If I should accomplish the most daring and challenging feats, if everyone in my world called me a success; but if my family failed to have God-fearing and beautiful lives, I would die with a broken heart. My heart pants for my family’s happiness in all their relationships.

The beginning of happiness in any life is in the home and family. If we arenÂ’t successful with our wives, husbands, and children, we have failed. Nobody else will pay us much attention–except negatively– unless we prove ourselves right here.

You know, it isnÂ’t easy to build a great family. It takes more than carpentry, plumbing, and other building skills. Those tasks are simple compared to husbanding and wifing (two new words), not to speak of parenting. I’ve not always been perfect, but my family has always been so patient and forgiving.

ItÂ’s very important for you to remember that building your marriage is the first responsibility. Selflessness is probably the first and the last word in a happy marriage. If you donÂ’t learn to make your spouse happy instead of just seeking satisfaction, you are bound to fail. ThatÂ’s a tough one for all of us. ItÂ’s where we decide between being a successful family or just another a statistic.

Take time for each other. Those moments when you stop just to express love, to touch, to say you care, are so important. You simply can’t make it without this. It isn’t how much time you spend, but how much quality attention you give each day. A marriage is two persons who have been joined into one, not by an instant miracle, but in hope of a daily one. That loving touch, the “I cares”, create those needed daily miracles.

ItÂ’s so important that you never put down or demean one another. Most of us have all the inferior feelings we can handle without our closest friend magnifying them. Nothing hurts like a marriage partner pointing critically to our weaknesses. Self-love is so important and no one can strengthen it like a wife or a husband. Look for each otherÂ’s strengths and possibilities, and build pillars under them. Be each otherÂ’s encouragement. Compliment every good thing you see in the other.

Children are a welcome addition but must never occupy center stage. That destroys them and you. The home is built under Christ, on the Word, and around the love of two persons, husband and wife. The children must be influenced by the family life, not put in control of it. They will be secure and happy only if the home provides direction, sets boundaries, meets needs—not just physical ones—and encloses all of this with real love. You and your husband or wife must remain centered to one another and draw them around you in understanding and family togetherness. That’s a Home, not just a house.

One of the greatest assurances of true salvation is an inner voice in the human spirit that cries forth, "My Father." The apostle Paul said it most beautifully, "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father" (Romans 8:15). If every born again believer would nurture this cry within from the moment of redemption-never allowing it to wane, but growing in grace-we would change our world. The human spirit is a gift of God to every living soul. It is like a vacuum that cannot be satisfied with anything less than its own giver. The human spirit is shaped by the very nature of God and will be sick until it is renewed in His likeness. Sin marred it in the first Adam, but the second Adam came to repair the wound.

The Father loves the family. Every living soul has the seed of this family but it must be "born again." The very words "born again" remind us that the family was not created to be foreign with God but to be His. Something separated us from our original design, and we know it was sin. When it occurred, the great Creator immediately spoke of redemption and promised Satan that his head would be "deadly wounded" by the seed of the very woman to whom he lied. This seed was present when the Holy Ghost conceived the Son of God. Mary was never intended to be a co-redeemer but the seed of woman where the Son of God could spring forth to live and redeem the human race. This redeemer came to provide the world with a door back to the Father’s heart.

Nothing in man or in any of his goodness can renew this right relationship. We are altogether lost and unredeemable in our own rights. Because the Father wanted us back in His favor and capable of loving Him with our whole heart, He gave His own Son to descend into our world and take up our cause. To the Hebrews, this Spirit said "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me" (Hebrews 10:4-5). The sacrifices of bulls and goats had no soul to offer up to God. The final offering that would replace all types of temporary gifts had to be an offering of "will and soul." It also had to be next of kin to the original Creator to whom it all belonged. The owner’s kin was the only possible redeemer of the lost possession. He only had one Son, and He alone was next of kin. He willingly came and fulfilled the task.

We must never forget that it was the Father’s Son who purchased our freedom. We were lost, and there was no hope of salvation without the ultimate price being paid. From the moment of sin until the Cross, all creation waited in hope for the "Kinsman Redeemer"–God’s only Begotten Son. No wonder the apostate world has removed the word "begotten" because it stabbed at the very heart of who He was. John said "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:3).

The Christian life is a renewed relationship with our Heavenly Father through and by His Son Jesus Christ. Any confusion of the relationship is death to the soul. To deny the distinction of the Son of God is to destroy the very door unto the Father. The Father did not give Himself; He gave His Son because His Son is the only heir to His Father. No wonder the Son said to pray "Our Father which art in heaven." He is His Father and our Father.

The person of the Holy Spirit will guard this fellowship that we have with the Father and His Son. Any spirit that infringes on the worship and relationship that we give only to the Father and His Son is a masquerade and not the real person of the Spirit. When some false prophet offers to give you an "impartation" of some spirit they have received, you can immediately know it is a demon. The emotion may be similar and the words may be titillating, but the Father will not share His attention. He and His Son alone can be worshipped and adored in this grand covenant of Holy Scripture. His Spirit will inspire and anoint you to exalt the Father and to receive His loving fellowship.

Nothing has been lost to this present generation of religious ideas as the intended relationship with our Father. The Father’s mercies are available to be renewed every morning. Job spoke of this great fellowship in the midst of his dark trial, "What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment?" (Job 7:17-18). The heart of a man will never be full until the Father sits on the throne of that man’s praise.

Jesus Christ came to magnify this fellowship and bridge the gulf of sin so that a saint can "sit together in heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:3). Jesus Christ is the door and the Holy Spirit is the porter and the Father waits for you to walk right in-boldly. There is no other door and there is no other porter (John 10:1-11). The Apostle Paul was dynamic because he lived near the "Holy Place." He said "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh" (Hebrews 10:19-20).

Nothing works havoc in human lives more quickly and more devastatingly than dark "Imaginations." It could well be the front line and major attack in almost every battle we experience from Satan. Some twisted idea, sharp criticism, or a well meaning but unscriptural view of any circumstance in our lives can become a mental imagination that puts us in bondage to that thought. Imaginations can be mildly agitating or they can progress to being a total bondage. Almost every mental or emotional breakdown begins and is a progress of "Imaginations." The best Christian among us may experience an imagination attack, sometimes in the middle of the night, that really makes no sense in our wiser moments.

When an imagination becomes a "spiritual stronghold", the individual is almost never satisfied unless it is told to others. One dark imagination in one person has the potential of destroying numbers of people. Satan uses two primary powers to destroy: "mind thoughts" and "emotional feelings" are his front line into human lives. The emotions usually arise out of the mental imaginations. When imaginations get a good hold on you, they create emotions that are almost more real than true and wholesome emotions. All because an imagination, either out of your own mind or dropped into your life by a gossiper, has gripped your mind with a negative thought. The seed of every bad imagination is negative thinking and the seed of a pure imagination is Biblical and positive thinking.

It is impossible to live without something constantly filling our minds. Our minds or thought lives are a wonderful part of our lives. Animals are controlled by instincts but we are controlled by our minds. God created us to think and reason. Our imaginations, good or bad, are the results of thinking and reasoning. If we fill our mind with the Bible and pure mature thoughts, we grow mentally; we get wiser and wiser, and we learn to be creative and a blessing to our families, others and ourselves. A person with a strong disciplined mind will learn to quickly change negative thoughts and replace them with powerful thoughts of truth and wisdom. The moment we let negative thoughts linger in our minds, dark imaginations will begin to grow. Many homes, churches and communities have been ripped apart by unchecked imaginations.

Thank God that His Bible has provided a wonderful solution to wild imaginations. Apostle Paul received from the Holy Ghost God’s answer to this potential problem. "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled"(II Cor. 10:3-6). The Spirit of God abides in every believer and desires to manifest His baptism and His gifts of supernatural powers. They are available when we depend upon them. "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard [a barrier or bulwark] against him" (Isaiah 59:19b). Do not fight against "Imaginations" with tools of the flesh, but call upon your Heavenly Father to move by His mighty Spirit.

Conclusion
This subject is breathtaking and must be understood Biblically. Great destruction is being wrought in our world by an endless invasion of dark destructive spirits. Our world of humanism has no answer for this invasion. Public schools and the modern media have become nothing but tools to Satan’s many schemes of evil imaginations. The only people who have the answer are "Bible believing" people with a "radical" experience of this "Born Again" life. Cling to His cross of the Blood sacrifice and believe every word of Holy Scripture. You are safe only in his "Truth" revealed in His Holy Bible.