Family Reset by Rev. Christie Bature: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Marriage Is God's Idea

There is so much going on in families these days — so many secrets, so many betrayals, so much brokenness. And it looks as if there is nothing good happening. But that is a lie of the devil. Elijah said to the Lord, "Everybody has bowed. I'm the only one standing." What did God say? He said, "I have 7,000 others." So by God's mathematics, for every bad marriage you hear about, there are 7,000 good ones.

What the devil is doing is magnifying the bad so that you think marriage is dying. Someone once told me that very soon marriage will be something they put in the museum — that it is going to become extinct. I said to him, whoever said that is as myopic as a bat. Marriage is not the devil's idea. It is God's idea. And there is no way the devil has the power to kill something that was God's idea. There will never come a day when marriage will be obsolete because it is the foundation from which God begins to build ministers of the gospel. Family is the foundation upon which God begins the work of ministry. That is where we nurture, build, train, introduce God into the lives of people, and channel giftings and talents to the glory of God. So the attack on family is fierce — and deliberate. The devil does not waste ammunition on losers. If he is coming after your family, it is because he knows that the day you get it right, he is in trouble.

Busy Worship and the Real Fast

Isaiah 58 says: "Tell my people what is wrong with their lives. They are busy, busy, busy at worship. To all appearances they are a nation of right-living people, law-abiding, God-honoring — but they also complain."

The word but cancels everything before it. They are busy reading the Bible, busy prophesying, busy fasting — but they complain. You cannot be a complainer and a grateful person. No complainer is grateful.

God continues: "Why do we fast and you don't look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?" And God answers: the bottom line on your fast days is profit. You are fasting to manipulate God for what you can get. Some of us fast as a bribe to God — thinking that when we punish ourselves enough, he will answer. Fasting is not busyness. Worship is not busyness. Worship is dwelling.

And then God exposes more: "You drive your employees much too hard." There is a difference between being a hard worker and demanding the same from your staff. Some of us are not leaders — we are tyrants, slave drivers. "You fast, but you bicker and fight." The time of fasting is supposed to be a time of consecration and quietness. "You fast, but you swing a mean fist" — on your spouse, on your children. Fist here is not only physical. Wives that cannot beat physically beat with their mouth, their attitude, their treatment.

"The kind of fasting you do will not get your prayers off the ground." You will pray and pray and there will be no answer — not because God is not answering, but because the bottom line on your fast days is profit. And then God says he wants you to show off humility. Once you show off humility, it is no longer humility. Humility hides. Humility holds back.

The Fast God Wants

Then God gives his standard: "This is the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice. Get rid of exploitation in the workplace. Free the oppressed. Cancel debts. Share your food with the hungry. Put clothes on the shivering. And be available to your own family."

Get rid of exploitation in the workplace. People in authority who use their position to take what belongs to others — you can never build your happiness on another person's pain. Life is designed for seed time and harvest. You can choose your action, but you cannot choose the consequence.

Cancel debts. If someone genuinely cannot pay you back and ten years have passed and you have not needed it — release them. Your reward is not with man. God pays exponentially, not arithmetically. I once gave back an honorarium to a small village church where God told me they needed it more. In one week shortly after, God gave me over a million naira. God said, "I just paid you for that village."

Share your food with the hungry. We have become hoarders because we do not trust God to provide for tomorrow. What is the point of hoarding when you do not even know what tomorrow holds?

Inviting the homeless poor into your home — this scripture was written many years ago when people's hearts were still good. Now, help people where they are. Rent them accommodation if needed, but do not expose your family.

Availability Is Righteousness

The last instruction God gives is: be available to your own family. When David brought the ark back to Jerusalem, the Bible says he returned to bless his household. There are men who are philanthropists outside but misers inside. There are women called "mother in Israel" in church while their husbands and children live in terror at home.

Availability is not just physical presence. Are you emotionally available? Can your children talk to you? I run a drug rehabilitation centre. The majority of people brought to me are between the ages of 19 and 30. And the first thing they say in therapy is: "Don't tell my mom. Don't tell my dad." How do you raise children that cannot talk to you? How do you raise children who are terrified of you?

Now, part of the problem is that we saw broken models growing up. But we have a responsibility to walk away from those broken patterns and start new ones. It is not your fault that you were shot, but it is your responsibility to get healed.

Availability is costly. It is expensive. It takes a lot out of you. That is sacrifice — putting the needs of others ahead of yours. Are you the source of pain in your family, or the source of joy? Is your presence something your family rejects or welcomes? Some people travel and their family secretly prays their trip gets extended.

No relationship works on the platform of convenience. If you are looking for convenience, do not enter a relationship.

When You Do These Things

God says: "Do this and the lights will turn on. Your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The God of glory will secure your passage. Then when you pray, I will say — not 'I am coming' — I'm right here with you now."

If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people's sins, if you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down and out — your lives will begin to glow in the darkness. Your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight. I will always show you where to go. There will be no confusion in your life. You will be like a well-watered garden, a spring that never runs dry. You will rebuild the foundations from the rubble of the past. You will be known as those who can fix anything.

The love you thought had died in your home is still there. It has just been buried under layers of selfishness. God is calling for a reset.

Retraining the Brain

Every habit you have is a training of your brain. You have to take time to retrain it in the opposite direction. The prodigal son took many steps to go where he went. When he came back to his senses, he took just as many steps to return. If you formed a habit of being nasty, you have to pay the price to form a different one.

One of the greatest mercies of God is that he gave us brains that are retrainable. Please start practicing. If you keep mal for six months, reduce it to three. After three months, go to one and a half. Keep reducing. After a while, you will be cured.

• Lord, reset me. Help me take my eyes off myself.
• Help me become the sacrificial one in my family.
• Take selfishness from me. Take self-centeredness, self-absorption, self-focus from me.
• Help me bring grace to my home.
• Father, we repent. We have become self-focused, self-absorbed, selfish, self-centered. Reset us. Revisit us.
• We invite you back into our families — our work families, our church families, our home families. Come and begin to heal the brokenness. Mend the cracks. Rebuild what is broken.
• We break the spirit of pride in Christian homes. May humility flood the heart of every husband, every wife, every child.
• Where there has been betrayal, bring repentance on the perpetrator. Help the victim release the pain to you.
• We decree over our children: they are for signs and wonders. Let your hand rest upon them mightily. Insulate them in spirit, soul, and body. The seed of God in them will never die but will bear fruit upward.