Would you rather leave your kids a million dollars or the testimony to where they’ll speak of you when you’re gone?  “Look, my dad left me a million bucks,” or “My dad did always those things that pleased Him”?  What’s your heritage?  Are we going to leave behind a few measly bucks that the Scripture says can take wings and be gone in a moment?  Or godly character that’ll cause them to be invincible in these last days?  Against that onslaught of the devil as he comes in as a roaring lion.  As he comes as that huge wave of evil, rebellion and lawlessness, and let that grace raise up a standard against him?  Beloved, this next generation has to dig its own wells.  This next generation will be what we are.  The daughter will be what the mother is.  The sons will be what their fathers are.  It’s both spiritual and natural.

My dad told me, “Never smoke.”  But he smoked.  He never told me, “Don’t cuss,” because he and his buddies loved it, man, when they taught me, as a little boy to tell dirty jokes and cuss like a sailor.  My grandpa gave me Kentucky bourbon when I was four years old.  The majority of them, alcoholics.  The majority on my dad’s side also died of heart attacks.  It’s called genetics.  But it stopped with me.  I got born again.  I became a new creation.  I was physically changed.  I remember when the Holy Ghost rose up in me as it pertained to this.  I was having different heart symptoms.  A lot of the same things that my granddad and my dad died of.  Those symptoms were on me.  It finally rose up in me and I saw, “This is not my inheritance,” praise God!  “I’m a son of God, an heir and joint heir, and it stops here.” I remember that faith coming on me and God gave me a new heart.  But most importantly, He gave me a heart of flesh for a heart of stone.  As we talk about this expression of the fruit of the Spirit, that should be the standard of our homes.  That should be what we expect to manifest, to be preeminent.  For sin no longer has dominion.  We give it no credibility.

There should be no desire, no credibility given to that spirit of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another.  These are things that express themselves in many different ways.  We could chase them around and try to put out these little fires.  They should be addressed and spoken to when they’re manifesting in our midst; amen?  Can I remind you, beloved, that these things should not be once named in our midst?  Are we too tolerant of these “little sins”?  Are you as offended when someone is involved in fornication with the world’s system as you are if somebody in our midst was involved in physical fornication and unfaithful to their marriage?  I’m talking about fornication.  I’m talking about getting caught up in the system.  I’m talking about seeking more money, more money.  I’m talking about the different aspects of delighting in it, gaining self‑worth. Motivation “so my kids can have it better than me.”

If you want your kids to have it better than you, then show them Jesus in your life.  Because, as a matter of fact, some of us, here, are letting our kids do things that we forsook and walked away from when we were born again.  And some of us, as we got born again, walked away from physical fornication.  We walked away from the secular music of that day that was an idol in our heart.  “Well, what makes something acceptable and unacceptable?  What about disputable matters?”  Let me tell you something.  If authority over you has given a commandment and set a doctrine in the home, that is no longer a disputable matter!  Obey those that have the rule over you.

Walking in, and refusing to obey, in those particular issues is a worse sin than you were involved in.  If we can’t humble ourselves, we’re so quick to stand up, man, and we’re going to fight!  “I’m going to go find a Scripture somewhere that lets me hold on to my disputable matter.”  You are not living in the Holy Spirit.  If that voice went off inside of you, you’re not in the Spirit.  The Spirit delights in perfection, in holiness, in obedience, in humility, in faithfulness.  One thing I do know is this, I can’t go wrong being faithful; amen?  The Holy Spirit naturally delights in, gravitates to those things.  How can I get in order?  How can I serve somebody else?  Dear God, how can this self‑will die in me?  I need help.  So, we go to brothers and sisters.  You do not love your good friend, you do not love your child, when you’re covering for them.

In fact, just like Deuteronomy 13, instead of justifying this disobedience, this carnality, you ought to be the first one to reprove them and to rebuke them and to instruct them into righteousness; amen?  If we’re alive in the Spirit.  Now if you’re carnal, you’re going to cover up for them.  Of course, they’re special to you and special in your eyes, if you’re in the flesh.  But if we’re alive in the Spirit, I want you to know something.  You will love beyond your door.  You will love the body of Christ as Jesus loved and gave Himself for them.  You’ll want that leaven that’s in your house out of this house!  How?  By getting it out of your house.