us and maybe if we need to talk to somebody else, He'll show us. Are you listening? Say amen. Now listen, I said to my children when they got to be right at teenage, 13 and 14, somewhere thereabouts, I said, look, I want both of you to find an adult that you have a lot of confidence in, somebody that you think you could just say anything to, and I want you to develop a friendship with that person so that when you wanna talk to them about something you don't wanna talk to me about, you say, well, now you should be the kind of dad they can talk anything about. Well, not necessarily. All of us have private things in our life about what's going on. And so my kids always talk to me about most things, but I said, look, there may be something you don't wanna tell me. And so I want you to find somebody that you can trust and they won't tell me. But I want you to be able to tell somebody else something that maybe you're going through and maybe you've had some temptation or something you did and it just hurts you so bad to have to tell me. Tell this person and you all work it out. Well, both of them found a person. And so it was interesting to me who they found. One of them chose a counselor in our church. The other chose a real fine godly man. And I was happy to see them be able to share that. And your children don't wanna disappoint you. And even though they may act at times, deep down inside they don't wanna disappoint their parents. And if you come across in such a way that there's no way for them to get to your heart, you'll drive them away. Then of course, build biblical convictions into their life as a guide. Now, that means you need to know what you believe and you need to be able to stand up with the Word if necessary. And maybe you, listen, maybe you have convictions you can't even go to the Bible and find the reason for it. If it's a godly conviction, it's in here. For example, you may say to your children, very early in life, it is a sin to drink alcoholic beverage because it affects your mind. Listen to me, it lowers your resistance to moral temptation. Anybody who denies that don't know what they're talking about. And so I said, for example, no drinking. Well, if you, listen, you can't build that conviction into them if you're drinking. Because they see, you're not consistent with what you're saying. And I know some dads who drink and say that they're Christian. I'm not denying the fact that they're Christian, but it's a terrible testimony in their home. And I can also name their children who have developed the same habit. Somebody says, well, there's nothing wrong with drinking a little wine. A little? How much, how long do people drink a little? And besides, what does alcohol do to a person's mind, to their brain? And you want your kids to go into college drinking? You've paid a lot of money to get them educated. You don't want them messing up their lives. Getting drunk, having immorality, and on and on it goes. That's just one thing. But there are other convictions. You want them to have a conviction about how they treat each other, to love other people, and the convictions about forgiveness, and on and on it goes. If you have those convictions, you can teach it to them by demonstration. If you don't have those convictions, no matter what you say, it won't work. They're going to do what you do, not necessarily what you say. And then spend time with your children. What's their interest? And you say, well, my kids, they don't seem to have the same interests I do. Then maybe you need to change your interest. Maybe, in other words, make some adjustment, depending upon the age, of course, so that, in other words, kids love to do things with their parents. It says what I'm doing is important. It says what I'm doing, he or she thinks it's important, that they respect what I do as well as I do it. And so, I can remember when I used to build little model airplanes, you know, the stick and paper kind, about that large, and some of them were huge. My mom, she'd come and see me doing that, and she would always say something complimentary. Now, she didn't know a thing in the world about what I was doing, but she'd say, oh, Charles, that really looks, ooh, you must be smart. That didn't take me very smart, because I had a blueprint that you put the stick in, put pins in, you put sticks in, you finally put them all together with glue, and put paper on them, you save them. But you know what? She always encouraged me. Whatever I was doing, she was always an encouragement. And you say, well, that's not very important. Because you see, she didn't stop encouraging me making model airplanes, she encouraged me when I was preaching the gospel. But she encouraged me all my life. That word encouragement is a powerful word. It's a powerful action. Everybody wants to be encouraged. Everybody needs encouragement in their life at times. There's nobody who's beyond the need of encouragement. Because things happen in our life, we can't always handle it by ourselves. We need to be able to tell somebody, share it with somebody, kids especially. And so I want to encourage you to do that. Then, plan fun things together until they get a certain age, then they're gone. And think about this. You love them when they're small, and y'all can do this and do that. There's gonna come a time when you know what? They're not interested in that. They have their own world. And what you want to do is, listen, you want to build memories into their life. Where they can remember what you all did together. If you sat down with Andy and said, what did you and your dad do together? He would talk about us fishing together, about us loving that especially, about us shooting guns together, about playing games together, about what we believed and why we believed it. All kind of things. There's something in that what you do together. May not always agree, but that togetherness. Now, if you're a husband or wife and you love your, you love your husband or wife, it's that togetherness you like. In other words, if you don't love her, you don't want her around. But if you love her and you love him, you want him around. Because there's something about, that's the way God made us. He made us persons to love and to be loved and to show interest. Then of course, you have to be willing to ask for forgiveness. If you can't ask for forgiveness, you can't have a strong family. We all make mistakes. And when my kids were young, I would say to them about once every three months, I'd say, well, tonight it's supper. Let's just talk about if we have anything between us that we've not talked about, not dealt with, then let's just get it out and make everything clean. They said, fine. And so a few times they didn't have anything. I remember one time I said, so tonight, that's what we're gonna do. I said, Becky, do you have anything that you need to bring up that maybe I've done? Yes, I do. She didn't hesitate. She told me about something that happened years before that she hadn't mentioned before. I made her go into her room, shut the door, and the door, I didn't knock it, she thought I did. But it was tight, and so she couldn't get out. She was very, very young at that point. All, listen to this, all these years, and she was a teenager. Now, she's probably about 15 to 16. This happened when she was about six. All these years, in her little mind and heart, was this thought, my daddy locked me in a room by myself. It finally came out. I said, Beck, let me just say this, no defense. I didn't lock you in, but I shut it, and I knew that it was tight, and I knew you couldn't get out. So, I wanna ask you to forgive me that you've held it all, that I did that in all these years. It was back in your subconscious, and you probably, for some reason, didn't ever wanna say it. And I'm grateful to God that you told me that, because it really broke my heart to think that I would shut her out about anything. So, somebody says, well, that gets too personal. You're mighty right, it does. And if you're not man enough to take it, then you'll never have a strong family. You have to, we all make mistakes. We all hurt people without realizing that we do. And when we do, we need to say, I wanna ask you to forgive me. You ask God to forgive you, He always does. If you ask Him to forgive you and they refuse, that's okay. You've asked for forgiveness. You've settled your conscience. You've confronted it. Don't leave anything unforgiven, because listen to me, 40 years from now, they'll still remember it, and it's destructive, and it's not worth it. You have to be forgiving, and you have to be willing to say, you were right, I'm sorry, please forgive me. You know what that does in their mind? Makes you a giant, because you're no longer untouchable. You're a father, and you have feelings. You know what they'll do with their children? The same thing. If you look back in your family, and the kind of influence your parents had, that it could be bad influence or good, you'll remember some things they did or said that you've never forgotten, never forgotten. It's amazing how those things will pop up in your mind. Then of course, when a problem comes, don't take sides. If you got a boy and a girl, whatever it might be, a three, four, five, six kids, don't take sides. Just listen and say, we need to talk about this and think about it. If you take sides, what you do is you drive one away. You can deal with major problems without taking sides. Somebody's probably more wrong than the other. But instead of saying, you're wrong, why do you always do this? We'll never have peace in this family as long as you act that way. All you're doing is driving them away. And sometimes you may have to say, well, you know, I didn't give very good instruction. I think this is my fault. We just have to release our pride and just say whatever's necessary at the time to keep from having a brawl, a fight, a fuss and divide the family and keep the family strong. So, here's one of the major things. Always be honest, listen carefully. Always be honest with your children about everything. Now, for example, listen carefully. Let's say that you are a daughter and you ask your dad about something and he was dishonest, he didn't tell you the truth. And he did that two or three times. When this little girl grows up and she's looking for a husband and this young man or that young man, whatever it might be, do you know what's still in her subconscious? You can't trust men. Or you say, that's not true. It is absolutely the truth. When a person of such authority as your father is dishonest, doesn't tell the truth, lies, or you can call it anything you want to, a child sees that, hears that, feels that, carries that, and what happens? When it comes to men, listen carefully, her experience with the most important man in her life is, you can't trust him. That's exactly what happens. And the same thing would be true if a mother's dishonest, doesn't tell the truth. What happens? You think, well, does my wife come tell the truth? Now, logically and openly, you don't say, I wonder what all women are like. No, it's deep down inside. You start off with a marriage with a hindrance. So I want to encourage you to be honest. Listen, no matter what you say, do what you say, because what you do, what you say is not what they're gonna do necessarily. It's what you do is what they're gonna do. And you can wreck their family very early in life. Then of course, I'd say, last of all at this point, be a refuge for one another. When somebody's hurting, be there. If you can't be there in person, be there on the telephone. Not by texting on the telephone. It's gotta be personal. I need to hear your heart, sweetheart. You tell me, son, you tell me exactly how you're feeling. I want to know how you're feeling. When you're hurting, I'm hurting. And listen, when some member of your family hurts and you don't hurt, you have a problem. Because they're your children. They're part of you. And you should be able to feel what they feel. Because especially if they come to you with some hurt, don't defend yourself, just listen carefully and do your best to encourage them and to help them any way you possibly can. Walk through whatever they're walking through in life. Now, you say, well now what about a broken home? Is there any way to have a strong home once it's broken, once there's divorce, once there's separation? Yes, there is. May not be as strong as it could be, but it can still be strong. You say, well, how do you do that? Listen carefully. The first way we started off, we started off with two Christian parents together. So remove that for a moment and everything after that, you can practice in a home that's broken. And the husband's gone or the wife's gone or somebody else, you've married somebody else, whatever's going on there. You can still practice all of those principles, every single one of them, except that you, this is a different family and you have a major issue right up front. And so I would simply say this, if the family is blended, if you got two children from her and two children from him or whatever, if you just remember this, stay physically and emotionally close to your children, primarily your children, stay close. In other words, if your wife takes them away or your husband takes them away, you need to stay as emotionally close to them as you can because listen, they're part of you. They came out of your mom. They're still your children. And so mom and dad need to stay as close as they can physically and emotionally so that they never feel like their genuine parents just left them. And oftentimes that's difficult, especially in a wife, if a wife or in a husband have had a terrible, horrible divorce. And now that they're point of hating each other and their children, I think about the awesome, horrible trauma in a child's heart who sees one day his dad walk off and not come back. Old girl who sees her father walk off and not come back. And no matter what you tell them, they can't, they don't understand that. And I think this dad, when you walk off, remember this, you will give account to a holy God of bringing children into this world and you absolutely desert them, not realizing you tear apart in that child's heart. Their whole emotional being gets affected. You say, will I get over it? No, they don't. They do not get over it. It's there as a scar, as long as they live. This is why you should do your best to keep that marriage together. Sometimes you can't, no matter what happens, sometimes it doesn't work. Somebody decides they're gonna leave and they're gonna walk away, no matter what, then you can't help that. But God will be there to help you and He'll be there to strengthen you and He'll be there to help you love those children in a very unusual way. Then if one parent leaves, increase your time of prayer and reading the Scripture with your children. In other words, you become the physical refuge. The Bible says that we live in the shadow of the Almighty. In other words, if I'm in the shadow of something, there's something big there. And He says, He's our shelter and our shadow and our keeper. And when you keep reading the Scripture with those children, the mom or dad's gone and you have to understand and they have to understand, we don't understand why. We don't wanna be critical. We wanna pray that whatever's going on in their life, God will work in their life. No matter how good you try to make it, there's a scar, there's hurt and there's pain, but you do have a responsibility to alleviate as much of that as you can. And then remind them that trusting God is more important than ever before when one of your loved ones is gone. Trusting God's more important than ever before because now you don't have a father, you don't have a mother, now we have God. And what you want to drill into that child's heart is God is your father. You don't, earthly father's gone, but God is your father now and he'll provide your needs, he'll provide our needs. And I know in my life, not having a father for those years, my mother would keep reminding me that our heavenly father was my father now and that we're gonna make it somehow in some way and times got pretty tough, but she was always there to encourage me. And one of the interesting things you can do for those children is give them a verse of Scripture every morning that maybe God laid on your heart and just ask him, say, why don't you read this before you go to school this morning? And if you've given them a Bible and they have their Bible, then, and just say, well, maybe this evening, when we eat dinner, we'll just talk about this. Something that would apply to them and don't give them something out of Leviticus that has nothing, you know, that wouldn't be the, but you want to go to the Psalms and like, for example, if you gave, one I quote to you often, that God says, he'll teach us in the way we should go. He'll guide us with his eye upon us. Well, to a little child, they can sort of get that. So you'll know exactly what to say to them. And this is a wonderful opportunity for you to teach the importance of their personal relationship with God and that no matter what happens in life, you're gonna make it. We're gonna make it. We're gonna have a strong family no matter what. It'll never be as strong as it could be, but it'll be stronger than most people allow theirs to become. And so I want to encourage you, whoever you are, if you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you're gonna have a very difficult time having a strong family and growing strong children. We live in a world that's slanted against their kids in every way. There's something out there everywhere to destroy them mentally, physically, and morally. You are their refuge. You are their help. You need them. They need you. Everybody needs God. And I want to encourage you to trust Christ as your Savior, ask Him to come into your life, help you to be the kind of person God wants you to be, and be the kind of parent, a godly parent, that you need to be. You may be a son or a daughter and you've treated your family terribly. You say, well, that's been a long time ago. You know what? They still hurt. They'll still hurt. You say, well, they've forgotten. And no, they don't. You don't forget when people hurt you deeply as a child and they don't forget when you hurt them. So I want to encourage you to settle up any issues in your family. Ask for forgiveness. Make things right. And do your best to honor your mother and to honor your father. And I want to say to you this morning, all of us have responsibilities to our children. We have responsibilities to each other, to love one another, to help each other in any way we possibly can. That's what being a Christian is all about. And I want to encourage you to take the notes that you have today. You can put them on the shelf somewhere. You'll be sorry. What you need to do is to look them over, read them over. And if I want to remember something that normally I would have a difficult time remembering, I make a list of it and I lay it somewhere. I can just see it every day. I just read over it and read over it and read over it and read over it. And here's what I discovered a long time ago. When something comes up, I need to remember, there it is. Not because I read it once and not because I heard it once, because I knew it'd be easy for me to forget some of it. You've not heard anything unimportant. It's all been important, all works, it's all truth. And you're talking about raising children, raising grandchildren. And some of you grandparents, you're going to have to step into the position of a parent because your children have just blown it bad in their marriage. But grandparents, there's something about a grandparent. I'm telling you, I know that. And I've watched this with my own grandchildren. When they got to be teenagers, at first, you know, I was just Gims. Then there came a time in their life when they had questions. And then it was, Gims, let's talk and go to dinner with them. And not long ago, I took each one of them by themselves, Becky's children, each one of them by themselves, and we talked probably for an hour or so. I just wanted to hear them. I wanted them to hear me. I wanted to hear what they're thinking, what they're saying, and to say to them, Gims, always be available. You remember, text me if that's the way you want to do it. Call me, write me, whatever you want to do. You get in trouble, call me. You got questions, call me. If you're hurting about something, call me. In other words, grandparents, make yourself available. You are not too busy to hear your grandchildren. You're not too busy. And they need you. You know what you'll be? You'll be like an anchor to them. I can always, I can always go to Gims. I know he'll be there for me. They'll do the same for you. If you're not saved, you're working against yourself. I plead with you in Jesus' name to give yourself to Him, asking Him to forgive you of your sins and trusting Him as your Savior, and then let God work in your life and the life of your family. And Father, we commit all of this to You, and I pray the Holy Spirit of the living God, You, Lord, will etch these truths into the minds and hearts of those who've heard it and who will hear it. And Lord, You work in the hearts in such a fashion that every family becomes stronger and stronger and stronger, and share these truths with their friends who have broken families, or their family friends who are going through difficult times. Make all of us, Father, missionaries of truth, in all the truth that You teach us, to give it away because we want somebody to give it to us. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Create a strong spiritual connection with your children and enjoy blessings for a lifetime. Visit InTouch.org for resources to help you and your family grow closer in the Lord. Find today's message, A Strong Family, along with a library of faith-building sermons from Dr. Stanley, sermon notes, and resources to help you draw on the strength of the Holy Spirit to bring your family together. Download the InTouch app to take the teaching of Dr. Stanley on the go, or follow us on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Be careful. Hold on. Come on, guys. Let's go. We're going to be late. Mom, is my hammock in my bag? I think so, honey. Bye. Mom, I forgot to take the dog out. That's okay. Love you. Love you, too. Have a good one. The Spirit-Filled Life is a life lived through us by the Holy Spirit, and the goal is to demonstrate and to express the character of Jesus Christ. An intimate look into the ministry of Dr. Stanley, The Spirit-Filled Life, a new edition of one of his classic books. This biblical perspective on the work of the Holy Spirit can deepen your intimacy with God. Life Principles to Live By, Dr. Charles Stanley's exploration of the 30 foundational truths that continue to guide his life and ministry. Order a box set on CD or DVD at InTouch.org. The Bible is a tremendous gift from God. It's the record and promise of God's love. And in God's Word, we find His heart and His will for us. He shows us how to live and the kind of life we were made to enjoy. But not everyone sees the Bible this way. Many will acknowledge its historical relevance or admire the poetic narrative within its pages, even as they ignore God's eternal and infallible truth. So, what do we say when someone tries to diminish the Bible's relevance and power? Today's email deals with something all of us have And so, it reads. How are Christians supposed to share what the Bible teaches when the response we get is usually, well, that's just your interpretation? I've encountered this objection with Christians and with non-believers alike. Well, here's what I would say because all of us have been there. Don't react. Listen quietly before speaking. Avoid getting on the defense. Simply ask them the question, where in the Bible does it state what you believe? The Bible is inspired. Do you believe the Bible is inspired? And seek to discover their motivation. Are they trying to avoid facing something that God has convicted them of? Or do they genuinely want to know the truth? What are they defending? What are they avoiding? Often, some sin in their life that they know is there and they are trying to defend it in order to eliminate the sense and the feelings of guilt that they're feeling. Your godly life, more than likely, is a testimony to them, but it is also making them uncomfortable. State your belief prayerfully, carefully. Maybe a personal example in your life or someone else's life. If it's a doctrinal question, then go to the Scripture and say here's what the Word of God says. That Christ is the only way, for example, or some other doctrinal question. Genuinely do not understand why they believe what they believe, then carefully and prayerfully pray with them. Pray for their eyes to be opened. And maybe necessary to state your belief and then just leave them to God. You make that decision. Don't argue. State the truth and leave it in God's hands. Well, thank you for joining us today for In Touch. And as we close, remember this. It's your intimacy with God that determines the impact of your life. Leading people worldwide into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ and strengthening the local church. In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley is a presentation of In Touch Ministries. This program is made possible by the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.