Redeeming Your Family Line

If bad things can be passed down through family lines, then good things can too. Romans 12:21 says, “­­­Be not overcome with evil but overcome evil with good.” This is an encouraging thought for families!What’s more, good things can not only be passed down, but passed up as well. Maybe what your parents gave you wasn’t so good, but in return, you can give good to them. That is the power of redemption!There may have been harshness for generations in your home. But today is a new day, and life and love can come up right through that very area. God gets particular delight in you overcoming evil with good.My husband Tony’s family illustrates this. Both his grandfathers moved to America from Italy and were tough, hard-working men. Tony’s dad grew up in Ohio, and back in those days, there was a lot of prejudice against Italians in America. There was a mean Irishman who would lose his German Shepherd on my father-in-law when he walked past the Irishman’s house. One day, Dad found that guy without his dog and beat the tar out of him. He said, “You’re not so tough without your dog, are you?” Okay, so that was Tony’s dad, and he tended to be physical in raising his seven boys as well.After one of Tony’s brothers drowned, his dad, who was a drinker, drank even more and developed cirrhosis of the liver. His sons, especially the first five who were young men at the time, were heathen!But boy, I’m telling you what, after Tony’s brother Joe got saved, salvation spread in that family like a holy contagion! I mean they got it. They all got it.Today, two of Tony’s brothers have mighty churches, and their kids are in ministry. And even the brothers who aren’t pastors serve and help in ministry as do their families. Do you see the difference of how there’s a new line now?My dad was a ranch hand and rodeo cowboy. When God got a hold of him, God saved and filled him with the Holy Spirit, and my dad became a Pentecostal preacher. All five of his kids are in ministry and many of the grandkids serve God in some capacity as well.Daddy was the first one in his family to get saved. Yet, through my dad, my grandparents got saved. His mom was the first one he ever baptized, and he baptized her in the bathtub because it was winter in Colorado. Salvation spreads up the line—not just down to the next generation.You can reverse the curse in your family, too. The blessing is stronger than the curse. You’re not left with the curse. You can claim the blessing, praise God!You might want to put up a picture of your family members and begin saying, “My family is blessed.” Well, part of the way they’re going to be blessed is the blessing that comes up through you. You don’t force blessing on them, but it will issue from your prayers and your life and your contact with them. They see firsthand that the love of God is stronger than hate and strife.The devil has desired to throw families into the rubbish, but we’re not going to do that. It’s worth it to fight for our families. The devil wants to confuse us as to who the enemy is, so we end up fighting our family instead of him. No! We want to fight for our families instead of fighting members of our family. We don’t wrestle against flesh and blood. We wrestle against the devil, who hates our family. One way we triumph over him is to overcome evil with good.You can’t attack hate with hate. One of the best ways to attack hate is to love. And God’s way to invade a family line that has been controlled by depression is with weapons of joy and with peace.Remember, family is part of God’s redemption plan. Not only did God use family strategically within the plan itself, but family was also targeted for redemption as well. He redeemed what was broken and what it cost Him to do so shows the value that God puts on the family.The genealogy in Matthew 1 beginning with Abraham and bringing us up to Jesus Christ has in it a variety of people. Some are known for good reasons, but there were others who were quite the opposite. If you ever had a reason to think that your relatives were hopeless, you might be encouraged to look at Jesus’ earthly family line with everything from adultery and murder to sacrificing babies in fire.Of the forty-eight individuals named in this genealogy, five mothers are included. One of the five is Mary, Jesus’ mother. Because women were not included in genealogies, we should ask why the Holy Spirit inspired the inclusion of the other four women in the record of Jesus’ Christ’s earthly lineage. Who are they?

• Tamar pretended to be a harlot and got pregnant by her father-in-law, Judah (Genesis 38; Matthew 1:3).
• Rahab was David’s great, great grandmother who was a prostitute in Jericho. Her lies saved the lives of Israel’s two spies. In exchange, her whole family was saved. (Matthew 1:5; Joshua 2:1-18).
• Ruth, an exceptional woman, was David’s great-grandmother. Her own family, however, were Moabites. The Moabites were a tribe that descended from Moab, the son of Lot. Lot’s son was the product of an incestuous relationship between Lot and his oldest daughter (Genesis 19:37; Matthew 1:5).
• Bathsheba was the woman with whom David committed adultery and whose husband David had killed after his cover-up plan failed for her inconvenient pregnancy. In Matthew 1:6, Bathsheba’s name wasn’t mentioned, but she is referred to as “her” who had been the wife of Uriah (2 Samuel 11).

Why would God, on purpose, put these ladies in a holy genealogy? I believe He wanted us to look straight at fractures and confusion to His image, and say, “You’re not too hard for the blood of Jesus. You’re not beyond redemption.” Don’t you love that? Nothing that’s happened in your family is beyond the blood of Jesus that has power to not only forgive and cleanse, but also to completely reconcile back to God’s original intention. This includes a future and a place in God’s plan.Jesus, whose human body carried the divine blood of His Father God, was not born into a perfect family—one free from issues, heartache, and shame. Instead, Jesus identified with this dysfunctional family and what they did, all the while never polluting His precious blood by sinning Himself.But listen! Jesus’ fractured family line stopped with Him. A new family line began—an inChrist family line where all the families of the earth can find restoration, salvation, redemption, and be blessed, indeed!Do you know what activates the blessing? Faith in the blessing. Believe it, and your faith will activate it. It’s like throwing a match on gasoline. Jesus already did a work that provides blessing for all the families of the earth, but if you want your family to partake of that blessing, use your faith and believe what God said is true. Believe God’s promise of blessing instead of gasping and rolling your eyes at the curse: “Oh, my family is a bunch of no goods.” No! Say, “My family is blessed. Every day I call them blessed.” Praise God! What can God do in your family? He can do amazing things, and He will if you believe Him.You can believe the dysfunction, heartache, and fracture that is and has been in your family, or you can believe the promises of God for your family. Here are promises for you to take to heart. Believe and speak these promises from God’s Word as you fight for your family: Deuteronomy 28:32, 41; Galatians 3:13-14; Isaiah 49:24-25; John 4:53; Acts 16:15, 31.