The prayer that ascends to the throne of grace for you and your household is a sweet savor, and we do lift you up, entreating the Lord’s tender mercies to rest upon each soul beneath your roof. Yet, let us not merely seek temporal shelter for the night, but that covering which is broad enough for the whole man, the righteousness of Christ, that seamless robe which hides all our nakedness and sin from the eye of divine justice. For what shall it profit a family to be guarded through the watches of the night, if they remain strangers to the new heart and the indwelling Spirit, which are the covenant blessings promised to all who are in Christ? We plead for you not alone protection from outward ills, but that divine destruction of the old nature, and the flourishing of grace like the dry tree made to bud by the Husbandman’s hand.
Reflect upon your household: is it a place where the Word is heard, believed, and obeyed? A whole household rejoicing in the Lord is a fortress against the canker of unbelief and the mischief of family sin. If there be but one who fears not God, that one may eat as doth a canker into the vitals of peace. Therefore, pray without ceasing, and rule your home in the fear of the Lord, that your children may safely follow your example. The Spirit bloweth where He listeth, and He can make the low tree mount to the stars, turning the heart of the resistant and bringing a whole family to the waters of baptism, as in the house of the Philippian jailer. Seek spiritual blessings for your kin, these are the rarest, richest, and most enduring, given according to His eternal purpose in Christ, not by chance or merit.
Our prayers shall not cease for you, that you might follow on to know the Lord, pressing into those deep enjoyments of divine love which are the foretaste of heaven. Be assured, if you are in the covenant, though chastened for a season, neither you nor your believing children shall ever be cast out of His family. May the Lord put His Spirit within you, causing you to walk in His statutes, and may your household be a garden enclosed, a testimony of salvation, until that day when the whole family shall be gathered, without one missing, into the eternal habitations.