You can obey me, Because I LOVE YOU...

Therefore be imitators of God, as dearly loved children.

Ephesians 5:1

I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free. Psalm 119:32

I've found in my own journey with following Christ that when I doubt God's love, I never obey Him. If I stay at the place of confession that "i am more wicked than I could ever believe"....I am never moved to obey God. but when I rise up in the truth that "I am more loved than I could ever imagine"...then obedience begins to take shape in my life. My heart desires humility rather than pride. I long for Jesus.

When I realize that I am accepted, justified, loved with a never-stopping, never-giving up, always and forever love (as the Jesus Story Book Bible reads...), I hear God's commands differently. I am set free to follow them, b/c all of them are created in love...my best...God's glory!

When I realize that I don't have to be the most together, best image, perfect friend, and accepted child, my idols fall from my hand and I run to God, my father. While i was sinning, Jesus died for me (romans 5:6-8). What love! He set me free when I could not free myself. He did not set me free to have eternity alone, but to glorify Him here on earth...to do good works. (ephesians 2:10)

As I began to think about God's love for me and understanding my pride and humility...my belief and unbelief. I began to apply it to parenting.....rather training in the Lord.

I tell them, "because I love you, you can obey me." When they disobey, I point out their unbelief...their pride. "You have forgotten how much mommy loves you..." and I remind them of love...humility...and implore them to believe that I love them. "love is to obey what God has commanded" (1 john 5:3)...."children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right" (ephesians 6:1)

I instruct my children, that to obey is not my commandment, but that it comes from God first. I am always trying to point everything back to God...His character...His way...His truth...If I can't...then perhaps it isn't necessary.

Sometimes behavior gets worse in our household before it gets better...of course, some still remains worse until fruit bearing age...but more important than behavior modification is something dearer to my heart... that they are grasping truths about the reality of life...God...His purposes for them and us...His purposes for circumstances and the things around them.....His way-that there is no God besides Him.....Truth found in the Bible....Truth about themselves,...they are sinners, they sin...they can never find a way around their sin but through Jesus....and that b/c of His great love, they can be set free to love as well. And my prayer is that from generation to generation, the gospel will be more clear...you see, the goal of my instruction..my charge...is love.. from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith....1 Timothy 1:5

and perhaps a new generation will rise up with my children and after my children to call on the name of the Lord...more later...

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!

Me and the girls have been sick with the flu..but i managed to get out the valentine treats for my kiddos this morning....the girls got matching pj's and slept in them all day....I did too...this was one picture we managed to get between naps...maybe others will be later...but happy valentine's day!

Working on those roots...an example...

So here is an example from yesterday:

Wesleygrant hits his sister....I go in to teach the gospel! (Lord help me!...i think this was the 10th time they had been fighting...)

"Wesleygrant, who made you?"
"God"
"why did God make you"...... he doesn't answer, he is angry at me for asking him such a thing...sinner!
"God made you to glorify Him, wg." "He made your hands to love and serve people, not hit people"
"But sally stole my toy!"
"Wg, i know and she was wrong for stealing...but you loved that toy more than you loved sally and so you hit her."
"sally don't steal my toys!!"
"wg, let's try again....you tell sally that we don't steal and come get me if she doesn't listen to you.".... "you run to me and love sally more than your toys".
"but I am so angry!"
"yes, and your heart is prideful." "You can humble your heart and make it right with sally, or mommy will humble your heart for you with a discipline." (i.e. spanking)
"okay...sally, I'm sorry..."
"Wg, that isn't making it right...what do you say?"
"Sally, I was wrong for hitting you...I'm sorry"

things were made right and sally had to do the same apology...but you get the just of the incident...at a later time with wg and i alone, i tell him the real gospel of Jesus...and i do this all day long everywhere we go and sit and lay down. =) now, you can't have a conversation like that with a one year old and probably not a 2 or 3 yr old....we've added to this conversation over the last 2 years...at first it was just you are not loving...tell her you were wrong...and slowly we've added...as WG understands and has reached 4 1/2 yrs and I'm sure it will change over time as they get older.

Let me interpret the gospel here for you:
God has made us to glorify Him, but we can't and don't b/c we are sinners. We can never please God or know or be known by God in our state. We are as pridful as Satan and every sin is rooted in pride. Jesus brought humility and love and grace and boar our sins instead and paid a penalty of death that we owed God for our sin. Now, Jesus is our hope...salvation to those who believe and a stumbling block to those who don't. Jesus shows us what love is and God's word tells us everything we need to know to be a follower of Jesus. We walk humbly or he humbles us. In christ, we can run to God everytime and be loved, helped and corrected through any sin. and in the end, our whole being...is made to glorify God and will glorify God because of Jesus. All our joy is found in Christ alone. There are no other gods. We don't need anythnig but Him. We are to worship Him alone...and not turn our affections on something other than Him. This is a Christ follower.

This must be the story that feeds the roots of our kids lives everyday...don't worry about the fruit....pay much attention on the roots....

Our kids are sinners....Jesus is the only hope....Train them in the wisdom of the gospel...love...humility, not pride....confession of sin andlove Jesus more than anything on earth...and use everything they have and are to glorify him...that is their destiny...they are made to do this...we just help them see that little by little, minute by minute...more later...

"The Roots of the Fruit..."

"Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine, In the very heart of your house, Your children like olive plants all around your table."
Psalm 128:3

"I live in Syria and have inherited a healthy looking olive tree in my garden. I've been here almost a year and haven't seen any sign of fruit. I've heard you have to know what you are doing to get olive trees to fruit. Is that so and if so, what's the secret?" (taken from a website regarding growing olive plants...)

I found myself relating to the woman who wrote this question...not regarding real plants, but my children...=) "i have healthy children in my home, i've been changing diapers for almost a year and haven't seen any sign of fruit. I've heard you have to be a perfect parent...i'm not so sure about this mother role...what is the secret?" =)

As the gospel continues to change stew and I's lives, I have found that it is my central place I go for any advice or help with training my children. "What does the gospel say?" is the question i ask in all situations with my children. And it, along with the explanation from a friend, is where I came to really focus on roots rather than the fruits my children were bearing or lacking.

Did you know that an olive tree can't even bear fruit until about 4 yrs of age? and then different varieties can't bear fruit until 16yrs of age! Well, when i found that children were referred to in the bible like "olive plants"...new language and thoughts behind what we "do" in our home to teach our children unfolded.

How often have you daydreamed about your children obeying you...sacrificially serving you...never complaining or arguing...being adults and serving Jesus with their lives? I know you have...and I have too. I mean, when you've instructed them and spanked them and done everything your 'child-rearing' book told you to do? Don't you begin to think about the fruit? look for it? poke at the darn child to see if there is anything producing?? of course we do!

But as i "rediscovered" the gospel in my life, i began to realize, it is more about the roots.... fruit sure doesn't just come up from nowhere and quickly...we've discovered that in our own garden...it all takes time and with attention on the roots.

We had an aloe plant in our garden and it looked so horrible after we planted it...i was ready to pull it up and throw it away...but with Jonathan, our expert gardener, we discovered that the roots of the plant were sensitive...it needed to have ground to drain water properly...so we did that...still looked awful! then we discovered that sometimes plants look bad on the outside, b/c they are putting more energy into planting their roots rather than producing on the surface...wow! that was genius to me! that was my kids!! man do they look unruly on the outside sometimes, but i was determined that I was going to help plant their roots in the truth of God and no longer expect fruit before bearing years....whatever that may be.

focus on roots....that is what we are doing....

Tomorrow I'll give you an example in our home...for now...i think this is long enough...=)

"Curbing Evil"

So, I realized that to tell my children to "be good" was an impossible thing for them...they could never be good enough...and to tell them to "just behave" would never get to their real needs or explain truth to them....so the gospel was my only hope as a mother in charge of 2 almost 3 little ones....where would I begin?

What does the gospel say? We are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23 so one thing i would need to instruct my kids was that they were sinners. They don't know this. They learn it as the "law or rules" in our home show them that they are rebellious. Just as the law of God is used in one sense to show us that we are sinners. It also acts as a tutor to help them understand their need for Christ.

Galatians 19-24
"What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed (Christ) to whom the promise referred had come......But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe....So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith"

I realized that to train my children "with the gospel" was not really a matter of "how to's" (though the "how's" would come about) but a matter of deep truth that I must understand and view them through, in order to train them up in the Lord and for the Lord.

When I see my children and their rebellion, I have to view it through the "gospel lens". When Sally does not obey what I have commanded her to do, it is because of her sinful heart...always. The bible also refers to it as "foolishness". Proverbs 22:15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him. I am to train my children in the wisdom of God. And to understand your child's foolishness is wisdom.

I can teach my children how to behave correctly...and I do...but I can't expect them to be without sin...to always comply. My instruction and our spankings are to show them that they are sinners and actually can't ever be good enough. My instructions or spankings will never remove the sin in my child's heart. It simply "curbs evil"...helps lessen it or corral it to the side, if you will, until Christ comes forth and washes their sin away....and gives them new life by grace through faith in Him alone.

so rather than getting embarrassed at the grocery store when Wesley Grant throws a toy in the face of an old lady because he doesn't want to talk to her...(heavens!!) or get aggravated at Sally when she has not done what I asked her to do after the 80th spanking and the 85th time I've instructed her....i have to adjust my perspective and see that those are simply eternal opportunities to bring forth instruction and the rod to tutor my children towards Christ. I'm just "curbing evil" until the spirit opens their eyes and ears to see their sin and need for Christ.

So, one thing is that they are sinners...and they sin...the next thing would begin to change my own understanding of myself...that it is more about the "roots" rather than the "fruit"...more later..

Children....."The Gospel..."

"When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?" Galatians 2:14

"Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs" Jonah 2:8

It took a new verse to me and an old one from college to begin pointing me in ways that would not only change my parenting, but my life as well! We have begun to see blossoms of fruit coming (you really don't see fruit in kids until 4 or 5yrs!) and found "how's" of doing things to serve our "why's" of doing things...and that was good...we have walked down the road of success and failure with spankings (now called disciplines in our home- thanks kovacs!), time outs, first time obedience, schedules, language....but even so, i felt this longing...longing to give my kids something that wouldn't teach them "how"...but more the depth of all things...all life...jesus...

you are probably saying, "come on, they are only toddlers!"...i know, but as i struggled with my own sin, i found a picture of myself in my kids, their behaviors and responses to life....i found the need for the gospel beyond their joy of eternal life.

About the spring of 08 stew and i found ourselves overwhelmed with the gospel...good news that had saved our souls....(thus, our third child- Karis- God's grace) We found it not for our eternal state with God, but for our life now. As I would read of my friends who encountered "idol" worship in other countries I stummbled upon my own idols...hidden in the depths of my heart...where every good american keeps them.

With the help of Tim Keller, Stew and I began to find so many places where our lives "weren't in line with the gospel"....and we could either keep clinging to them and forfeit the grace that was ours, or we could fall into the grace of God in Christ and let him save us in the smallest parts of our heart..."

So, a simple truth we preach to ourselves became a preaching...training in our home...I am more wicked than i could ever imagine! How freeing it was to begin really being honest that I couldn't master or control all things and be that right wife, friend and parent...I could never have the approval of others or my children that would satisfy my need for love....i didn't have to live up to the image that past and childhood would demand of me....I was more wicked than i could ever confess....BUT

I was more loved than i could ever imagine....don't stop...listen to me....Christ has made all things right with me before God...Christ has approved and justified me before God, Christ has become the image....my worthless idols of control, approval or image were no longer needed since i became a christ-follower. God loves me more than i could know...yet my prayer was Ephesians 3:14-21! that I might know how much...and most of all, BELIEVE it! As Ephesians 6:19 tells us, I had to hold up my shield of faith as I became more aware of my sin.

When i turn to my idols...i am saying that i love or need something more than Christ....i must have this or this is more important than Christ. But as a Christ-follower...i don't have to battle this...Christ has taken me out of that battle and justified me...saved me for Himself...to glorify Himself...so, now, all my sin that happens points me to Christ...the one that i offend also is the one i wait for to bring me into the light of his Righteousness by which my sin debt is already paid ...Micah 7:7-10....so now, every chance i sin, is every chance to be renewed in Christ!

so how would I teach this to toddlers? an infant? more later....

Children...."Love is..."

As wisdom became our theme in our home with WesleyGrant, it began to provide language for us in our home...it is wise to "obey, be kind, share, be self-controlled, ect..." and it began to give not only WesleyGrant language, but me and stew language.

There has been quite a journey since we've become parents and we've only tasted it....but God has been gracious to walk with us and show us things just in the right time...

It was March of 08...Sally was getting older and began playing with wesleygrant. Their little evil hearts began to expose it's tank of sin as each other interacted with the other. I went to the Lord and asked for help.

"I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you." psalm 32:8

okay, Lord.

Matthew 22:35-39

One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

If that is the greatest thing God has commanded us to do, I need to train my kids in that. So, 1 Corinthians 13 took on a whole new look for me. "Love is patient, kind....not easily angered...ect.." So new language began in our home again....love is 'this' and we love God and others. This is what God is like and this is how we are to be.

Love has been a leader in our home...and though it was another turn and growth in my parenting....still had no idea that there was more to come....