February 29, 2012

• Child Training & The Gospel

  “The Gospel” seems to be the new buzz word in Christian circles today. Ironic that the main focus of our religion NOW has the focal point again.  I’m so thankful, though.  I have gained a renewed interest in learning how these truths relate to each area of my life. 

  I’m currently reading Elyse Fitzpatrick’s book called, Give them Grace: Dazzling your Children with the Love of Jesus. I have enjoyed watching the shift in her teaching these past few years. She is all about Jesus.  In her book she talks about how she trained her children to be ‘good little moralists’ and how few times she actually shared the Gospel in their everyday living. The Gospel was for ‘salvation’ and that is where it stayed. Her focus was on training them to obey the law without helping them to see they can never fully do so and that is why Christ came. By training our children to only obey God’s Law (and then acting as if they fulfilled it by continually calling them or their actions ‘good) we train them to be good little ‘moralists’ with no need for Christ.   I shook my head ‘yes, yes, yes’ because I could see the same tendencies in my own child training years. I believe it was partly due to the fact that I had not discovered the depth of joy and rest found in the Gospel. 

  “None is righteous, no, not one;” Romans 3:10

  “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”Galatians 2:21

  

   

  So, here I am with the blessing of 10 grandchildren.. 7 of them living in the same town …. and I’m asking the Lord.. how do I not make the same mistakes? How do I encourage them to rely on Christ and not their own efforts? How do I point them to Jesus and help keep the focus off of making them ‘good’ in their own efforts? I think this will be a long learning process… one in which “I” will need to rely on the Lord for His wisdom.

  I had a ‘practice’ opportunity just the other day to sow some seeds of the gospel with one of my grandchildren but I came away feeling a bit confused as how to point them to the Gospel. Old habits die hard and this is a new way of thinking for me.  This sweet one was very angry with their brother. I immediately started praying and asking the Lord to show me how to minister the gospel to the situation but I came up flat. After they left I continued to think and pray about the situation. Later it dawned me… my grand one was angry because brother had broken a rule… yet they were breaking a rule by being sinfully angry. The Gospel point: none of us can keep rules.. that is why Christ came. He was the perfect ‘rule keeper’ and His perfect record is now accounted to us by faith.

  I’ll be looking for a chance to share this the next time an opportunity arises.

   

   

   

   

   

  • 3:15 pm
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