Your Kingdom Come in the Home
Family music
“You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:5 (NIV)
Dearest Daughters,
I’ve often been asked what the purpose of marriage is, and my heart longs to answer in a way that reaches deeper than duty or romance or even companionship. To truly understand marriage, we must begin not with ourselves, but with God and with the purpose for every relationship He has designed.
You see, from the beginning, God was building a house. Not one of stone and timber, but of human souls. His plan was always to dwell with His people. Not just among us, but inside of us. And so, every Christian relationship is meant to become part of that spiritual structure. We are, as Scripture says, “living stones,” carefully placed and shaped, growing together into a temple where God’s presence rests (1 Peter 2:5).
Through this holy dwelling—His Church—God reveals His wisdom not only to the world, but even to principalities of the heavens. Imagine that! Your faithfulness in friendship, in family, and especially in marriage becomes part of an eternal testimony to angels and powers, a declaration that love always wins over fear, over death, over pride, and over every decay that sin has sown into human relationships (Ephesians 3:10–11).
So marriage was never just about finding “the one” who makes only you feel complete. It was never meant to be only about our self-fulfillment or comfort. Marriage was created for God’s glory. It is a sacred context in which we learn to lay down our lives, to submit not merely to one another, but to Christ. It is a place to unlearn self-centeredness and relearn how to love like Jesus does—with humility, grace, and transparency.
The world tells you to ask: What will this relationship do for me?
But the better question is: What is this relationship asking of me? What is God forming through it?
If we want to be part of the spiritual house that He’s building, we must allow Him to dismantle the selfish scaffolding we’ve built around ourselves. That can be uncomfortable. But to the one who longs for Christ to be formed in her, it is holy ground.
Scripture speaks clearly: “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. . . . As the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything” (Ephesians 5:22-24). But hear me: this is not about inferiority or blind obedience. It is about coming under God’s mission (submission) and reflecting a transcendent picture: the church responding in love to Christ.
And submission is not reserved for women. All who follow Jesus are called to mutual submission—to live in such a way that Christ is seen in how we yield, how we serve, how we forgive, how we listen.
So ask yourself often: If marriage is a prototype of Christ and His church:
How would I want my church to relate to Christ, and do I exemplify that in my marriage?
What does my marriage say about Christ and His church?Does it reflect honor? Loyalty? Trust?
Does it show how deeply the church loves her Lord?
Does it echo the unity Christ prayed for when He said, “that they may be one . . . so that the world may know You sent Me”? (John 17:21)
The enemy of your soul will go after that unity. His oldest trick is accusation and suspicion (Revelation 12:10). He knows that if he can divide what God meant to be one, he can distort the very picture of God’s covenant love.
But a marriage that is ordered by God becomes a living parable—a testimony to what real, sacrificial, enduring love looks like, to what Christ looks like. A little piece of heaven on earth. Not because it is perfect, but because it has been surrendered.
That’s why Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” That’s not just a morning prayer; it’s a daily posture. In your home. In your heart. In your marriage.
Paul said the kingdom of God is “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). This is not supposed to just be a theory. It’s the blueprint. It’s what the kingdom looks like when it puts on flesh and lives in your home.
So let’s start here:
What does righteousness look like between husband and wife?
What does peace look like—not just a “ceasefire,” but a true atmosphere of grace and order?
What does joy look like—even when the laundry’s piled up, the baby’s crying, and you’re tired to the bone?
The world has at times abused the role of women; sometimes even the “church” has. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. When I was nineteen, I traveled to the Middle East and watched in stunned silence as a woman, strapped to the boom of a rotating irrigation pump, trudged in endless circles to draw water for the family fields. Her husband relaxed in the shade, and nearby, the family donkey rested under a tree. The image never left me.
There will always be people who use their own power to trample others. But that’s not God’s design. Just because there will always be those who caricature God’s order, don’t reject the treasure of godly design and submission just because you’ve seen counterfeits. Submission, rightly understood, does not degrade; it dignifies. It is not a lowering of value; it is a demonstration of trust in the One who laid down His own rights, even His own life.
God’s order is not about showcasing our brilliance. It’s about reflecting His. His kingdom is not a platform for pride but a mirror for glory. And marriage is one of its clearest mirrors.
Submission, when yielded in the Spirit, is offensive only to the flesh. But to the woman who has tasted the sweetness of surrender, it becomes a doorway to peace.
“The wise woman builds her house,” Proverbs says. “But the foolish one tears it down with her own hands” (Prov. 14:1). So ask yourself—what kind of woman am I becoming?
The kingdom will rise or fall in our homes before it ever shows up in our churches or communities. If righteousness, peace, and joy are the fruit of the Spirit, then let them begin in you. Let them take root in the secret places: in your tone, your thoughts, your willingness to forgive. Let them blossom in your daily choices. Let them spread to the children and the man beside you at your table.
Because if His kingdom is ever to come in the earth . . .
It must come first in the heart.
And then, my daughters, in the home.
With all my love,
Mom
