Enough is Enough

Article by Jay Younts, Shepherds Press

Ephesians 4:31 & 32 are seldom used as parenting directives. This is unfortunate. There is a powerful dynamic of grace here to help shepherd your children towards Christ. Read these words slowly:

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

Because of the gospel grace shown to you, Paul is directing you to rid your thoughts and your speech of the angry words of relational combat. The deceitfulness of our flesh entices us to justify our anger. So when a child, a teenager, a spouse, or a friend wrongs or hurts you, you feel totally justified in letting them “have it.” We accommodate our outrage by thinking, “I know I shouldn’t be angry, but sometimes you just have to say enough is enough.”

This sort of language and rationalization will receive a hearty Amen from the Satanic cheering section and your wounded flesh. We think we have been strong, when in fact we have taken the coward’s way out and indulged in capitulation to methods of the enemy. We do what seems right at the moment.

Parents, God calls you to be shepherds, not enforcers. You may feel regret at your anger, but until you repent and embrace compassion and grace you will be aiding and abetting the enemy.

Letting someone “have it” is easy. It requires no courage, just pride, to let loose and give others what you believe they deserve. This is why grace is the most effective weapon in fighting for the spiritual lives of your children.

“Enough is enough” may feel like the right thing to say, but on what basis? How much is enough? Well, that is the problem. You are the one who makes the determination! What is enough today might not be enough tomorrow. Enough means when I think I have reached my limit. However, would you want God to say to you enough is enough?

Instead of reaching your limit, pray for grace to reach for God’s limit expressed in the fruit of his Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The Holy Spirit will provide whatever grace is necessary to produce his fruit in your life.

Get rid the of anger that says. “enough is enough.” Paul calls you “to be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Don’t capitulate! Don’t give your enemy something to cheer about. Join the war of love waged with the power of grace and led by your King, Jesus Christ!

Article originally posted on Shepherd's Press:  https://www.shepherdpress.com/enough-is-enough/

Teach your kids to love God.

Author Jay Younts, Shepherds Press

Whether you read Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Matthew or Colossians, the first thing that God requires is that he is to be loved. Too often, when it comes to raising children, loving God is tacked on as an after-thought to obedience. The thought process may run like this:

“I can’t force my children to love God, so I will teach them to obey, because I can require that.”

Requiring obedience from your children appears to be a more doable task than requiring them to love God. After all, reaching the heart of your child is way beyond your capacity. Of course, it is beyond your ability, but it is not beyond God’s!

Without loving God, obedience will only produce self-righteousness. Think of the people of whom God required love as a condition of obedience:

The children of Israel were a hard-hearted, complaining bunch. But Moses tells them that their first responsibility is to love God with all their hearts (Deuteronomy 10:12-13;  6:4-7). Isaiah 29:13 reinforces this by teaching that rote obedience is actually turning from God.

To the cynical, hypocritical hearts of the Pharisees, Jesus says the greatest commandment is the love of God (Matthew 22:37-40).

To the pagan, cosmopolitan people of Colossae and Corinth Paul says to begin with love (Colossians 3:14 & I Corinthians 13).

Your children’s hearts are no more difficult to reach than the hearts of these folks.  The message is the same today. The love of God must come first. This doesn’t mean that this truth will be immediately embraced by your children. But it does mean that you cannot leave out requiring the love of God in your parenting (Deuteronomy 6:4-7).  Otherwise, your parental direction will be just an empty form of work-righteousness or manipulation.

What does this look like in practice? Here are some examples.

Instead of saying: “The Bible says that you must obey mommy right away.”

Use language like this: “Obeying right away is how you can show your love for God. Remember, that God says that loving him is the most important thing.”

Suppose your child responds something like this: “I don’t feel like loving God right now. I want to keep playing.”

First of all be thankful for the honest response. Next, call your child to love God even when he doesn’t feel like it. By serving himself instead of loving God through obedience to you he is making himself the center of his universe. Because you love God and your child you cannot allow that to happen. So, even as you pursue discipline, the love of God most be uppermost in your mind!

I realize that this approach can be time-consuming. However, this is about much more than a change in behavior. You are in a battle for the heart of your child. There is no more important issue for you to be involved with as a parent.

Living out the gospel with your children on a daily basis must be your focus as a parent. In addition to whatever discipline is called for, the important thing is to address the importance of loving God. This means that loving God first must be your primary motivation as a parent. It is not an optional add on.

Obey first or love God first? How you answer this question will shape the course of your parenting!

Parenting a Difficult Child

Author: JULIE LOWE, a CCEF counselor and author.

Some of the most burdensome moments for a parent are when it is clear to those around you that your child is defiant or difficult. What are other people thinking? What does this say about me as a parent? They might assume your child’s behavior is a result of inadequate parenting or something else amiss in your home. People may even be bold enough to share their views, without any sense of the shame they are heaping upon you. Those of you with a difficult child understand. You feel marked, and even judged, by your child’s personal struggles. You hang your head around people who “know” about the problem. You assume they see you as a failure. If you were a good parent, surely your children would be well-behaved, love God, and have good manners. After all, their children are not so insubordinate.

If this is how you feel, you may have bought into the belief that good parents produce good children and bad parents produce bad children. At times, this seems downright biblical. If you raise a child in the way he should go, he won’t depart from it, right? So it follows that if you were godly enough, wise enough and patient enough, your child would not be so rebellious. It seems that the right formula is: love plus discipline plus godly instruction = “good” kids. And because, at times, the formula does seem to work, you determine the error must be in your parenting.

I’ve heard many a parent say, “We’ve exhausted all options, all approaches, all forms of consequences… and nothing worked. I tried being calm; I tried consistent discipline; I tried appealing to their conscience and praying with them and for them. Nothing helped. Nothing changed.” What the parent means is that it did not produce the desired behavior change or a visible heart change. The assumption is that, once again, the formula was applied, and it proved useless.

But this is a faulty, unbiblical approach. Good kids come out of horrific family backgrounds, and rebellious, willful kids come out of good, Christian homes. Children do not come to us as blank slates, but with their own personalities, strengths, weakness, desires, and temptations towards particular sin. They are born with hearts that are wooed by their own desires, and they exercise volition to choose for themselves the type of person they will become. There is an active moral responder on the other end of your parenting—one who chooses whom they will serve. And there is no way a parent can ensure the outcome.

Of course, a parent does play a significant role in a child’s life, but don’t buy into the belief that assumes good parenting will produce well-behaved children. It incorrectly places all the ownership and blame on you. And the burden of it might tempt you to want to give up or resort to poor or ungodly parenting (anger, yelling, harshness, despair, backing down, or backing away completely) because it might appear to work in the short run.

What then are you to do? Let me suggest two things that might help.

First, evaluate your motivation. Though you are not responsible for your child’s bad choices, could it be that, without realizing it, you are adding to the problem? If you are frustrated, despairing, or angry because your child is difficult, you need to ask yourself: What standard do you judge yourself by? Whose agenda is dictating your parenting? Is it a worldly, self-centered agenda, or a Christ-centered one? You can desire good things that become driven by very bad motives. Do you care too much about your own comfort or reputation? Do you desire a well-behaved child with few problems, or struggles? Children that make you look good, that are productive, smart, and kind? Are you embittered because you have invested yourself in this child and see no results? If you can answer yes to any of these questions, consider confessing the desires that grip your heart. Ask God to give you the grace, fortitude, and wisdom to parent your challenging child. Ask him to show you how to respond to your child out of love and concern for his or her wellbeing, not your own.

Second, remind yourself of what God calls you to as a parent—no more, no less. He calls you to love your children, to model a Christ-like character and lifestyle, and to respond wisely and thoughtfully to their struggles. You are to foster a personal relationship with the living God, and, to the best of your ability, shape your child’s strengths and weaknesses in his image. Though God expects you to parent with consistent love and wisdom, he does not hold you responsible for results that are driven by the child’s sin or rebellion.

Stop “trying” to make things turn out a particular way and just do the hard work of godly parenting. Do not judge its effectiveness by your child’s response. Simply wrestle with this:

Is my parenting loving?
Is it consistent?
Is it wise?

That will be challenging enough. You will fail, be convicted, and need forgiveness on those fronts alone. The rest must be left to the work of the Spirit in a child’s life. You will find much freedom from judgement, less care for the opinions of others, more hope and less despair when you commit your parenting to the Lord. Let him do the rest. As Galatians 6:9 says, “Let us not grow weary of doing good.”

Originally posted at:  https://www.ccef.org/resources/blog/parenting-difficult-child

Consequences: punishment or nourishment..

Article by Jay Younts, Shepherd's Press

What kind of correction works best with teenagers? This is a generational quandary! What is the best way to positively address the areas in their lives where they need growth and direction? The time-honored favorite method of correction is consequences! But, the issue is what kind of consequences?

If consequences nourish and build up a young person, this is a good thing and qualifies as biblical discipline. In case you are questioning where the idea of nourishment comes from, look with me at Ephesians 6:4:

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

The English words “bring them up” are a translation of the greek word which means nourish. So, nourishment is an appropriate term to associate with consequences that are honoring to God. Lasting heart change is best accomplished this way.

However, if consequences are deployed as punishment or perceived as punishment then the outcome will not be pleasant for the parent or the teenager. This is because punishment has to do with fear. In contrast true biblical discipline has to do with love. Look at I John 4:18:

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”

Consequences that focus on punishment and payment for wrong doing may change behavior for the short-term, but they will not yield dependence on the gospel and will not nourish relationships with parents or with God.

Biblical discipline, including consequences, must be rooted in loving nourishment and not punishment. Therefore, consequences must have a focus on building up and producing growth. I John is clear, punishment produces fear. This is because punishment is about retribution, payment for wrong doing. This will produce a response of fear and anger in your teenagers.

Biblical discipline on the other hand produces security and peace. Thus, if your correction is not directly connected to the restorative power of the gospel it will resemble punishment more than discipline.

Consequences that focus on extra chores or being restricted from favorite activities with no positive value other than payment for poor or unacceptable behavior will not benefit your teenager or draw them closer to God. See Colossians 2:20-23. These consequences will increase anger and build relational barriers between you and your teenagers.

An additional negative outcome of these types of consequences is that they may make your teenager think he or she has somehow paid for their sin by doing the consequence. This kind of trade-off is dangerous. Christ alone is the only one who can pay or make atonement for your children’s sins. Indeed, teenagers will sometimes endure these negative consequences, simply because they are willing to trade-off good times for some bad-times. This is not healthy!

Remember that Paul’s instruction in Ephesians is to not provoke children to anger but to instead nourish them with truth firmly rooted in the grace of the gospel.

So what is a consequence that would be helpful and not destructive? One approach would be spending time with your teenage son talking through the circumstances that led to the problematic behavior. This would involve loving him enough to really understand that the problem from his perspective and then talking through what a positive response would look like. There is one draw back to this approach: time! This kind of relational involvement takes time. It requires investing deeply in your teenager’s life. This is what a consequence that nourishes looks like. Your children and their relationship with God are worth every second of this investment.

Don’t invest in punishment. Nourish your teenager with the richness of the gospel.

Originally posted on Shepherd's Press blog:  https://www.shepherdpress.com/consequences-punishment-or-nourishment/

Trusting God with Our Children’s Pain

Article by Sarah Walton

I felt a wave of lightheadedness wash over me as I held my three-year-old’s hand. His screams pierced my heart as he fought the nurse’s attempts to insert a PICC line for the upcoming IV treatments. I don’t know if I can do this again, I thought, as the realization hit me that I would have to go through this process three more times this week with my other children.

I never wanted this for my children. In fact, I feared this for my children. All I wanted was to provide for them a normal childhood and to protect them from the hard realities of living in this fallen world as long as I could. I have wrestled with how to process my desire to protect my children from the things that God has chosen to allow. What does God’s love mean for my children when it looks different than perfect health — or even normal health?

The Refiner’s Gracious Fire

What if the very things we fear for our children — and try to meticulously control — turn out to be the avenues that God will use to open their eyes to him? What if God uses the hardest of days (that we tried to avoid) to grow their character and set them on a different, yet eternally rewarding path than we would have chosen for them?

If you are walking a hard road with your child, or are gripped with fear over something that might threaten their comfort and happiness, I’d like to encourage you with some ways that I have seen God use suffering in the lives of my children and our family. He has worked in us in ways that I wouldn’t change even if I could. My children have been touched by the Refiner’s fire and are learning precious lessons in the midst of it.

1. They are learning to endure.

We don’t have to live long to realize that life is hard, and if our children are to follow Christ, it won’t be comfortable and pain-free. But many of us live in a culture where children are catered to, cushioned, and overprotected, often producing entitled, overly anxious, self-absorbed, and fearful kids.

“What if the very things we fear for our children turn out to be avenues that God uses to open their eyes to him?”

Should we do our best to protect our kids from obvious dangers? Yes, of course. But we also need to be careful that we aren’t putting ourselves in the place of God, trying to control everything around them, while thinking that we’re doing them a service by preventing hardship and discomfort from entering their lives. We may be trying to protect them from the very things that will equip them to follow hard after Christ.

Although I would never have chosen for my children to be born into sickness and struggle at such a young age, I have seen how God has used this suffering to teach them to seek him, do hard things, learn to endure, and grow in character along the way (Romans 5:3–4).

2. They are learning to look for God’s faithfulness.

We live in a Christian culture that is soaked in prosperity-gospel teaching and thinking. Kindly, the Lord has allowed circumstances that have challenged that view and opened my children’s young eyes to see his faithfulness in lasting ways. They have had a front-row seat to watch God provide financially for our family in seasons of desperate need. They have experienced the sweet provision of God when gifts were dropped off anonymously on our front step, and when meals have been consistently delivered from our church family.

While they have cried out in their frustration toward the pain, they have learned that Jesus sees their tears and answers their prayers. They have also learned to be grateful for the small things, and to appreciate blessings they would never have appreciated had they not experienced much loss.

Of course, my children still throw tantrums, wish to be normal, and act like typical kids, but as they’ve experienced God’s faithfulness in tangible ways, his presence and provision in the trials have gradually become sweeter.

3. They are learning that sin is more dangerous than pain.

The truth is, pain has a way of tearing down our pretenses and our ability to mask our sin. For me, when my own chronic pain flares, or I feel helpless to help my kids, I’m much quicker to snap at them, gripe about all that I have to do, and blame everyone else for my responses. The pain doesn’t cause my sin; it reveals my sin. The same is true for our kids.

“Through trials, God has helped our family see that suffering is not our main problem — sin is.”TweetShare on Facebook

As our family has endured years of ongoing trials, God has helped us see that suffering is not our main problem — sin is. This is not a pretty process, but it’s been an unexpected blessing as they experience the Refiner’s fire at such a young age. Rather than living their childhood free from pain and ignorant of how deeply sin runs within them, God has used these unexpected trials to strip away the illusive veneer of triviality, revealing their need for a Savior.

What a blessing it is as a Christian parent to see your children begin to grasp that Jesus is the greatest gift, and that the pain they experience now is only temporary when they have the hope of eternity. Though I don’t know for certain the state of each of my children’s hearts, I’m thankful that God is providing many opportunities to sow seeds of the gospel in the fertile soil of their souls.

I Will Not Fear

If you are currently watching your child face hardship of some kind, remember that God loves our children more than we ever could, and he is trustworthy. There is so much to fear in this world, but when we come to fear and trust God more than we fear pain or trust our ability to control life, we will find freedom and peace in our parenting.

As the psalmist said in Psalm 56:3–4, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me [or my children]?” Let’s be parents who not only pray for the protection of our children, but first and foremost pray that their hearts would turn to Christ, no matter the cost.

Sarah Walton and her husband live in Chicago with their four young children. Sarah blogs at setapart.net and is co-author of the book Hope When It Hurts.

Link to original article:  https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/trusting-god-with-our-childrens-pain

How to Reach Your Child's Heart for Christ

  Barbara Reaoch | January 26th 2018

From TheGoodBook blog

When I was asked to lead the Children’s Division at Bible Study Fellowship, I knew it was a great privilege. But how naïve and prideful I was to think my experience qualified me for the job. Teaching the Bible to women was good preparation, for sure, but I was unaware of the pitfalls in teaching the Bible to children.

Sadly, I was not clear about the difference between moralistic behaviorism and gospel-centered application. It seemed easy to say, “Stop sinning and start obeying.” Discipline issues were equally simplistic: “Stop acting like that and start behaving.” Kids need to learn obedience, right? And we need kids to obey for our own sanity. I was inclined to twist the beauty of the gospel of grace into a subtle deception called moralism. I needed to learn three things:

1. Moralism cannot reach a child’s heart.

It’s not hard to use Bible characters to teach a moral lesson. With the Bible character as the subject of the lesson, we can teach kids that they need to be righteous like Noah, faithful like Moses, and obedient like Abraham. Kids figure that if they live like these heroes of the faith they will earn God’s love.

But when we try to make kids into good rule-keepers, they decide one of two things. Either with pride in their hearts, they believe they have earned God’s favor. Or they see they will never be able to keep the rules and conclude there’s no use trying.

Moralism can only produce pride and fear in the heart of a child.

Moralism ends up making children think their relationship with God depends on them. If they are good enough, they win. If they blow it, they lose. Moralistic teaching breaks down when we read that Noah gets drunk, Moses gets angry, and Abraham lies. We may try to hide the fact that each of these guys struggled with sin, but the Bible doesn’t. God never says that good behavior is a prerequisite for His love.

2. Manipulation cannot reach a child’s heart.

If we simply want kids to obey, manipulation usually works. Kids respond to, “I can’t believe you would do that after what we just learned about Jesus.” Or “You should be ashamed of the way you are acting.” Or “Look at those people—you know the ones who ________ (insert the sin of your choice).” As if to say, “You better never be like them.”

Even worse, we use God to manipulate. “God is not pleased with you when you do that.” “It makes Jesus sad when you act like that.” “If you want God to be pleased with you, you will read the Bible, go to church, and obey your parents.”

We can easily manipulate kids because God has wired them to want to please us. Their behavior may change temporarily, but we are damaging their hearts. The only lasting and effective life changes happen from the inside.

Manipulation can only produce guilt, shame, or anger in a child’s heart.

No matter how hard kids work to keep clean on the surface, as they see their sin, they will think God can’t possibly love them. We twist the gospel when we imply that God’s favor depends on their behavior. Life changes are real when they come from the heart.

3. We reach a child’s heart for Christ through the gospel.

The gospel is the most important truth for us to teach a child. Paul emphasizes this in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”

Gospel-centered teaching says our behavior can never be good enough to make us right with God. Before we deserve it, God reaches out to us in grace and mercy. He forgives those who turn from sin and trust in Jesus. We receive His mercy instead of punishment for sin because God’s justice was met through the death of His dearly loved Son on the cross. Jesus lived FOR us. Jesus died FOR us. Jesus was raised FOR us. Jesus’ resurrection power gives us a new heart, a new mind, and new desires to live for God.

Gospel-centered teaching says God uses people who are weak and broken. Bible characters are imperfect. God did not choose Noah, Moses, and Abraham because of their character but because of His grace. God knows who we are. His love for us doesn’t change when we fail. His plan and His promises prevail in spite of our imperfections.

God reaches a child’s heart with the truth of the gospel.

Moralism and manipulation harden a child’s heart. But the gospel is God’s message of love and grace that transforms the heart of a child. Gospel-centered teaching wasn’t just for the Bible Study Fellowship children’s program. Something happened in my own heart as I became more amazed with the truth of God’s love and grace.

Joy and freedom are found in the discovery that God uses our weakness for His glory. He uses our brokenness to reveal His grace. This is a message of hope, not only for our children but for us all. As messed up as your life may be, there is hope. The gospel tells us this is true. To teach the truth of the gospel is to reach a child’s heart for Christ.

This article was originally posted at TrueWoman.com.