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)
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
The meaning of Marriage, ch. 3
The Essence of Marriage
But when the Bible speaks of love, it measures it primarily not by how much you want to receive but by how much you are willing to give of yourself to someone. How much are you willing to lose for the sake of this person? How much of your freedom are you willing to forsake?
In sharp contrast with our culture, the Bible teaches that the essence of marriage is a sacrificial commitment to the good of the other. That means that love is more fundamentally action than emotion.
To break faith with your spouse is to break faith with God at the same time.
To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loves is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well,a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.
The only way for you to be truly free is to link your feeling to an obligation. Only if you commit yourself to loving in action, day in and day out, even when feelings and circumstances are in flux, can you truly be a free individual and not a pawn of outside forces. Also, only if you maintain your love for someone when it is not thrilling can you be said to be actually loving a PERSON. the aesthete does not really love the person; he or she loves the feelings, thrills, ego rush, and experiences that the other person brings. The proof of that is that when those things are gone, the aesthete has no abiding care or concern for the other.
If, as our culture encourages us, we go so far as to define love as 'Liking"-if we only feel that actions of love are "authentic" if there are strong feelings of love present-we will inevitably be bad friends and even more terrible family members and spouses. IT is a mistake to think that you must feel love to give it.
Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. ....Whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or, at least, to dislike it less....The worldy man treats certain people kindly because he 'likes'them: The Christian, trying to treat everyone knidly, find himself liking more and more people as he goes on-including people he could not even have imagine himself liking at the beginning. C.S. Lewis
If you do not give up, but proceed to love the unlovely in a sustained way, they will eventually become lovely to you.
In any relationship, there will be frightening spells in which your feelings of love seem to dry up. And when that happens you must remember that the essence of a marriage is that is is a covenant, a commitment, a promise of future love. So what do you do? You do the acts of love, despite your lack of feeling. You may not feel tender, sympathetic, and eager to please, but in your actions you must BE tender, understanding, forgiving, and helpful. And, if you do that, as time goes on you will not only get through the dry spells, but they will become less frequent and deep, and you will become more constant in your feelings. This is what can happen if you decide to love.
He Stayed:
"Well, when Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn't think, "I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me." No, he was in agony, and he looked down on us-denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him-and in the greatest act of love in history, he STAYED. He said, 'Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing." He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely. That is why I am going to love my spouse." Speak to your heart like that, and then fulfill the promises you made on your wedding day.
But when the Bible speaks of love, it measures it primarily not by how much you want to receive but by how much you are willing to give of yourself to someone. How much are you willing to lose for the sake of this person? How much of your freedom are you willing to forsake?
In sharp contrast with our culture, the Bible teaches that the essence of marriage is a sacrificial commitment to the good of the other. That means that love is more fundamentally action than emotion.
To break faith with your spouse is to break faith with God at the same time.
To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loves is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well,a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.
The only way for you to be truly free is to link your feeling to an obligation. Only if you commit yourself to loving in action, day in and day out, even when feelings and circumstances are in flux, can you truly be a free individual and not a pawn of outside forces. Also, only if you maintain your love for someone when it is not thrilling can you be said to be actually loving a PERSON. the aesthete does not really love the person; he or she loves the feelings, thrills, ego rush, and experiences that the other person brings. The proof of that is that when those things are gone, the aesthete has no abiding care or concern for the other.
If, as our culture encourages us, we go so far as to define love as 'Liking"-if we only feel that actions of love are "authentic" if there are strong feelings of love present-we will inevitably be bad friends and even more terrible family members and spouses. IT is a mistake to think that you must feel love to give it.
Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. ....Whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or, at least, to dislike it less....The worldy man treats certain people kindly because he 'likes'them: The Christian, trying to treat everyone knidly, find himself liking more and more people as he goes on-including people he could not even have imagine himself liking at the beginning. C.S. Lewis
If you do not give up, but proceed to love the unlovely in a sustained way, they will eventually become lovely to you.
In any relationship, there will be frightening spells in which your feelings of love seem to dry up. And when that happens you must remember that the essence of a marriage is that is is a covenant, a commitment, a promise of future love. So what do you do? You do the acts of love, despite your lack of feeling. You may not feel tender, sympathetic, and eager to please, but in your actions you must BE tender, understanding, forgiving, and helpful. And, if you do that, as time goes on you will not only get through the dry spells, but they will become less frequent and deep, and you will become more constant in your feelings. This is what can happen if you decide to love.
He Stayed:
"Well, when Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn't think, "I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me." No, he was in agony, and he looked down on us-denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him-and in the greatest act of love in history, he STAYED. He said, 'Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing." He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely. That is why I am going to love my spouse." Speak to your heart like that, and then fulfill the promises you made on your wedding day.
The Meaning of Marriage, Tim Keller ch. 2
I am SO loving this book. Came right at the perfect time for me.
ch. 2 The Power for Marriage
Whether we are husband or wife, we are not to live for ourselves but for the other. And that is the hardest yet single most important function of being a husband or a wife in marriage.
Self-centeredness is a havoc-wreaking problem in many marriages, and it is the ever-present enemy of EVERY marriage...
Self-centeredness is easily seen in the signs Paul lists: impatience, irritability, a lack of graciousness and kindness in speech, ...they responded to the self-centeredness of their partner with their own self-centeredness. WHy? Self-centeredness by its very character makes you blind to your own while being hypersensitive, offended, and angered by that of others. The result is always a downward spiral into self-pity, anger, and despair, as the relationship gets eaten away to nothing.
But the gospel, brought home to your heart by the Spirit, can make you HAPPY ENOUGH TO BE HUMBLE, giving you an INTERNAL FULLNESS that frees you to be generous with the other even when you are not getting the satisfaction you want out of the relationship. (emphasis mine)
If I put the happiness of my spouse ahead of my own needs-then what do I get out if it? The answer is=happiness.
Then the Bible says that human beings were made in God's image. That means, among other things, that we were created to worship and live for God's glory, not our own. We were made to serve God and others. That means paradoxically that if we try to put our own happiness ahead of obedience to God, we violate our own nature and become, ultimately, miserable. Jesus restates the principle when he says, "Whoever wants to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matt. 16:15). He is saying, "If you seek happiness more than you seek me, you will have niether; if you seek to serve me more than serve happiness, you will have both."
The reason is that woundedness makes us self-absorbed.
There is the essence of sin, according to the Bible-living for ourselves, rather than for God and the people around us.
You should stop making excuses for selfishness, you should begin to root it out as it's revealed to you, and you should do so regardless of what your spouse is doing.
God asks that you deny yourself, that you lose yourself to find yourself. If you try to do this without the work of the Spirit, and without belief in all Christ has done for you, then simply giving up your rights and desires will be galling and hardening. But in Christ and with the Spirit, it will be liberating.
It means taking your mind off yourself and realizing that in Christ your needs are going to be met and are, in fact, being met so that you don't look at your spouse as your savior.
ch. 2 The Power for Marriage
Whether we are husband or wife, we are not to live for ourselves but for the other. And that is the hardest yet single most important function of being a husband or a wife in marriage.
Self-centeredness is a havoc-wreaking problem in many marriages, and it is the ever-present enemy of EVERY marriage...
Self-centeredness is easily seen in the signs Paul lists: impatience, irritability, a lack of graciousness and kindness in speech, ...they responded to the self-centeredness of their partner with their own self-centeredness. WHy? Self-centeredness by its very character makes you blind to your own while being hypersensitive, offended, and angered by that of others. The result is always a downward spiral into self-pity, anger, and despair, as the relationship gets eaten away to nothing.
But the gospel, brought home to your heart by the Spirit, can make you HAPPY ENOUGH TO BE HUMBLE, giving you an INTERNAL FULLNESS that frees you to be generous with the other even when you are not getting the satisfaction you want out of the relationship. (emphasis mine)
If I put the happiness of my spouse ahead of my own needs-then what do I get out if it? The answer is=happiness.
Then the Bible says that human beings were made in God's image. That means, among other things, that we were created to worship and live for God's glory, not our own. We were made to serve God and others. That means paradoxically that if we try to put our own happiness ahead of obedience to God, we violate our own nature and become, ultimately, miserable. Jesus restates the principle when he says, "Whoever wants to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matt. 16:15). He is saying, "If you seek happiness more than you seek me, you will have niether; if you seek to serve me more than serve happiness, you will have both."
The reason is that woundedness makes us self-absorbed.
There is the essence of sin, according to the Bible-living for ourselves, rather than for God and the people around us.
You should stop making excuses for selfishness, you should begin to root it out as it's revealed to you, and you should do so regardless of what your spouse is doing.
God asks that you deny yourself, that you lose yourself to find yourself. If you try to do this without the work of the Spirit, and without belief in all Christ has done for you, then simply giving up your rights and desires will be galling and hardening. But in Christ and with the Spirit, it will be liberating.
It means taking your mind off yourself and realizing that in Christ your needs are going to be met and are, in fact, being met so that you don't look at your spouse as your savior.
Friday, February 19, 2010
A Call to Spiritual Reformation-chapter 2
The Framework of Prayer
p.41 The unvarnished truth is that what we most frequently give thanks for betrays what we most highly value.
Paul gives thanks for signs of grace among Christians, among the Christians whom he is addressing.
p.44 If in our prayers we are to develop a mental framework analogous to Paul's, we must look for signs of grace in the lives of Christians, and give God thanks for them.
(this is convicting for me as I can see signs of grace in my fellow Christians and instead of giving God thanks for them, I can get jealous. I want to only celebrate God's work in the lives of others!)
p.41 The unvarnished truth is that what we most frequently give thanks for betrays what we most highly value.
Paul gives thanks for signs of grace among Christians, among the Christians whom he is addressing.
p.44 If in our prayers we are to develop a mental framework analogous to Paul's, we must look for signs of grace in the lives of Christians, and give God thanks for them.
(this is convicting for me as I can see signs of grace in my fellow Christians and instead of giving God thanks for them, I can get jealous. I want to only celebrate God's work in the lives of others!)
A Call to Spiritual Reformation-Chapter 1
Chapter 1-Lessons from the School of Prayer
In talking of being examples as parents he says, "But with great gratitude to God, I testify that my parents were not hypocrites. That is the worst possible heritage to leave with children: high spiritual pretensions and low performance.
p.29 All of us would be wiser if we would resolve never to put people down, except on our prayer list.
p.31 we must remember that the Bible simultaneously pictures God as utterly sovereign, and as a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God.
Carson says: Mingle praise, confession, and intercession; but when you intercede, try to tie as many requests as possible to Scripture.
p.31 we must remember that the Bible simultaneously pictures God as utterly sovereign, and as a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God.
Christian prayer is marked decisively by petition, because this from of prayer discloses the true state of affairs. It reminds the believer that God is the source of all good, and that human beings are utterly dependent and stand in need of everything.
p. 33 one of the most important elements in intercession is to think through, in the light of Scripture, what it is God wants us to ask for.
Carson says, "Pray until you pray".
p.36 What they meant is that Christians should pray long enough and honestly enough, at a single session, to get past the feeling of formalism and unreality that attends not a little praying...If we "pray until we pray," eventually we come to delight in God's presence, to rest in his love, to cherish his will.
I picked up this book this year because one of the areas I am weak in is prayer. I do pray with the kids. I pray each morning before my feet hit the ground for help that day. Before I open the word in the morning I ask for help and that I might be changed by what I read. Otherwise it will go in one ear and out the other. I pray as the Lord brings people to mind. And often at night, when I can't fall asleep, I pray for the kids. But, there is much I don't pray for. I have pretty much never prayed and lost track of time. I still ponder and worry more than I pray. I think of solutions for problems more than I pray about them. I don't pray enough for others and my prayers can be biblically uninformed. I want to change this. I am trying to incorporate into my quiet time a designated length of time to pray. I hope I fall in love with Jesus more as a result. I hope I love the lost more as a result and I hope I'm a better mom, wife, daughter, sister and friend as a result. So far, I'm loving this book.
In talking of being examples as parents he says, "But with great gratitude to God, I testify that my parents were not hypocrites. That is the worst possible heritage to leave with children: high spiritual pretensions and low performance.
p.29 All of us would be wiser if we would resolve never to put people down, except on our prayer list.
p.31 we must remember that the Bible simultaneously pictures God as utterly sovereign, and as a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God.
Carson says: Mingle praise, confession, and intercession; but when you intercede, try to tie as many requests as possible to Scripture.
p.31 we must remember that the Bible simultaneously pictures God as utterly sovereign, and as a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God.
Christian prayer is marked decisively by petition, because this from of prayer discloses the true state of affairs. It reminds the believer that God is the source of all good, and that human beings are utterly dependent and stand in need of everything.
p. 33 one of the most important elements in intercession is to think through, in the light of Scripture, what it is God wants us to ask for.
Carson says, "Pray until you pray".
p.36 What they meant is that Christians should pray long enough and honestly enough, at a single session, to get past the feeling of formalism and unreality that attends not a little praying...If we "pray until we pray," eventually we come to delight in God's presence, to rest in his love, to cherish his will.
I picked up this book this year because one of the areas I am weak in is prayer. I do pray with the kids. I pray each morning before my feet hit the ground for help that day. Before I open the word in the morning I ask for help and that I might be changed by what I read. Otherwise it will go in one ear and out the other. I pray as the Lord brings people to mind. And often at night, when I can't fall asleep, I pray for the kids. But, there is much I don't pray for. I have pretty much never prayed and lost track of time. I still ponder and worry more than I pray. I think of solutions for problems more than I pray about them. I don't pray enough for others and my prayers can be biblically uninformed. I want to change this. I am trying to incorporate into my quiet time a designated length of time to pray. I hope I fall in love with Jesus more as a result. I hope I love the lost more as a result and I hope I'm a better mom, wife, daughter, sister and friend as a result. So far, I'm loving this book.
1st entry
Matt bought me a really cool gift several Christmases ago. It's a book journal. A place to keep favorite quotes, books read, books borrowed and lent, thoughts on what I've read, etc. I've kept it pretty up to date with everything except for my thoughts and long quotes. I just do not have the time these days to sit and print out long sections. From time to time I put things on my blog..but the purpose of momofsix is mainly for record keeping of our lives, not necessarily what I'm reading. But I do want to keep track of this because books are a huge part of my life and someday maybe the kids will be interested to see what I'm learning and reading. I don't expect anyone to read this but if there are any bookies out there, you are more than welcome.
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