A Gospel-Centered Home March 21, 2007
Posted by Joe in : General Lessons , add a commentErin,
Thanks for keeping things during my recent SRS hiatus. You blogged admirably love and I am thankful. In particular, I appreciated your second to last post regarding our need for the gospel. As I have mentioned to you, the Lord has been working on me big-time as of late. Of course, he has been working on us both, and as always, it is good to put such things into the written word.
In relationship to parenting, the reality is simple: we cannot raise gospel-centered kids in a gospel-centered home unless we ourselves are gospel-centered. Now, I confess that in the past I wasn’t always sure what I meant when I would make such a statement. What does it mean to be gospel-centered? How can I become such a man? Well, after reading John Ensor’s book, “The Great Work of the Gospel” over the past few days, I have begun to see the light. It is almost as if I am hearing of the gospel for the first time. Amazing….
I have said for quite some time that the Lord uses the same message to save and sanctify His people, but I’m not sure that I ever believed it. This is probably because I did not realize understand how. Sure, I had read Mahaney’s, “The Cross-Centered Life” but for whatever reason, it just didn’t seem to sink in. Well, what has begun to sink in is the reality that the gospel message is used by the Lord to show us who we already are and thus, aid us in becoming such people.
Maybe others differ from us in this regard, but we easily fall back into a works-based mentality. We are always striving for more and more of the Lord. Such a pursuit is good and necessary, but the truth that must be emphasized is that it is only successful because of what Christ has done on our behalf. Also, it is only a pursuit of joy if we continually keep our mind’s eye on Christ’s great Person and Work. For the moment we begin to lose sight of the gospel, we lose sight of God. How can we faithfully pursue Him apart from the message through which He most plainly reveals Himself and humbles us? Such a notion is impossible.
I could say more, but I over one practical step. It’s simple really, but it is one that we can never let go of, namely, we must be continually meditate and return to the gospel message. Over and over again, in prayer, in our speech and in our thoughts, we must return to the fact that Jesus Christ died in our place and that through faith in Him, we are righteous in the sight of God. He is our Substitute and faithful High Priest and apart from Him, we have no hope at all.
I don’t think it is overstating to to say that this is one of the greatest things we can do for our children. Our hearts must be inundated with gospel, so that we might inundate their hearts with gospel. May the Lord grant us grace to feel the weight of the gospel message and to subsequently, rejoice with tears!
Seeking to be gospel-inundated with you,
Joe
Help for Teaching the Gospel March 20, 2007
Posted by Erin in : Recommendations , add a commentJoe,
Until you return I thought I would just put a recommendation up in regards to my last post. This book is called “The Gospel for Children” and would be a help to any needing some extra teaching on effective ways of inputing the gospel into the lives of our children.
For the sake of the gospel,
Erin
The Need for the Gospel March 19, 2007
Posted by Erin in : General Lessons , add a commentJoe,
I am going to continue my little monologue here while you are away on a trip for your game tonight. I am sure you will come back and make up for lost time though!
As we have been wrestling through some things personally the last week or so, I thought we should take the opportunity to apply it to our parenting.
As two very driven, type A (or whatever other adjective you want to use) personalities, it is very easy for us to slip into a performance-based Christianity. Too often the gospel falls off to the side, instead of staying in the center where it belongs. This is scary because in the Word we read the letters of Paul who was always writing to Christians working out their sanctification. And no where do we find him saying that they should try harder or live up to a higher standard in their own strength. Instead, Paul always pointed Christians back to the gospel. We must live there if we are to persevere in the faith and bring glory to God.
We must also keep the Gospel in sight as we train and teach our children. Too often I can slip into wanting Abby to simply obey and then disciplining her for her disobedience. Then I walk her through a time of prayer and off we go again. But these times of discipline are great opportunities to preach the gospel to young children’s hearts. Every time she disobeys, I must remind her that there is no way she can be a SLAVE to righteousness but by the blood of Jesus. She is a slave to sin right now and it is her master. I must continually put before her the offer of Jesus to break her free from those chains of bondage so that she may truly do what God commands her to do because she DESIRES it. Right now, her obedience is only a self-willed obedience. By the grace of God, we are freed to do what we are commanded to do with joy! What an amazing miracle this is!
Seeking to keep the gospel central,
Erin
Music for Memorization March 18, 2007
Posted by Erin in : Recommendations , add a commentJoe,
Just a quick Sabbath recommendation here today. I came across Seeds Music and thought I would recommend their CD’s to any parents looking for good music to help kids memorize Scripture. They use the NIV version, which may not work for some families. I e-mailed the company to ask if they were planning on doing any in the ESV in the future. The founder e-mailed me back and said he had discerned through prayer when starting the project that he should just keep it to one version. He did suggest though that they sell split tracks of the songs and the ESV verses could be added in. He also gave me a tip that a sale will be going on this next week. You can check out their products and listen to samples of the tracks on their website.
Singing and making melody in our hearts,
Erin
Getting to the Root March 17, 2007
Posted by Erin in : General Lessons , add a commentJoe,
Good lead in on what God has been showing us these last few days. I think the thing that amazed me more than anything was not simply that we were had become child-centered, but that we had missed the root issue.
Anyone that knows us knows that we do not like to deal with peripheral issues. If something is going on, we want to know what the root of it is. One particular problem we were having with Abby was her nap and bed times. I would spend 45 minutes getting her ready to take a nap or go to bed. As soon as I would get up to leave her room, she would do something purposely sinful to me. At this point, I would then have to spend time disciplining her. Once I finally got out of the room, she would then proceed to yell or scream from her room. Having told her that yelling and screaming were not appropriate, I would go back to the room and discipline her. this could go on for over an hour. At night time I was so exhausted!
We were just not looking at the root issue. The issue was not Abby simply being disobedient or not wanting to go to bed. Well, I guess she didn’t want to go to bed, but the reason she didn’t want to was because she wanted ATTENTION. And she would endure spanking after spanking for that attention. It finally dawned on us that all we needed to do was to say, “We are not coming back in this room.” So we endured a few screaming sessions, but progress is being granted by the Lord.
What we are now seeing is Abby is an attention addict. You can spot an addict by how they react if you take their addiction away. Abby is always looking to get our attention somehow, and we have given it to her and fed her addiction. Many parents may think this is crazy, but even a good thing can be given too much. Food, for example is good, but as Rosemond says in his book, no parent would argue that it is good to give too much of it.
So Abby is now slowly being weaned from all the attention we have given her. No longer will she be able to dominate our meal conversations or being able to interrupt when we are doing things. Parenting today tells us that we can never “love our children too much”. This has lead to giving our children attention at their every whim. This is a scary thing to do. Our number one goal in parenting is to raise individuals that treasure Christ above all else. If we constantly give them attention and revolve our worlds around them, they will never understand that loving God means enjoying making much of Him. They will only “feel love” when someone makes much of them. If this is the case, they will never love Jesus.
I desire to raise children who go out and give themselves for God and others. This cannot be done when a child is given everything they want, whether it be material goods or attention. Thank You, Lord for granting us grace to see our terrible error!
Always looking to see the root issue with you,
Erin
P.S. Today is Abby’s 3rd birthday and I just want to praise God for such a special gift He has given us in enjoying her life these past three years. She is an amazing little girl! I praise God for His work in her life and pray it would bring her into a knowledge of His Son!
Parent-Centered Homes March 16, 2007
Posted by Joe in : General Lessons , add a commentErin,
That was a good lead-in yesterday. I am sure you can expound upon what I have to say today, but I’ll definitely get things rolling a bit.
Essentially, Erin and I have had our eyes open to a few things that we sort-of knew, but not really. I trust that most people can relate to this. There always seems to be things in our lives that we are aware of, but that we don’t really understand the depths of. Well, there are numerous things in our lives for sure, but this past week a few things have been exposed–big time.
First, I saw for the first time how child-centered our home has become. Of course, at the time of this writing, this is no longer the case, but it was the case just a few short days ago. The ‘epiphany’ of sorts came while reading the first chapter of John Rosemond’s book, The New Six-Point Plan for Raising Happy, Healthy Children. I don’t agree with everything in the book, but I still recommend it quite heartily. Anyhow, his first chapter (and first point) is that the home must be marriage centered and parent-centered for a child truly to thrive.
Now, Erin and I have always known this. I mean, duh right? We need to keep our priorities in line. And I knew that we might be struggling in this area, but it wasn’t until I received Rosemond’s clear teaching and description that I realized we had become a child-centered home. How did it happen? Oh, like anything else that takes over–gradually. It wasn’t a full sweep, but bit by bit, our strong-willed Abigail began to take center stage. Then came Elijah and the battle became harder. Well, Rosemond was describing us and our children. It was a freeing realization that served to bring rapid change.
Another realization will wait until another day. I want to end up mentioning the magnificent way we have been freed by the various philosophies that have actually led us to ‘harm’ our children by paying too much attention to them! That might sound odd to some, but the happiness of our home even over the last few days bears witness to the reality that it is very possible to pay too much attention to your kids. For whatever reason, we had (have) been led to believe that often children who are causing problems need more attention in order to fix the problem. I see clearly now that this is some pop-psychological nonsense.
Of course, we aren’t advocating spending no time with them. But we are making some serious cutbacks and seeing some wonderful results. The wisdom of this world is folly with God.
That is enough for now. There is much more…much, much more, but there are plenty of more days for the Sinners Raising Saints blog!
Getting my priorities straight with you,
Joe
God is the Ruler of the World March 15, 2007
Posted by Erin in : General Lessons , add a commentJoe,
Good stuff on repentance! I thought I would touch upon it again and lead into what God has been showing us in our own home the last day here.
Repentance serves to get our children (and us) back under the blessing of God, but it also serves another purpose. In repenting and asking for forgiveness, we are acknowledging that we are creatures under authority who must obey a set of rules. When those rules (or standards or whatever we want to call them) have been broken, forgiveness needs to be asked.
The great truth that this shows us and our children is simply that we are not the rulers of the world. We are not in charge. There is one greater than us that calls the shots.
Children have a great need to know that they are not in charge. They do not make the rules. The world does not exist to give them their every want and desire. I know I struggle with this in my sin. And it is something that you don’t have to teach a child, it is in them from the day of birth!
We have been learning lately how we have said that our family does not revolve around our children, but our actions have said something different. I will let you expound more upon this!
Longing to raise children who don’t believe they are central,
Erin
Real, Swift Repentance March 14, 2007
Posted by Joe in : General Lessons , add a commentErin,
That was good stuff on repentance my dear. As you alluded to (and as we spoke of), that is definitely a big way we can set a good example for our children. As I read your post I thought of two things that I want to reiterate here.
First, our repentance must be real.
This should go without saying, but you know as well as I that it is possible to repent without really repenting! Often I will sin and know I need to be repenting, but I have no remorse for sin. Deep down I might be blaming you (or someone else) for my own transgression. I might ultimately be angry at the Lord for His providence. I’m not trusting Him, not resting in Him, not seeking Him. Yet I know I should be repenting, so I go through the outward motions. I try to strike up the will-power to do what I know I should.
And what is the result? A faulty, false repentance as we both know. And of course, everyone can see through it, especially our kids. Then they will model it. Thus, the lesson for us is twofold in this regard.
1) We must be real in our repentance ourselves. This means we cannot simply repent b/c we know we should, but we should take the time to seek the Lord for a humble and contrite heart. Maybe we should be more diligent in going to our knees right away in prayer or going before the Word, utilizing the means the Lord has given to break up the fallow ground of our heart. We can’t just ‘decide’ to repent. We need the work of the Holy Spirit to convict and grant repentance, even during our Christian life.
2) We must lead our children in real repentance. This is a very difficult one as I see it. This takes some serious effort. For we know that Abigail (and other kids, and even ourselves I suppose!) just wants to go through the prayer routine and get on with her playtime. She doesn’t want to seek conviction. But O how arrogant she can become (and is!) apart from this work! We must be diligent to lead her to true repentance during the times of discipline. If we sense a clear arrogant spirit, we must prolong the time of discipline for the sake of her own soul.
In this regard, I think we really need to grow in using the Scriptures. I have to lead in this, b/c I have not done a very good job. But I noticed the other day what power the Scriptures have to bring conviction. That being said, let’s make it a ‘next action’ to meet together and write down some Scriptures that could be used in our discipline times with Abby. I think it will most definitely pay off for her soul and the peace of our home!
Second, repentance should be as quick as possible.
Now, because I said so much on the first point, this one will be quick, but it has to be mentioned. At first glance, it might not seem to fit with my first point, but I do not believe there is any contradiction. Repentance must be real, but it should be as quick as possible. We want to keep our accounts short. This is why we must be swift to discipline Abby if she doesn’t not obey ‘without challenge, without excuse, and without delay.’ It is also why we must be quick to seek a contrite and lowly spirit when we walk in disobedience.
Alright love, that is enough for now. This was good to think about for my own soul. I pray it benefits us in the weeks and months (and years Lord willing!) ahead.
Seeking to be real and swift in my repentance,
Joe
A Virtue Often Missed March 13, 2007
Posted by Erin in : General Lessons , add a commentJoe,
I appreciated the link you provided. It was encouraging to see that what we just spent last week talking about was the first point listed: authority.
Before I read the article, I had already been thinking about what I may post on next. So I was eagerly reading to see if the author would make meniton of it. He did elude to it in a way, but did not make a clear statement on it. I know for me it is a part of parenting I often miss out on and see many parents miss out on as well.
I talked in my last post about desiring God above all else and keeping our relationship with Him at the center of everything. So what are some ways that we do that in our own lives and in parenting. One of the first things that came to mind was repentance. In order to enjoy fellowship with God, we must be in a state of continual repentance.
And what greater thing can we model for our children than being those who are quick to ask for forgiveness. I can’t say that I do this nearly enough though. Often times when I am impatient or angry with Abby, I may come and ask for her forgiveness. But does she see me modeling repentance in my every day life? Do I confess to her when I am short with you or when I am complaining against the sovereignty of God or when I speak an unedifying word about another in front of her. I need to be modeling a repentant spirit to her young, impressionable heart. And for the good of my own soul, I need to make confession something that my heart and mouth is continually engaged in.
Imagine the difference this could make! Can you imagine a generation of children who are raised up to admit their wrong doing instead of shifting the blame? Look at the fallout blame shifting had with our original parents, Adam and Eve. And things have certainly not gotten better since then. Seldom do we hear spontaneous words of asking for forgivenss between people. We are always victims these days and justifying our sin because of what someone else did. I know this is me! I want to save Abby and Elijah from the misery pride and arrogance brings in never admitting wrong doing.
May we look to bless our own hearts and set a good example to our children by being repentant people.
Repenting with you,
Erin
Good Article March 12, 2007
Posted by Joe in : Links , add a commentErin,
I know I missed yesterday (our first missed day thus far!) and am running a bit late today, but hey, that is because I was able to spend some time with you! Anyhow….I came across this article by Gardiner Spring on Christian Parenting. I wanted to recommend it to you and everyone else. So let’s give it a read and discuss. It is also interesting to note the first essential truth we should teach our children! Check it out and you will see why.
Seeking Him with you,
Joe