God Is Telling You to BLOCK a FAMILY MEMBER If

here are four signs that god could use to let you know that he wants you to remove family member from your life number one if you've already set up healthy boundaries for this person but they keep blowing through them no matter how many new consequences that you give them this could be sign that god is telling you to remove this person from your life we should not be quick to remove family member from our lives on practical level it's really difficult because family is so interwoven together and so if you try to remove someone it's going to affect many other relationships in your life and from biblical perspective do think we have greater responsibility to take care of and be involved in the lives of our family members for example in 1st timothy 5 verses 3 through 8 it states honor widows who are truly widows but if widow has children or grandchildren let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents for this is pleasing in the sight of god but if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for members of his household he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever paul was trying to help timothy figure out how to address practical needs in the church he points out that in an ideal world our first line of defense should be our family members although there certainly are times where family just isn't there and then the church should take care of those members who need help say all that to highlight how important the bible states that family is to each other so we shouldn't be quick to remove family members from our lives but there truly are times where it's absolutely necessary to do this one of those scenarios is when you've already set up healthy boundaries for this family member and they keep blowing through those boundaries no matter how many new consequences you come up with to help them respect your boundaries they keep blowing through them you've distanced yourself more and more now the final consequence that you can give someone for being toxic towards you and disrespecting your boundaries is to completely remove this person from your life in 2nd timothy chapter 3 verses 1 through 9 paul lists long list of negative traits sinful traits that are often seen in people who are unhealthy and not following god but then in verse 5 he clearly says avoid them try to set lesser boundaries at first and try to help this person repent of the sins that they're committing against you but if they won't repent they really leave you no choice but to remove them from your life number two if your repeated failed efforts are showing you that peace with this person can only come through separation this could be sign that god is telling you to remove this person from your life paul and barnabas were great ministry partners but then they had really sharp disagreement they didn't spend their whole lives trying to find common ground at any cost rather they realized that this was situation where they weren't going to see eye to eye any time soon and this was only hurting their ministry to stay together any longer they simply accepted that their disagreement was so extreme that it wasn't going to get solved right now and they had to keep moving forward to where the lord was leading each of them to go thus they concluded peace could really only occur through separation as acts 15 39 states and there arose sharp disagreement so that they separated from each other sometimes this type of thing occurs with our own family members we try and try to find common ground but for whatever reason it's just not happening if you can agree to disagree and you both can just learn to hold your tongue so you're not arguing that's okay but if this is one of those things that you just can't accept it in each other and you're going to keep arguing no matter what then again this is time where you should separate number three if this person has abused you in way that has forever made them untrustworthy this is sign god is telling you to remove this family member from your life one of the major problems in the church today is the church's misapplication of what the bible says about reconciliation so many times within the church serious abuses have been simply handled internally as though they should be handled in the exact same way as common sins between two brothers and sisters in christ while god does call all christians to forgive any sin that is committed against us even serious abuses the bible does not say that we need to reconcile with people who are still dangerous threat to our health god doesn't require that we reconcile with abusive people and this is wrong for the church to force this upon people who have been abused god does not want us to spare criminals of just civil consequences for their sins and god does not want us to pretend like verbal abuses or severe forms of manipulation should be handled like every other sin and just forgotten so that this manipulative and abusive person can just keep doing the same thing to that victim or to other people as well again yes forgive all sins that people commit against us but don't over apply what the bible actually says about forgiveness and reconciliation or over apply the meaning of biblical forgiveness biblical forgiveness and biblical reconciliation are two very different things you don't have to be close to people who have an intent to harm you forgiveness is not about shielding abusers from discipline and the consequences that they need and forgiveness is not about ignoring the command to guard our own hearts as it says in proverbs 4 23 family member can't do something that's unforgivable but they can do something that's inreconcilable you can't just reconcile with this person after the severe abuse or manipulation that they put you through because they've shown you that they're forever untrustworthy while they're on this earth and number four if you have to remove this family member out of love for the other people in your life who are greater priority to you this is sign god is telling you to remove this person family is so messy because it's intertwined into so many other parts of our lives and especially into other relationships that we find valuable so if your adult daughter is being verbally abusive to your wife that's complicated but you need to put your wife first if you're married to man that your dad absolutely hates and he's toxic and disrespectful to your husband while you still are called to honor your father you're called to have greater allegiance to your husband now so you have to put your husband first maybe you're mature enough to deal with your parents abusive language but what happens when they start treating your children that way their grandchildren you can't let that happen all of our relationships are not equal god truly has given us certain relationships that we have greater responsibility towards if this family member is making you choose between them and someone else that you have greater allegiance to this is sign god is telling you to remove this family member from your life make sure you're subscribed to the agw youtube channel so every time upload new video you can be part of the conversation i'd love to hear your thoughts about this topic in the comment section below i'm mark from applygodsword.com until next time god bless