On April 1st, no joke, Tom Wolf issued a state-wide stay-at-home order for Pennsylvania.  Agree with that decision or not, here we are. 

Just a few weeks later, most people are, well, let's say we're ready for things to get back to normal.  Not a new normal, back to work, back to school, back to church, back to normal, normal.

Generally speaking, singles are ready for some human interaction.  Couples are ready to be a little less coupled.  Families are wishing that they owned a slightly larger home.

This morning, we're starting a series entitled, "Bless This Home."  Through it, we are going to learn how to have better, healthier relationships with one another. 

Ideally, being physically forced together inside of a house should draw people closer together, however, it often has the opposite affect. 

Is it that too much of a good thing is a bad thing or are there some underlying issues that we need to work on?  We're going to go with the latter for this one.

We were created for relationships.  In the very beginning, God said that everything that He created was good up until the time that man realized that he was alone.  Sure, he had a relationship with God, but he didn't have a relationship with someone like himself the way that the rest of creation had.

In response, God created woman and they multiplied.  Mankind now had relationships with one another through family.  They were all human, created in God's image. 

When it was just that one man and woman brought together by God, the Father, in marriage, they introduced sin into the world by tag-teaming and choosing their own opinion over God's clear direction.

Then, they had children.  Their first child got jealous of the second child's offering brought to God and murdered him and then lied to God about it. 

So…  If stay-at-home orders have caused some conflict at home, but no one has been murdered yet, you're doing OK, right?

Was this God's intent and purpose for family?  Why did things seem to go so badly so quickly?  Did God make a mistake?  Is this really God's picture of a blessed home?  What went wrong?

We're going to start with the understanding that God doesn't make mistakes.  A perfect, sinless, holy God simply could not.  In fact, His word states that:

Genesis 1:27

So God created mankind in his own image,

    in the image of God he created them;

    male and female he created them.

God intentionally created humans the same, but different.  God had a purpose in creating us equal, but unique.  We call these differences our personality. 

His intent was that by creating us each with different strengths and weaknesses and abilities and perspectives was that we would form stronger relationships with one another seeing the value and need for each other.

Our differing personalities were intentionally created by God.

After being save and baptized in the Holy Spirit, the disciples' personalities remained unchanged.  Peter was still an outspoken loudmouth who always seemed to find himself in the center of attention, John was still poetic and a bit feminine, Saul was just as fiery, determined, and passionate before and after His transformation. 

Although our lives are transformed as we allow the Holy Spirit to work within us, although we certainly do become new creations, this transformation is the result of a movement away from sin and toward God's plans for our lives.