What About Your House?

Joshua 24:15
And if it seems evil to you to serve the lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.

The Nielson Company has monitored the homes of Americans for years to see what the average American is watching at any given time. It is amazing that with the great diversity of America, there are certain shows we all love to watch like American Idol and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Then there are times where we split off to get news from our own political perspectives from CNN or Fox news. There are moments where even families split off generationally with the kids watching Cartoon Network and the parents watch HGTV. Then we split off by gender with the men watching ESPN and women watching Lifetime.

But when the TV’s are turned off who is it that Americans are tuned into? What do we have in common once the TV is turned off? Are we all on the same channel or are we split up?

Joshua warns the children of Israel to remember their presets or should I say precepts when God brought them out of bondage into the Promised Land. He told them not to bow down to the gods of the people whose land they were to inhabit. Just as there are numerous channels to choose from on the cable box, there are also many gods to choose form in our post-modern society. But there is only one True and Living God. The Israelites knew who their God was by the signs and wonders he used to get them out of slavery. I know in whom I have believed. It was God who brought my ancestors out of slavery in America. It was the God of Moses, Martin, and Medgar. He is the God of the oppressed manifest in his son Jesus who came to the sick, the poor, and the disinherited. He’s the only God I know through experience. These other gods people worship through yoga didn’t get me through slavery. These gods in the stars that give daily horoscopes didn’t get us through the streets packed with dogs and rifles. I can’t forget the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

My story as an African in America resonates with their story. NO matter how popular it is or what major TV star introduces a new god, I have decided to follow Jesus, though none go with me still I will follow. Jesus reminded us in the New Testament, “I am the way the truth and the life, no man can come to God accept through me.”

What about your house? How do you make sure that your family is tuned into the right channel or the right God?

1. God is revealed through his word. Get a bible for every person in your house and have a time of reading with the whole family.

2. Pray together as a family. God will reveal himself in prayer.

3. Worship together as a family. If you are the head of your house your family should follow your lead. We need to stop giving our children the choice as to whether or not they “feel” like going to church. They felt like eating your food, they felt like sleeping under your roof, they ought to feel like going to church.
In the movie Raisin in the Sun, the young daughter who goes off to College becomes enlightened that God is some idea made up by man. Read the dialogue between her and her mother:

Mama you just don’t understand. It’s all a matter of ideas. God is just one idea that I don’t accept. There is simply no God…only man that makes miracles!(The mother slaps her daughter)

Now you say after me, in my mother’s house there is still God (pause) In my mother's house there is still God.

Her daughter says, “In my mother’s house there is still God.”

What about your house?

Dear God, don’t ever let us forget how we got over. In my house there will be God. I choose you because you first loved me. As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.

In Jesus Name.

Amen.