Forsaking Family

Forsaking family. How many of you are struggling? You're following God with everything you have. You're being led by the spirit of the Almighty God. And yet in your own home, you're facing opposition.

Maybe your spouse, maybe your children, maybe their level of spiritual maturity is not at your same level. Maybe they're on milk and you're on meat.

Maybe they're on milk and you're on meat. And you're praying for grace, patience, endurance, mercy. You're praying to God to know His perfect will. Is your spouse speaking to you in a way that you need to hear it, receive it? Or is this the moment where you rebuke Satan and say, "Get behind me, Satan." Like Jesus had to do with Peter.

Your assignment is your assignment and you are to follow the perfect will of God. Not the permissive will where things are allowed. Following the way the world goes, but the perfect will of God. And how do you follow the perfect will of God? You have to be sold out, spirit-led, totally surrendered, and obedient to following His voice. Or you've matured so much that there's a knowing in your Spirit and truly you're driven on autopilot. Knowing to turn right, knowing to turn left, knowing to leave at this time, knowing when to speak, knowing when to be silent.

Perhaps you've entered a place where you must accept that not everyone can follow you where you're going. And that may mean those that are the closest to you.

That's really, really hard to swallow. That's really, really hard. So, what do you do? Do you accept it? Do you rebuke it as a demonic attack?

What do you do? When you're facing a difficult decision,

a fork in the road, do I obey and submit to the will of my husband or this leader

or my mom or my dad or my brother and my sister or my children

when they think you're too sold out for Jesus,

you're too sold out for Jesus.

Or maybe they love what you do, but they just can't commit to that level of following God the way you do. Maybe their assignment's different and they don't need to. These are really, really, really difficult things to grasp.

And we see in scripture

when we have to make difficult choices and we have to try to walk in the perfect will of God, being obedient to being led by the Spirit of God.

and the voice of God and not being led by the world or by our emotions or permissive will, the permissive will of God, but actually entering to spiritual alignment and the perfect will of God where all the blessings flow forth, the ministry expands, and you step into the fullness of all God has for you. But how do you enter into that place? How do you get to that place? How do you get to that place? We see in scripture,

we see in scripture where Samuel in 1st Samuel 8, he prayed to the Lord for guidance when he was facing a difficult situation or where he was being asked

to do something that he didn't believe was the will of God.

But his assignment was to pray and take that petition to God. And when the Israelites wanted a king, God didn't want that for him for them. It wasn't His perfect will, His sovereign will for them. He wanted to rule them directly, but He granted their requests.

under His permissive will, recognizing they have free will and choice. But as He warned them, there were consequences.

It's hard when you know you hear God and you know you follow God, but those closest to you are in opposition to that. Whether silently, whether it's with their actions,

or whether it's just a raw wound that that cracks open and bleeds because you want your family to be with you in ministry. You want them to be with you in the church service. You want them to to be in a pew with you. You want them to know God the way you do.

Maybe your children or your grandchildren, they don't know God at all. And it's really, really hard when they want you to walk a certain way, do a certain thing, go to this event, go to this event, do this, do that. When God's calling you and you know His Spirit is leading you in an entirely different direction.

Mary was led to the tomb of Jesus that morning

when He rose from the dead. She had a knowing and she went there. Where were the men? Where were the other ones? But Mary knew she was drawn there. She was drawn there. Many of you are being drawn to a territory that God is showing you. to a place God is showing you

and you want and you want to be in His perfect will and you hear Him and you know Him and you walk so closely with Him but yet in order for you to achieve what He has for you, you have to unhook or unyoke from those closest to you that are leading you away from God's assignment for your life. And that's really, really, really, really tough.

So, what do you do? How do you how do you make this decision? How do you decide when to fight, when to rebuke, when to sit still? Um how do you know? Is this where I rebuke Satan and say, "Get behind me." Um, or is this where God's trying to speak to me maybe through that family member?

I would tell you that you arrive at a place the more mature you get spiritually to where you know that you know that you know this is the way walk in it and you have such unease and restlessness because you know you're being held back when God is telling you and commanding you to move to soar and you have to draw a line in the sand and say this is the way I'm going. This is my path and I'm going to pray for you and I'm going to surrender this situation to God, this impossible situation. I'm gonna give it to God and I'm going to give that family member to God and I'm going to pray for them. I'm going to decree and declare for their salvation. I'm going to decree and declare for them to move from milk to meat. I am going to decree and declare that we will have open lines of communication. That I will have patience. That I will have grace. and that when God calls me to speak to them and declare to them that I'm no longer going this way, but I'm going to follow the perfect will of God because He said move and I'm moving and I am in alignment and I'm not pulling back.

And when you venture down this road and choose that path, remember that scripture guides us. We look at Luke 9 62 out of the amplified version. But Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back to the things left behind is fit for the kingdom of God." And then when we see Matthew 19:29, and we're reading that out of the Amplified Bible, and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for my name's sake will receive many times as much and will inherit eternal life, eternal life. And many of us are being called to step out more boldly to pull away from task and assignments and duties placed on us by others. And maybe we did them for a season. And maybe we agreed to that. And maybe that was God's will to to strengthen us to to to uh prune us where we needed to be pruned to to like shape us on the potter's will, per se. But it's not that season anymore. It's time to shine. It's time to thrive. It's time to go. It's time to move. It's time to step out and into all God has for you this season. But you have to let go. And sometimes that means forsaking those that are the closest to you or putting hard set boundaries guard rails in place to say, "I understand that you're not where I am with your walk with the Lord. But I am. And as for me in this house, I serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And I trust what he spoke over my life. And you may not necessarily believe it. You may not agree with it. But I am going to choose the path that leads to the perfect will of the Almighty God. And that's today's episode and what he has for you with reflective hour with Tammy Toney-Butler. I'm your Host, Evangelist, Author, and woman that God set free and set on a path to bring the others into a place of wholeness, restoration, and the fullness of all God has for them as they walk in the perfect will of God and prepare the way for the kingdom of God to be on earth as it is in heaven.

as it is in heaven. and to spread the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel ofLife, the Truth of the Lord Jesus Christ to all those caught in the bondage of sin. Glory be to Jesus. Glory be to Jesus. Glory be to Jesus.