Christian Family Services Ministry

10-31-2016 – A Word to the Wise: Deuteronomy 28:37 sets out in stark reality the affects of disobedience on one’s heritage. Generational sins are passed from one generation to the next. In this passage, one of the chief generational “gifts” passed on is one of “captivity.” If you replace this word with another word, which spells out a specific type of captivity the result is astounding. By replacing the word “captivity” with “addiction”, one can see an immediate parallel to our society. Look how this problem rages among the children of the immoral. Immorality by one’s parents results in the inheritance of addiction.

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10-31-2016 – A Word to the Wise: One biblical example comes from the life of King David. Near the age of fifty, David involved himself in an illicit affair with Bathsheba. He eventually had to murder her husband. Because of the affair, David loses everything—children, position, and even his throne.

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10-25-2016 – A Word to the Wise: Spiritual consequences are also significant. But what is spiritual wealth? Spiritual wealth may be defined as those gifts that the Lord bestows for the common good. Some receive wisdom; others, financial insight; or others, perhaps special understanding of the demon world. Perhaps it may be the gift of healing. This refers to the special ability that some have to heal others. It is not referring to the hucksters among us who like to portray themselves as healers. Gifts are given so that we and others may grow and mature as godly people. Immorality destroys these god-given gifts. The immoral forfeit their god-given gifts by their behavior and estrange themselves from the living God, impoverishing themselves in the process. Thus, when scripture refers to “leanness of spirit,” it refers to the loss of these special gifts.

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10-24-2016 – A Word to the Wise: In most instances, remarriage does not diminish the negative consequences associated with single parenthood, and in some cases, it exacerbates problems. Children who live with a mother and stepfather or a mother and her partner do just as poorly in school and are just as likely to become teen mothers or spend time in jail as children who live with a single mother alone.

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10-20-2016 – A Word to the Wise: The effects of single motherhood are consistent across different race and ethnic groups and across different social classes. The effects are similar for boys and girls and for children who live apart from a parent in early childhood as well as in late childhood.

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10-17-2016 – A Word to the Wise: Yes, these consequences continue for the children. As the child gets older, the problems escalate. The consequences are even more negative when they are measured in adolescence and young adulthood. The age difference is probably due to the fact that behavioral problems have consequences that are more serious in young adulthood than in childhood For example, acting out in elementary school may lead to problems in the classroom, whereas acting out in adolescence may result in dropping out of school or getting pregnant.

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10-14-2016 – A Word to the Wise: It seems that, as a society, we have lost a sense of propriety about cohabiting and its long-term effects. Sara McLanahan, a long-time researcher in this field attempts to awaken the public when she says: “To get an idea of the magnitude of the effects of single motherhood, consider the following: During the 1980s, the high school dropout rate was approximately 18 percent for all children in the U.S., 13 percent for children in two-parent families, and 26 percent for children in single-mother families. The statistics show that living with a single parent increases the risk of dropping out of school by a factor of two, a nontrivial effect.”

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10-13-2016 – A Word to the Wise: A key change in marital status patterns has been the large increase in cohabitation or ‘‘living together’’ among unmarried couples). In the years 1980–84, 29 percent of out-of-wedlock births were to cohabiting couples. By 1990–94, this proportion increased to 39 percent, according to data from NCHS’ National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) and the National Survey of Families and Households. Most of the increase in births to unmarried women since the early 1980s was in births to unmarried cohabiting women.

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10-12-2016 – A Word to the Wise: Waite another researcher in the field says; “The evidence is overwhelming: marriage is beneficial to individuals and society, on balance (Waite 1995). Married people have better emotional and physical health. They live longer. The children raised by a loving married couple have well-documented advantages, both emotionally and economically, over children living in single-parent families.”

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10-6-2016 – A Word to the Wise: This trend is causing considerable concern in the government, which is the topic of the following article: “The Retreat from Marriage and the Rise in Nonmarital Fertility,” by Daniel Lichter. 15 He states in his introduction: The new “individualism” in America, the quest for personal fulfillment, and the decline in moral or religious values have gone hand-in-hand with declining marriage rates. Marriage is often seen as restricting personal freedom and growth, as well as potentially handicapping work careers (e.g., tied migration). According to this argument, marriage and traditional family life are increasingly incompatible with the demands of a modern industrial economy. The overwhelming evidence is that declines in marriage have occurred for virtually every segment of American society—the young and the old; employed and unemployed; affluent and poor; highly educated and less educated; urban and rural residents; African American, White, and Hispanic. Current marriage trends are ubiquitous and have affected virtually all social, economic, and demographic groups.

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