Creating a Big 3 Live It Culture in the Home Starts With A Question
What does it mean to be crucified with Christ?
A bit of a loaded question, isn’t it? But I think it’s the right one. After all, if we don’t take the time to answer this question personally, relationally within our marriage, and then as parents on mission inside the walls of our home, well, we’ll be missing out on the key theological paradigm that fosters a Live It culture in the first place
Before you read on, take a minute and soak in Galatians 2:20.
“I have been crucified with Christ. It’s no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loves me and gave himself for me.”
Consider the ramifications of a home led by parents who have weighed the value of the cross and chosen to carry it versus parents who haven’t and so aren’t intentionally or otherwise living the life of Christ. I heard someone recently say with a sense of defeat that if they could, they’d go back and raise their kids in the Church. There’s intentionality within that reflection, isn’t there? What part of the passage caught your attention? Your status as a crucified disciple of Jesus? Christ living within your heart, mind, and body? Your faith in Jesus running through every inch of your being? Or the fact that the Savior of the world died for you out of an eternal sense of love?
The more I wrestle with a Live It lifestyle, or whatever you might brand it in your local church, the more I see a home that:
fosters a fruit of the Spirit atmosphere,
develops a spiritual gift framework for life within the Church,
draws out godly character traits and helps trim off the dead branches,
celebrates decisions and actions that glorify God while gently correcting course when they’re off,
and weaving the Gospel into and throughout each day when we rise and when we lie down, on the way to school and woven through chores, on our walls and glowing from our screens.
What does it mean to create a crucified culture under our roof? Well, it means we, the parents, are free from entanglement with deep sin and its relentless coercion and serpentine prowess (Genesis 4:7). It means we’re creating a family rhythm that avoids the immediate presence of enticing sin (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) and we’ve asked Christ to redeem us from the power of Satan here and forevermore (Hebrews 2:14-15).
Shaping a Live It culture means that we are living by faith in the Son of God. That Christ’s sacrificial death is both a divine model and eternal motivation for us to engage the Kingdom of Heaven right here in our homes. If you’re reading this, you’ve wrestled with and accepted the message Christ died to bring us. You know of the cross and its power over sin and death. Now, specifically when it comes to your home, your wife, your kids—are you engaging the Christlike rhythm of life Christ is calling you to live?
If you don’t, who will?