This is the Work of God
Here's the formula we're most at ease with: Good parenting in, good children out.
Seeking to be faithfully obedient parents is our responsibility; granting faith to our children is His. Freedom to love and enjoy our children flows out of the knowledge that God saves them in spite of our best efforts, not because them. Salvation belongs to the Lord!
We're concerned about parents who carry on their shoulders the entire burden for their kids' salvation and lifelong happiness. We were never meant to carry the ultimate responsibility or anyone's soul:neither our own nor our children's. Only the Good Shepherd is strong enough to carry a soul-that's his job, nor ours. And although this kind of committed parenting appears godly, it is nothing less than works righteousness and idolatry.
We are not nor can we be the savior's of our children. He is the Savior. When we forget this, our parenting will be pockmarked by fear, severity, and exhaustion.
He loves flooding our consciences with the peace that comes from knowing our sins are forgiven and our standing before him is completely secure. When we're quietly resting in grace, we'll have grace to give our children too. When we're freed from the ultimate responsibility of being their Savior, we'll find our parenting burden becoming easy and light.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Give Them Grace-Chapter 2
How to Raise Good Kids
Barnabas saw God's grace working in the lives of the people, so he exhorted them to remain faithful. We too can see God's grace at work in our children and exhort them to remain faithful.
The one encouragement we can always give our children (and one another) is that God is more powerful than our sin, and he's strong enough to make us want to do the right thing...Our encouragement should always stimulate praise for God's grace rather than for our goodness.
On the other hand, if we persist in seeking to build our children's self esteem by praising them, we make them into our own image, boys and girls who idolize the benediction, adults who are enslaved to the opinion of others....
But if our human obedience or morality isn't motivated by gratitude for God's grace, it is very dangerous. If not rooted in gratitude for God's love for us in Christ, morality is deadlier to the soul than immorality. Why? Remember that Jesus said it is those who are lost, who know they need a physician, that he came to save. (luke 19:10)
Barnabas saw God's grace working in the lives of the people, so he exhorted them to remain faithful. We too can see God's grace at work in our children and exhort them to remain faithful.
The one encouragement we can always give our children (and one another) is that God is more powerful than our sin, and he's strong enough to make us want to do the right thing...Our encouragement should always stimulate praise for God's grace rather than for our goodness.
On the other hand, if we persist in seeking to build our children's self esteem by praising them, we make them into our own image, boys and girls who idolize the benediction, adults who are enslaved to the opinion of others....
But if our human obedience or morality isn't motivated by gratitude for God's grace, it is very dangerous. If not rooted in gratitude for God's love for us in Christ, morality is deadlier to the soul than immorality. Why? Remember that Jesus said it is those who are lost, who know they need a physician, that he came to save. (luke 19:10)
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