📍  📍 Good morning and welcome back to another episode of My Mornings with Jesus and Joe. I’m Lori.

And I’m Joe.

And we are coming off the Thanksgiving weekend. We are running a little behind on this episode because Joe had the hiccups for nearly four straight days.

Yeah, too long.

Yeah. He got an injection in his knees, got a little arthritis starting there, and they.

Gave him an injection and that side effect of hiccups was it was difficult.

Yeah. Hard to eat, hard to sleep. Just nearly four and a half days of just straight hiccups and you just can’t take much of that. Your body just. It is done.

You take it for granted, not having the hiccups. Yeah. Until you have them and can’t get rid of them.

Yeah. And I can’t have a conversation without hiccup in every few seconds. So we couldn’t record this like

that. It was hard for you at work because your work is talking.

Yeah.

Yeah. And Thanksgiving wasn’t that pleasant because you couldn’t really eat much. No. We’re gonna talk today about families.

I think it was Leo to Tolstoy who said, happy families are all alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. He probably said it a little better than I did, but if I remember correctly, that was the gist of it. And I think there’s some truth with that, but there’s also some.

Predictability in the way the enemy makes families unhappy the way he tries to tear them apart. Yep. Why does the enemy have such hatred for family?

He is. He is opposed to God because he wanted the glory and God kicked him outta heaven. And anybody that’s an image bearer of God. He’s after.

He doesn’t like, he wants to destroy and. And ruin their life. And it’s not just the individuals, but the family as a whole is the reflection of God because man and woman to become one. And you’ve got the Trinity father, son, holy Spirit. God never existed in isolation. He was always in relationship.

And the foundation of those relationships for us is marriage. Yeah. And our marriage is based on Jesus being the head of the church. And the body being the bride of Christ. So the enemy just does not like any of that. No. And it all goes together. And when people can finally see how it all goes together, they can see what the enemy’s after.

There’s so many stories in the Bible where it’s relating. Talking, using marriage as an illustration. Yes. The bride of Christ, the groom. All those things. And it’s significant to God’s heart. But I think too, especially at this time of year Christmas, when that family brought a new baby Yep.

Into the world, Jesus Christ was born as an infant and a family was created. Yeah the true Christmas story is really in Revelation 12, and it’s about that very thing, and he was trying to put a mess on that from the very beginning. And yeah, the family unit, the husband, wife, the bride of Christ, the all that ties together is.

What the enemy hates because he didn’t get the glory. So what we’re saying here is it’s significant to God. Brides, grooms, families, children, all those things are significant to God. And so they should be significant as to they should matter in our lives. Yep. Not everyone has, is married.

I get it. Not everybody, Paul himself said. It’s okay. Yep. To not be married, but if you’re going to lust for things, then get married. Yes. Do it, right? So there’s no biblical mandate that you’re, no. Not serving God’s purpose if you’re not married, but you are a part of a family, even if you don’t have a spouse or children or any like because you had parents. So the family thing, you’re not excluded from family. That’s right. And even if you never get married, but you’re a follower of Christ, you’re part of the bride of Christ. Exactly. So you are part of the body of Christ. You are part of the body. And so that’s. Nobody’s excluded as long as they’re following Jesus.

That’s right. So the struggle goes back all the way to the garden, Joe. Oh my goodness. Yes. That’s where all the trouble began. All the way back in the garden. You have a verse. I do. I got a couple of ’em. I’ll go ahead and read. It’s three verses that kind of put this all together, but it’s the last verse.

I guess four verses, but the very last one is the one that really shows you what the, what’s going on here. It’s Genesis three 12 through 15 says, the man said, the woman who, whom you gave to be with me. She gave me fruit of the tree and I ate. Then the Lord said to the woman, what is it that you have done?

The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate.

The Lord said to the serpent, ’cause you have done this curse it. Are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field on your belly? You shall go and dust. You shall eat all the days of your life. And then this is verse 15. I will put Mni, IM easy for you to say, yeah, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

That between offspring thing, we’re the offspring, and so that gets to be a treacherous spot. And so that verse really tells the tale of where this comes from.

I like it too though, that it is a promise from God that the snake crusher Yes. Is on his way. Yes. And he has come once and he is coming back. But you know how he got here. Through family. Yep. Family is important. God could have just plopped him down without a family. Yep. Could have sent him to Earth as a full form grown man.

Yep. To do his work, but he didn’t. He put him in a family. Yes. With a lot of brothers and sisters who? Didn’t necessarily understand who he was or what he was doing. Yeah. No. Parents that didn’t even always understand. Yeah. Later on they understood. Yeah. It was crystal clear, but early on it was like they just didn’t believe and thought he was out of his mind.

Yeah. I can’t remember what first that was and trying to get him to come home. Yeah. Yeah. So what he’s saying is that the enemy’s gonna come after us because we are image bearers of God and we are. Image of bearers of God individually and as a unit, as a family unit, we are reflecting the image of God.

Yes. So the enemy’s gonna come after us. Yep. And why does he go after the children, do you think? He goes after the children the most. I think because they can’t defend themselves they’re the weaker, they’re, he comes after the parents. And if they’re solid in their walk, the next thing they’re gonna do, he’s gonna go after the kids because he’s gonna hurt the parents how he can, and there’s no pain, like kid pain.

And so if you’ve got your kids and they’re going through hard stuff because the enemy’s. Doing things and talking to ’em in their head in a way, or putting thoughts in their head to make ’em think they’re not worthy. They’re whatever. There’s so many things, but he does go after the kids and the unborn because they’re not able to defend themselves like we as adults are as we’re following Christ.

And if you want a good example, there’s a few. Early in scriptures they went after the family, like in children, specifically in the fires of mole. They offered kids as burnt sacrifice to this Molec God thing, and it is just mind blowing that they would do that. Just his child sacrifices.

And then King Herod, when Jesus was born, he tried to kill all the little boys under two years old when Jesus was born to kill Jesus and not have him be part of what’s coming. He didn’t want the serpent crusher to be alive. So we gasp at the idea. A child sacrifice putting our child in the fire.

Or we’re horrified at King Herod ordering the death the killing of all the boys under two years old. And yet, yep. What do we do about the abortion epidemic in this world? Yeah, no it’s horrific. And just in the United States alone. In the last several decades. It’s about 64 and a half million since the Roe v Wade back in the early seventies.

And so that’s a lot of child sacrifice. And that, that brings on heartache to. A lot of families. The enemy has destroyed a lot of families. Just with that one thing alone, if you don’t even count all the other things that he’s done that one thing alone, you think about how many kids that is, how many image bearers of Christ.

Yes. That, one of them may have been the one to develop whatever it is to stop cancer several years ago, but. There’s not a chance now because they’re not here. So many things like that and it’s, yeah, I mean it, it destroys family. Then they get in that guilt and shame, and then they get to fight and arguing with each other about this or that because that one thing has disrupted the pattern that God set in place.

It is heartbreaking because. They are the little image bearers of Christ. Yes. They are also the consummation of the man and the wife that have come together and have formed this baby. Yes. And I. Yeah. It just breaks my heart to think my babies were born early, we had twins. And they were premature.

Five weeks premature. And there are places where it would’ve been perfectly legal Oh yeah. To bring about their demise. Yep. And I just cannot, they felt things at that age, whether they were inside or outside the womb. Yep. And so I think it’s a really sinister plot from the enemy. It is to destroy these little image bearers of Christ.

Yep. And he does use that to wound the mother’s heart. But I want to make sure that we say that there is forgiveness and there is redemption. Yes. And you don’t have to walk in that guilt and shame If this is you and you have had an abortion. Do know that you do not have to walk in that guilt and shame there is forgiveness.

Yes. Reach out to someone to help you walk through that. Yep. And you need to reach out to someone, sorry. You need to reach out to someone, repent for what was done and just walk in this. And there’s some grief that goes with it and there’s good grief to actually grieve properly for this and grieve with God.

When you grieve with God, you can get through all this. And yeah, it’s not a, you shouldn’t be walking in the shame and guilt ’cause that’s what the enemy wants you to do. And the enemy doesn’t have control over you unless you’re not walking with God. If you’re walking with God, the enemy has no control over you.

You have authority, and you can put all that behind you. Be forgiven. Be redeemed and see that baby one day in heaven. And so there’s a lot of hope there, but there is a lot of hurt still. That doesn’t mean the hurt doesn’t go away, it just means you have hope and you can get through it. So we know that he comes after families.

He comes after the unborn, he comes after the children. Children are young and impressionable and at. Some age, they want to exercise their independence and separate from their parents and that, and they’re vulnerable at that age. And I’m talking about children, I’m talking about kids all the way up to college.

Age, age kids, and they are easily influenced. Yep. By demonic influences is what a lot of that is. And you need to stay involved. Yeah. In your children’s lives. You need to stay aware. You need to let ’em know that you care about what’s going on in their world. That’s right. It makes all the difference.

Then they don’t feel alone and they don’t feel like they gotta listen to somebody else. ’cause you’re not talking with them about these important I issues and items. And when I say talking to ’em, it starts with listening. Yes. Listen to your kids more than you. Just wait to talk back. Yes.

Learn the hard way and just ask me how I know. Marriages too, and we’re seeing so much of this are, the marriage itself is under attack and it can be financial pressure. It can be. Comparison. Yeah. We’re seeing a lot of, you always think it’s the man that leaves, but we’re seeing a lot of women who are just deciding that the grass is greener on the other side.

Yeah. And the men are heartbroken. And they are fighting for the marriage that the woman no longer wants. She wants to, just live wild and free. Yeah. That’s not healthy. That’s not the way God designed it. Not at all. But that’s an attack. And and I wonder, I have to wonder if part of that doesn’t come from the influence of social media.

Social media, because we get to see so many things like all these other people are having, living this gorgeous, fun life. And here I am at home wiping snotty noses and cleaning the toilet, and, picking up after my husband. Yeah. I don’t pick up after Joe. He does a great job of picking up after himself, just letting that be set on the record there.

So they’re looking, it’s Satan in that fruit, that forbidden fruit again. Look how good this is. Yep. Do this and you will be like, God, eat this. And women are still falling for it. We’re still, yeah. No, it’s, yeah. From way back in the garden, the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh and pride of life that has never stopped and it’s never gonna stop.

There’s gonna be a day, but it’s not yet. But there is a big attack on marriages and we’ve got a lot of friends that. Or dealing with attacks on marriages. We’ve dealt with a lot of family, a lot of couples that are struggling in their marriages and needing extra prayer and help and guidance. And we’re seeing it.

And that’s just us. I know there’s other people dealing with the same thing and it’s just happening all around. So we’ve got to be. S so watchful for all this. So not just to pick on women, but to flip it over to men because of the ease of access and the prof prolific quantity of content out there, men are sub succumbing to the addiction of pornography.

At an unbelievable rate, even men in the church. Yep. And it is just shocking. And that is 100% a way that the enemy destroys the image of Christ. Yes. That he does. And he uses it. He makes it so accessible. And there’s some that just can’t resist it. And so it gets to be a serious issue. A lot of the men’s ministry stuff I do all year long, we run into this way too often, and it’s the cause of a lot of marriages, separations, divorces.

It’s just, it’s rampant. I think men and some women are into it as well. Oh yeah. But you think it’s the secret sin, the hidden sin. Nobody will know and it won’t damage anything, but you cannot unsee what has come before your eyes. And the scripture tells us, be careful what you look at. Yep. And it is doing a damage.

You may not notice it right away. It’s like having a cancer. You may not know that cancer’s in there for years and it’s just simmering and cooking away. It is eroding your value system. It’s eroding your self-esteem, how you feel about yourself. And it is eroding how you will be able to have relationships with other people.

But again, there is help. There are programs out there. There are counselors, there are people willing to help. So let me just encourage Oh yeah. Anybody that’s going through that trouble to seek help. Yeah. And don’t. Feel like you’re the only one because No, that’s what the enemy wants you to think.

Yes. He wants you to think you’re on that island by yourself. And he’s real deceptive. ’cause he’ll come to these guys and it’s man, look at these pictures. Look at this picture. Look at this girl, look at this. Whatever. And it’s not that bad. Just look. And so as soon as they look, and then next thing the enemy says is, man, I can’t believe you did that.

What a, a sorry son of a gun you are. You’re a loser. You’re not walking with God. You’re just doing your own thing. And I mean it just that quick with that temptation, but that’s how the enemy works. You are not alone. Whoever’s hearing this, you are not alone and there is help. So the enemy will also attack marriages through financial.

Stress extended family stress can bring that into play. He’ll use whatever he can. Oh yeah. Wherever he can get a toe in, he’s gonna use that. And he knows your story, so he’s gonna reach, knows back in there, there knows he’ll know your weaknesses and he’ll just reach back in there and find something till it works.

So

here’s the thing that you have to remember. Your spouse is not the enemy. And the fight is not with your spouse, but with the enemy. That’s right. And when you quit looking at your spouse as the enemy for whatever’s going on, then the two of you can come together and stand in the face of the spiritual warfare.

But until that happens if one of you thinks the other one’s the bad one or the enemy or whatever you’ve got, you’ve picked the wrong enemy. Because the enemy is the enemy, not your loved one. Ephesians six 12, you wanna read that? Yeah. The Ephesians six 12 says, for we did not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers.

Against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. That’s where the enemy is. It’s not your spouse. It’s not your spouse. So it’s not your kids, it’s not your parents. No. They’re things, and we all know people that are possessed in that kind of stuff, but they are not the enemy.

The enemy is. Outside of us and when we bond together and fight on common ground against the common enemy, it changes things. All of a sudden, the husband and wife get a little closer because they realize they’re on a similar mission to fight for their. Their spouse or for their kids or their family, whatever that looks like against the one common enemy.

Women a lot of times for self-defense, they’ll carry their pepper spray, their taser, I guess some carry a firearm for protection. They won’t leave home without it. They’ve got it with them all the time. When they’re going out. Yet God has provided. If you are married, he has provided someone to be right there with you.

Yes. To fight the spiritual warfare beside you. And we don’t take advantage of that. For some reason, we feel like we have to do the spiritual warfare on our own rather than locking arms with our spouse Yep. And standing together. That’s true. And we, we’re born into the greatest love story ever, but it is set in the world at war.

And when you remember that, you know what the real battle is. And a lot of times, as what Lori was saying a while ago, if we’re. If we’re walking like we’re supposed to as a husband and wife, and there’s something that comes up, we shouldn’t get. In an argument with each other because it’s the enemy that’s stirring things.

And when we can clearly look at it, step back a minute, take a breath, and say, okay, this is what’s going on. Then as the head of the house, the man of the house, then you fight for your wife. You fight for her heart and you do what it takes. And it’s sometimes it’s prayer, sometimes it’s just kind words.

But there are things you do fighting for the heart of your beauty. And in the same way as a woman, we fight for the heart of our men. Yes. Our warriors. And sometimes that takes literally stepping back and going, he’s not the enemy. She’s not the enemy. Remind yourself of that. Yep. Yep, for sure.

We know the enemy doesn’t take our defiance casually. No, John 10. 10 tells us the thief comes only to steal and kill, to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. That’s Jesus came, that we’ll have life abundantly. But the thief is only here to steal and kill and destroy.

So if you think you can play with a little sin and dabble with the enemy just a little bit. His goal is not just to. Entertain you, give you a distraction hurt you just a little bit. No, he wants the full measure. He wants to steal what you have, kill what you have, destroy what you have.

Not just inflict a little damage. He wants to wipe it out completely. Exactly. And your greatest act of defiance is to stand firm. And resist the enemy. Submit to God and resist the enemy. As James four seven says. And, but he is not playing games and he, he comes to shred, to mall, to tear up.

He’s just there to destroy everything he can, which is your marriage, your family, all those things. And, some people. Will say that well, he’s been defeated. Yeah, but he’s still got a lot of minions and he is still got a lot of things going on. And he doesn’t have to sleep. He doesn’t have to eat.

He can just cause chaos and he does a really good job at it. And sin management is not gonna get you through this. You have to refuse sin, renounce sin, repent of sin. And step away from all that. ’cause the enemy isn’t gonna make you bad. He is just throwing temptations out there, but he’ll distract you.

And all those distractions just lead to hurt and pain and everything else. We know he is coming. Yep. And he is coming to destroy families and marriages, so we have to be alert to his schemes and we have to fight for them for our families as our first mission field before we go and try to tackle other mission fields.

And I think sometimes we get that outta order as well. It’s so tempting to go to other mission fields because I think the hardest mission field can be your family. Exactly. Yeah, it definitely can. There’s a good verse that I like to share that talks about this very thing. It’s one Timothy five eight, and it says, but if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

There’s a lot of people that run off to missions and mission fields and all that. And they’re saying they’re doing it for the right thing, but some of ’em are just running away from the real issue at home. That needs tended to first because you’re going out and doing that. You’re not even wholehearted doing those.

If you’ve left your house in disarray and let the enemy just ransack your house your marriage, your family, your kids, all those things you’ve got, it starts at home. Just that’s the end of the. I mean into the sentence right there, period. It starts at home. So I’m gonna skip this.

So we need to step up by being alert and commanding the enemy to flee. Especially during the holidays when the enemy really steps up his assault against us and our families. I think the families, he really hates the holiday. Because of what we’re celebrating here, that it just, that’s a sore spot for, it’s just salt and an open wound for him.

It is. And so he is definitely going to. Take advantage of every opportunity. Our stress, our financial woes, our feelings of friction and unforgiveness with family. All that’s all the comparison stuff that goes on this time of year. All it’s a, it’s just a big old stew he’s gonna try to stir up and take advantage of, and.

The greatest gift that you can give your family, your loved one, your children, your parents, your spouse, whoever is your commitment to stand in the fight with them. Yeah. And to not let the enemy take you out. Stand in the gap for your family. Stand in the gap for your wife or your husband. And that’s the greatest gift that we’ll have through the holidays.

There’s all these other things that are going to come and. Anything that’s happened in your past old memories of not so good holidays for whatever reason, and the enemy knows what all you went through, he’s gonna use it against you. You’ve got to just stand firm and rely on God to get you through and not to dwell on those things.

And if there’s some kind of wounded heart issue from. Back when you were younger. Deal with that now before the actual holidays. Really get here so you can enjoy your holidays with you and your family. You don’t wanna be the downer through the holidays when you can be the light

for unto us. A child is born yes and amen. And on his shoulders, be the governing of the world. Yes. And his name shall be Emmanuel. Wonderful counselor. Yes, all the above. So awesome.

All right I can’t.

All right. We hope that you found some value in this episode. We hope you found more, more, especially some encouragement. Yes. To fight for the family. Yes. To fight for your family, your spouse, your children, whoever to not give up to persevere and come out on the other side. And reap the reward that you will have.

Yes. Now, as a disclaimer, this is also not telling you to stay in an abusive relationship. No. If you are in danger you need to leave. Yes. Keep that in mind. Not, this isn’t a blanket statement that no matter what, so anyway. No I agree with that. And that’s great words of wisdom, because at that point it’s not the right relationship anyway.

No, you’re not helping it busting. No. All right, if you did enjoy this or you know somebody else who might like to hear it, we would really appreciate if you would share it, if you would like it. Follow us on any of the things. now this isn’t the end, but it’s the end for now. See you next time on another My Mornings with Jesus and Joe.