What Kind of Family are You Dealing With?

What is it about Family????

What is your biggest prayer request?

I am guessing Family.

No matter what our family does (or doesn’t do for that matter) we still love them. They can drive us nuts. We still love them.  They can reject us. We still love them. They can lie to us. We still love them. We can get totally irritated at them. We still love them. They can do pretty much anything and we still love them. We might talk about them but no one else better say anything negative.

 This is how most pastors feel about their sheep. The flock may drive them nuts, reject them, lie to or about them, irritate them or do pretty much anything else but the pastors will continue to love them, watch over them and protect them. They leave a flock to go get the one. They love every variety.

I pray for 3-4 dozen pastors a week maybe more. Pastors have a unique calling.  They also have so many people with “expectations” that are unrealistic, superhuman, perfection oriented and plain old impossible to attain and then they are blamed for not measuring up to those “expectations”.

The main discouragement I hear from pastors is the heart ache over the lack of integrity in the sheep—unfaithfulness in attendance. Listening to the word but not acting on what they hear. The lack of growth. Clinging to sin as a lifestyle.

And yet they run after the "ones" who are lost, who have left the sheep fold...

This is the family of God.

How you act in your church is a reflection to your prayers for your family.

Do you want them saved and walking in the fullness and freedom Christ provided on the cross?

My all-time favorite scripture is Job 42:10. I have heard so many people say they do not pray to “get” from God. If not, quit praying. We pray for results. He gave us promises to find like a treasure hunt and claim for our own.

Job 42:10 After Job had prayed for his friends the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before.

Do you want your family walking in the fullness of God's provision, His love and His salvation? Pray for the family of God. Be diligent, be ruthless against the enemy, fall in love with the family of God again and start by praying for the pastors.

Time to roll up our sleeves and get to work. As my pastors say, “Familia, He is waiting to hear your heart.”