Counsels on Relationships

Counsel #2 — God’s Ideal Vs. Satan’s Counterfeit

Picture: Counsel #2 — God’s Ideal vs. Satan’s Counterfeit CR 81.1

God’s ideal for a Christian home is a place of peace, light, and joy. Satan wants to confound this ideal so the environment is reduced to constant tension, rivalry, and anger. CR 81.2

An attractive, Christian home doesn’t need to be an expensive house filled with costly furniture to be a comfort and blessing to the family. It should be clean and orderly, but more than that, it should be full of thoughtfulness and affection, kindness and patience. If your home is filled with Christ’s love, your children will learn to love themselves, each other, their parents, and their Father in heaven. Treat each person in the family the way angels in heaven interact with each other and with God.^[77] CR 81.3

“But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.” James 3:17 NKJV CR 81.4

“Study to advance the happiness of each other. Let there be mutual love, mutual forbearance. Then marriage, instead of being the end of love, will be as it were the very beginning of love. The warmth of true friendship, the love that binds heart to heart, is a foretaste of the joys of heaven.” Ellen White in The Ministry of Healing, p. 360 CR 81.5

Reflect: In what ways can you create an atmosphere of peace, light, and joy in your home? CR 81.6