Category Archives: Relationships/Emotions

Reblog: What Is the Opposite of Homosexuality? Why Marriage Is Not My Mission

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By Christopher Yuan

 

At 33 years old, Bill became a Christian after pursuing same-sex relationships for eleven years. As a new believer, he was very open to marrying a woman and even starting a family. However, now thirty years later, he remains unmarried and has found godly contentment as a single man. Bill leads a full life of ministry and mentors many men with experiences similar to his own.

After years in the gay community, Mark also put his faith in Christ. His new life as a Christian did not come with any sexual or romantic interest in the opposite sex. He was ready and content to be single for the rest of his life — assuming it was his only truly Christian option.

Mark became best friends with Andrea, also a new follower of Christ. She came out of a broken past with abusive boyfriends and even a couple abortions. Because those relationships were toxic, she’d decided to hold off on dating and focus on her relationship with God. The two felt safe together. Mark knew she didn’t want to date, and Andrea knew he wasn’t attracted to girls. Their love for each other was deep but platonic.

After some time, Mark began noticing some things about her that he never noticed before. New affections blossomed — both physical and emotional. He built up enough courage and asked Andrea out on a date. After several months of dating, he asked her to marry him. And on their wedding night, he confessed to his new bride, “Honey, I can’t explain this. I’m not attracted to any other women. I’m only attracted to you.”

Two men, two pursuits, two paths. Bill wanted to marry but remains single today. Mark was single and content, but now he’s married to Andrea. Often God’s path is not what we expect or once even wanted. For some, it’s singleness; for others, it’s marriage. Yet the goal for all — single or married, same-sex or opposite-sex attracted — is holiness.

Breaking Bad Paradigms

We live in a world of countless shades of grey — not just fifty. Ambiguity is the innocuous but nefarious overture to false teaching. Thus, we must welcome every opportunity to lovingly communicate that biblical morality is unsurprisingly and beautifully black and white. As such, we cannot say that heterosexuality in all its forms is holy or God’s perfect standard.

Heterosexuality is defined as “pertaining to sexual relations between people of opposite sex.” This is exceedingly broad and would include sinful behavior — a man sleeping with several different women, a husband cheating on his wife with another lady, and even a committed monogamous relationship between a cohabitating boyfriend and girlfriend.

Yet some Christians consider these “success” stories for same-sex-attracted individuals because they’re achieving their “heterosexual potential” (Shame and Attachment Loss, 24). But the Bible doesn’t bless every indiscriminate variety of opposite-sex relationship — whether incest (Genesis 19:31–36), or rape (Genesis 34:2), or prostitution (Luke 15:30), or adultery (Matthew 14:3–4), or sex before marriage (John 4:16–18).

What the World Thinks

By simply stating that “heterosexuality is right” without qualification, others may hear a tacit endorsement of the sexual immorality listed above. Certainly, not all heterosexual behavior or relationships are sinful — the union between a husband and a wife is blessed by God — but we must also recognize that heterosexuality is not synonymous with biblical marriage and says nothing about singleness.

The terms heterosexual and homosexual originate from a secular anthropology elevating sexual desires as a legitimate way to categorize humanity. Is this really an ontological category Christians should espouse? Are we, in fact, defined by our sexual desires and behaviors?

The world embraces the terms heterosexuality and homosexuality in part because sexual desires and sexual expression are of utmost importance to unbelievers. The ideology is trumpeted in our classrooms and on our television screens that sex and sexuality are inseparable, necessary, and essential aspects of who we are.

Borrowing this secular, man-made category of heterosexuality to describe how God calls Christians to live misses his perfect standard for holiness. Also, the Bible doesn’t categorize humanity fundamentally according to our sexual desires — or any other sort of desire for that matter. Using a term which confuses and obfuscates our true identity is unwise, and embracing such a broad category which includes sinful behavior must be roundly rejected. It’s irresponsible to cling to terminology that only adds to the confusion.

What the Word Says

Instead of affirming secular categories, let’s look at what’s biblical. What we need is a completely new category to represent God’s sexual ethic: holy sexuality. We’ve pigeonholed ourselves into the wrong framework: heterosexuality, bisexuality, or homosexuality. It’s time to break free from this secular paradigm and embrace God’s vision for sexuality. The term holy sexuality simplifies and disentangles an otherwise complex conversation.

Holy sexuality consists of only two paths: chastity in singleness and faithfulness in marriage — as defined by God to be between a husband and his wife. Chastity is more than simply abstention from extramarital sex; it conveys purity and holiness. Faithfulness is more than merely maintaining chastity in marriage and avoiding illicit sex; it conveys covenantal commitment.

I describe these as two paths, not “choices.” Singleness, for most, is not a choice. If you think about it, no one is born married — we’re all born single! While some may choose to remain single, it’s never initially our own choice.

Holy sexuality is not anything new or monumental. From Genesis to Revelation, only two ways align with God’s standard for sexual expression: if single, be sexually abstinent while fleeing lustful desires; if married, be sexually and emotionally faithful to your spouse of the opposite sex while also fleeing lustful desires. All of us stand together in the same fight for holy sexuality. Instead of determining how we ought to live based on enduring patterns of erotic or romantic desires, God’s call for all humanity is holiness.

Good News for All

Before my conversion, I heard the “Christian” message loud and clear: homosexuality is wrong, and heterosexuality is right. If I wanted to become a Christian, so it seemed, I had to be sexually attracted to women — as if the more erotic desires I had for women, the more of a Christian man I’d be. Too many Christians have wrongly assumed that the main goal for someone like me is to stop or lessen same-sex attractions and develop opposite-sex attractions.

But what’s the harm in that? If people want to marry, wouldn’t it be good to help them be sexually attracted to the opposite sex? But this much is true: the best way to prepare others for marriage is to help them be more like Jesus. The key to a successful marriage isn’t sexual desires, but union with Christ.

God commands us to “be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44–45; 19:2; 20:7; 1 Peter 1:16). The biblical opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality — that’s not the ultimate goal. But the opposite of homosexuality is holiness. As a matter of fact, the opposite of every sin struggle is holiness.

Godly marriage and godly singleness are two sides of the same coin. We will do well to stop emphasizing only one without the other. Both are good. Holy sexuality — chastity in singleness and faithfulness in marriage — is really good news for all.

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Reblog: Second Wife, Second Life

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This is our first and only life, our one aim is to be found faithful in it.

by Lore Ferguson Wilbert

Someone called me a second wife recently. I am not the offendable type and I took no notice of it until my husband later casually mentioned something about his first marriage. “It is true,” I thought, “I am the second.” The second wife, the second marriage, the second chance at death do us part.

There was another wife, another human, another once best friend and I have never known her. She is not a part of our lives or our marriage, but she shaped the man I now call husband, for a third of his life. I have her to thank, in part, for the man he has become, the good and the bad.

I never dreamed of being a second wife, or of marrying a man who had been divorced. At twenty, twenty-one, twenty-six, the child of a crumbling marriage and then a messy divorce, I imagined marrying a man unsullied by the thing I hated more than anything: divorce. 

Yet in this marriage, I have never thought of myself as the second of anything. I am fully his wife, his only wife today, his one wife.

Two Marriages, One Man

Divorce is not usually the best choice and should never be the first choice, but sometimes the choice has been stripped from you and you’re the only one willing and working. When I was simply the child of divorce I could not understand it. I looked to both of my parents and the litany of faults fell equally on both sides. “If only he…” I thought. “If only she…” I reasoned. There was no sense to be made of their selfish choices to stop loving, stop respecting, stop listening.

I suppose there is such a thing as what some would call their no-fault divorce, but I have never seen one entirely without faults. Neither has my husband.

He is an honorable man, faithful, kind, gentle, loving, and selfless—and he would say most of those traits were learned after the Lord disciplined him through his divorce—but he is still a man, a human, a sinner. He is malleable and tender, full of both fear and frustration, pride and personhood. He is the best man I know, but still only a man.

He is a man who never planned on divorce being a part of his narrative, never made any provision for the possibility of a second wife, and who walked faithfully in submission to godly men when it seemed his first wife would never come home again. When I first met him, in the foyer of our local church, he stammered and hardly met my eye. I didn’t know until months later that he, though legally divorced, had set himself inside a timeline posturing himself for reconciliation if she should desire it. This man lived in the haven of repentance, the home of discipline, and the hope of the gospel. 

Whenever my husband meets someone for the first time and tells his story, her sin hardly enters the story. He tells of his failures, a mile long and an acre wide. He makes himself the bad guy, the one with all the faults. There’s a small defense in me that starts with “But” and continues with “she…” but he will deny it, and give the list of ways he could have, should have, would have, and didn’t. On our first date, he did this and I should have been turned off but my heart warmed instead. It warmed to this man who had gained the whole world, lost it, and still counted it as the greatest grace of God toward Him. Discipline in the presence of divorce brought him face to face with his greatest need and best good: the Lord.

Walking Confidently Into A Second Marriage

We married with the affirmation of all our counselors and friends, but there were a few whose hesitations had nothing to do with the man of God he was or the preparedness of our hearts for one another, but with instead the question of divorce and remarriage. I understood their hesitation and agreed, it is a tender topic and one for which I cannot answer others for themselves. I know someday we will stand before the throne and give account for our actions, for our marriage which, God as our witness, was done in our full confidence of His blessing.

The specifics are too complicated for me to be prescriptive for another’s story. Did he leave her? Did she leave him? Was there abuse of any kind? Was there another man? Another woman? Were you a child of God? Was she? Did you submit the outcome—whatever it be—to the men and women around you in the local church? Did you submit your life to the commandments of scripture? Did you buckle under discipline or did you see it as the gracious endeavor of God toward you? Can you stand before God and give account for your actions? We answered those questions for ourselves with godly men and women around us, the Word of God inside us, and in full trust, covenanted to one another. But it might not be so for others. A prescriptive approach for remarriage after divorce can be cloudy and is best walked out within the confines of good counselors and community, in submission to the Word of God.

When those questions are answered, though, and the blessing of marriage is given, there is still no prescription for how to walk on the thorny, landmine filled landscape of a second marriage.

Our marriage is ours, theirs was theirs.

The wounds of a former wife or former husband can be deep and raw, and a mere misstep of the second spouse can be wildly more painful than we knew. We walk by faith and in grace and with a ready and present repentant heart.

We move old habits around and create new rhythms, different preferences. So what if she slept on the left side of the bed? I sleep on the right. She preferred spring and I love autumn. She liked musicals and getting dressed up and I like espionage movies and staying in. She liked granite counters and I like butcher block. We are different people. We have different tones and different dreams and different personalities. Even if my husband adapted to her for a dozen years, he must now learn the good and sanctifying work of curving toward me. Even as I curve to a husband who has been a husband far longer than he has been mine. Marriage is a mere slice of my life but it is more than a third of his. We walk with patience, endurance, and lose the expectations that lead mostly to resentments.

I remember, too, that just as our marriage is a covenant to one another, their marriage was too, as much as they understood it to be. I learned this early on when, out of curiosity and envy, I asked him a specific question about their sex life. He was uncomfortable in answering and I realized later why: their sex life was not ours and so it was not my business. The same with their pitfalls, they are not my fodder. Their struggles are not mine to lord over. Their finances are not our finances. Their decision-making process is not ours. Their vacations cannot be replicated. Their traditions cannot be kept. This painful teasing apart of what was theirs and what is ours may take a lifetime, but we have it together because we have covenanted it. I enact trust in my husband by not asking for what is not mine. Our marriage is ours, theirs was theirs.

I am a second wife, but this is not my second life and it is not my husband’s either. His marriage covenant with her did happen and was broken because we live in a broken world. Our marriage is happening and has many whole and beautiful parts, and many broken parts too. But all of it was or is alive, even the marriage that died once had life. My husband needed that marriage to show him his greatest need was not an intact marriage, a willing wife, or an equal partnership, but to show him his greatest need was God alone. And God knew I needed to be the second wife, not the second best, the plan B, or the backup wife, but the one who would enter in at the right time of his life and mine. At the time when the presence of the other would lead us into more joy, more sanctification, more hope, and more life together. This is our first and only life, our one aim is to be found faithful in it. 

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Reblog: Boys Need Their Moms

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by Tim Challies

Thinking back, I wonder if people thought I was a bit of a mama’s boy. I grew up in a stable home and loved and respected both of my parents. I regularly spent time with each of them. But I was always closer to my mother. If this was true when I was young, it was even more pronounced when I was a teenager. In those years I was a boy, a young man, who needed his mom.

Boys need their dads, we know that. Boys need their dads to model masculinity, to model the love and affection they ought to have for a woman, to teach them the kind of life skills they will need. Girls need their dads too. They need their dads to protect them, to be affectionate with them and in that way to display healthy physical boundaries. They need their dads to hold the boys at bay and, eventually, to give their blessing to that special one. Girls need their moms. They need their moms to model femininity, to teach and train them to be women, to model patience and wisdom. Books, blogs, and sermon illustrations abound for each of these relationships. But what about boys and their moms?

Boys need their moms—I am convinced of it. Even teenaged boys, boys who are nearly men. I see this when I look back at my own life. It wouldn’t be overstating it to say that my mother was my primary counselor and most trusted companion through those turbulent teenage years. It’s not that I didn’t have peer friendships, but that none of those friends influenced me as much as she did. I would often spend that time between school and dinner chatting with her while she prepared our meal. I would come along with her on errands just so we could talk. I confided in her and depended on her wisdom and her interpretation of my thoughts and feelings. We talked about girls and God and pretty well everything else I was thinking and experiencing. I relied on her for physical affection. In so many ways I wanted to be like her, to model much of my life and character after hers. It was really only when Aileen entered my life that this friendship, this dependency, began to diminish. The relationship I enjoyed with the most important woman in my childhood slowly declined as the relationship with the most important woman in my adulthood increased. The first had in some way prepared me for the second.

The relationship between a boy and his mother is a unique and precious one. Sadly, it is one we often look upon with suspicion, as if closeness between a boy and his mother is a warning sign, as if it may indicate a latent femininity or perhaps even homosexuality. We have names for boys who are close or too close to their moms—they are mama’s boys or sissies or pansies. A boy who is close to his mom is a boy we believe to be weak, not strong.

Yet James Dobson, in his book Bringing Up Boys, dedicates a whole chapter to mothers and sons and says this: “The quality of early relationships between boys and their mothers is a powerful predictor of lifelong psychological and physical health.” Writing to mothers, Kevin Leman says, “Although it might be natural to think that the man in your son’s life … would have the most influence on him since they’re both males, the opposite is true. You influence your son directly and have a much greater impact on the man he will become.” In the Bible we see Timothy mentored and discipled by his mother and grandmother (2 Timothy 1:5), we see Solomon warning his son not to depart from his mother’s teaching (Proverbs 1:8), we see Jacob’s closeness to Rebekah (Genesis 27). In history and church history we encounter many great men who were shaped by their mothers as much as by their fathers, many great men who ascribe who they became to the influence of their mothers.

And yet even in Christian circles there is little attention given to the relationship of boys and their mothers, at least once they pass the toddler stage. It is rarely mentioned and rarely celebrated. We still look askance at a boy who spends a lot of time with his mom or a mom who is close to her boy. There is still that suspicion—that irrational and unfair suspicion. There is still that fear that a boy necessarily ought to be closer to his father than his mother.

Today I have a teenaged boy of my own. He and I are close, but I suspect that he and Aileen are closer. I see and celebrate the unique relationship between them. He shares with her, he confides in her, he depends upon her, he receives affection from her. And this is good, this brings me joy. He is a boy who needs his mom, just like I was. I trust that she will help guide him through these formative years with a perspective I simply do not have. I trust that in some way the relationship he enjoys with his mother is in some way preparing him for the relationship he will someday enjoy with his wife. Perhaps, like me, he will be able to echo John Wesley and say, “I learned more about Christianity [and life] from my mother than from all the theologians of England.”

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Reblog: Pick Up Your Cross, Not Your Political Pitchfork: How to be friends with different viewpoints

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Morning by Morning

by Kristin Nave

We never should have been friends.

At least, that’s what we laugh about, as Shivangi, one of my best friends tells me, “Kristin, I never thought I’d want to be friends with someone like you.”

Shivangi’s and my backgrounds are strikingly different. Born in India and raised with Hinduism, Shivangi and her family immigrated to the U.S. at a young age. Her childhood and teen years were plagued by financial strain and bullying-her darker skin a target. I grew up in a wealthy community in Southern California, and sports, cheerleading, friends, boys, and cute clothes were what consumed my mind, while attending a church youth group on the side.

Yet when we met as adults, we were both married, had young children, attended the same church, and lived in the same neighborhood. But more salient than the similarities we shared, and deeper than the clear differences that still remained, was the bond we had through both being radically changed in young adulthood by the grace of God and growing a love for Jesus. The friendship we grew was sweet and life-giving.

So when we found ourselves accidentally stumbling into a political conversation one night (and many thereafter), we knew we were treading into dangerous waters. Though neither of us fit squarely in one political party, we found ourselves on opposite ends of the spectrum in a handful of areas. We only had to look around at the bitter political climate around us to know we might have been facing a hurricane in our relationship.

The present political atmosphere can feel to me like a vengeful war of landmines and verbal grenades that flood our governing leaders’ interactions, cloud our social media and news channels, and pollute our relationships. It’s easy to grow tired of the name-calling, mean and spiteful comments, the bitter arguments, the slander, and the inflammatory rhetoric – all in the name of “passion” and “right views.” I recently read a tragic story of three grown siblings that were once very close, raising their children and spending ample amounts of time together in the same town; they now completely avoid each other because of horrible political arguments. The siblings’ eighty-six-year-old mother, near her deathbed, is devastated.

Political conversations are destroying relationships, and perhaps even worse, dividing churches.

And yet as Shivangi and I left our political conversations, we weren’t emotionally bruised and bloodied, and we weren’t simply surviving in our friendship, but actually thriving. We have since asked ourselves: What was it? What enabled us to navigate through these muddy waters and be closer than ever before? We discovered that the main, underlying ingredient infused deep within our conversations was: Humility.

Humility was not put on in our own strength as a behavioral band-aid, but it was given by God himself and injected deep within our hearts.  James 1:21 says, “In humility receive the word implanted,” and we saw this word in action. Our humility was:

–Being quick to listen, and slow to speak (Jas 1:19).

-Not having to give up our own interests, but being willing to look at and care about the interests of each other, including political interests (Phil 2:4).

-Admitting that some political issues are not clearly expressed in Scripture, and we can only understand God’s heart on some of these issues and what He desires in a limited way (1 Cor 13:12).

-Laying aside any selfish ambition or empty pride, and thinking of each other better than ourselves (Phil 2:3).

-Admitting that we are not God (Isa 45:5)…and God is not a Democrat, a Republican, or any other political party.

-Being able to disagree respectfully on the minor issues, but ultimately, to “agree in the Lord” (Phil 4:2).

And even in the midst of the humility God gave us, we made mistakes. I made arrogant assumptions. I was unintentionally offensive at times. I misunderstood. She unintentionally hurt and offended me. She made wrong categorizations. But she was safe, because she was humble. She was safe for me to make mistakes, to share viewpoints I knew needed correction, because in humility she loved me.  And I did the same for her.

Humility allowed us to thrive in political conversations, not simply survive, because we were more committed to growing closer to Christ and his heart than we were about winning a debate. Indeed, we spoke truth and disagreed at times, but the truth we spoke sought to be in service to one another and to God, not just from a desire to be “right.” God clothed us in compassion, because of the call, “In humility, count others more significant than yourselves” (Phil 2:3). We’ve left our conversations closer, not more divided. And while some of our viewpoints are more aligned than they ever have been, many still remain far apart.

We can maintain our unity in God during these conversations if we lay down our political pitchforks and pick up our cross – the cross of walking in a manner of which we have been called, as Christians, as those who bear the name of Christ and the light of hope in this world:

    With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. – Ephesians 4:2 

Reblog: 9 Parenting Truths from John Piper

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John Piper addressed the question, Does Proverbs Promise My Child Will Not Stray? in a recent episode of Ask Pastor John. As you might have guessed, the question was based on Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Piper ended the episode by sharing these 9 truths for parents to remember and follow:

1) In general, bringing up children God’s way will lead them to eternal life. In general, that is true.

2) This reality would include putting our hope in God and praying earnestly for our wisdom and for their salvation all the way to the grave. Don’t just pray until they get converted at age 6. Pray all the way to the grave for your children’s conversions and for the perseverance of their apparent conversions.

3) Saturate them with the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17).

4) Be radically consistent and authentic in your own faith — not just in behavior, but in affections. Kids need to see how precious Jesus is to mom and dad, not just how he is obeyed or how they get to church or how they read devotions or how they do duty, duty, duty. They need to see the joy and the satisfaction in mom and dad’s heart that Jesus is the greatest friend in the world.

5) Model the preciousness of the gospel. As we parents confess our own sins and depend on grace, our kids will say, “Oh, you don’t have to be perfect. Mom and dad aren’t perfect. They love grace. They love the gospel because Jesus forgives their sins. And I will know then he can forgive my sins.”

6) Be part of a Bible-saturated, loving church. Kids need to be surrounded by other believers and not just mom and dad.

7) Require obedience. Do not be lazy. There are so many young parents today that appear so lazy. They are not willing to get up and do what needs to be done to bring this kid into line. So we should follow through on our punishments and follow through especially on all of our promises of good things that we say we are going to do for them.

8) God saves children out of failed and unbelieving parenting. God is sovereign. We aren’t the ones, finally, who save our kids. God saves kids and there would hardly be any Christians in the world if he didn’t save them out of failed families.

9) Rest in the sovereignty of God over your children. We cannot bear the weight of their eternity. That is God’s business and we must roll all of that onto him.

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Reblog: How the Spirit Draws a Child

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Five Things Parents Can Do

by Desiring God written by Bud Burk

A child’s young life is filled with new experiences. There are those firsts, like the first taste of ice cream or the first sight of an ocean. There are special memories, like a fifth birthday or skating on a frozen lake. There are many new discoveries, like visiting the zoo or learning how to read.

This fleeting season is like a passing breeze in the evening compared to the rest of a child’s life, but it is precious to form their young spirits. These weeks and months are rich with the potential for spiritual formation.

As a pastor for family discipleship and children’s ministries, I see how open children’s hearts often are, with a kind of eagerness to learn that is distinct to childhood. Our part as parents is to nurture their hearts toward Christ through prayer, God’s word, and patient love, while trusting the Spirit to minister to them as only he can. We cannot change our children’s hearts. But we can welcome the Spirit’s work as we join him in exalting the name of Jesus Christ in our homes.

How God Moves Before Conversion

Picture five draft horses harnessed together, steadily pulling a plow. Those five strong horses represent five graces that I have seen the Spirit often use to draw souls to Jesus. When applied to children, these graces can patiently nurture and till the soil of a child’s heart, even before regeneration. I have given these five graces names: drawing grace, leading grace, understanding grace, displaying grace, and paying-attention grace. Each grace has a distinct theme, with some overlap, and each is filled with extraordinary potential.

Drawing Grace

Jesus says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. . . . It is the Spirit who gives life” (John 6:44, 63). The theme of drawing grace is life in Jesus. What are the various ways the Spirit may draw, one step at a time, a young soul closer to Christ?

Every moment of a child’s life, every situation and relationship, can become a place where the Spirit is moving. He does not wait to tend to a heart at the point of regeneration. Consider the following as examples of the countless ways he uses “the normal” in our children’s lives:

  • A mother’s song overheard by a child in the womb
  • A warm embrace by dad as he prays a blessing on a second birthday
  • Overheard confession and forgiveness between a mom and a dad
  • The winsome heralding of a preacher on Sunday morning
  • Simple prayers offered by grandparents over their grandchildren
  • A kind word from a Sunday school teacher

The Spirit is often on the move in the normal routines of a child’s life, even before regeneration. We have the privilege of being alert to this daily Spirit-wrought work, which will lead us to join Paul in learning to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Drawing grace calls us to live and pray by the Spirit in the familiar and mundane.

Leading Grace

Paul says, “Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4).

The theme of leading grace is the kindness of God — kindness that is intended to bring the gift of repentance (2 Timothy 2:25). Let us ask the Father in Jesus’s name for such a gift, and then with his help guide our children in a way that is in step with his leading.

As we lead our children with kindness, especially during moments of merciful correction, we can cultivate the spiritual formation of our children before regeneration. May we see discipline through this lens and foster a home environment of kindness, patience, and love.

Understanding Grace

Again, Paul writes,

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. . . . The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:12, 14)

The theme of understanding grace is teaching our children the Bible and praying for the Spirit to press down God’s word into their hearts and minds — especially the great truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We can get children to speak and repeat truth, which is good, but only the Spirit can transform our children to trust truth and love truth — to trust and love Truth himself. So, we teach children the Bible patiently and prayerfully.

Displaying Grace

Displaying grace revels in beholding the patience of Christ toward sinners. Paul writes, “I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Timothy 1:16).

Paul’s use of the word were emphasizes the pre-regenerating work of the Spirit. Paul received mercy so that future believers would see that mercy and then go on to receive mercy. How we as parents, grandparents, and fruit-bearing servants among children should love this special grace!

As Paul personally recounts God’s mercy upon him in Christ, his heart overflows: “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:17). Displaying grace especially works through parents who are being recaptured by the wonder of this good news by rehearsing it and calling it to mind. As they do, they will sing not only with their voices but with the countenance of their hearts while young ears listen in and young eyes watch. As our children see God’s mercy displayed in us, the Spirit can stir up in them a yearning to receive the same mercy.

Paying-Attention Grace

Luke writes, “One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul” (Acts 16:14).

This is the climactic grace, the grace which all the previous heart-cultivating graces have been striving for. In a moment, the Spirit finally opens the hearts of our children to pay attention to the gospel in a different way than they have previously — and there is life.

Some moments create a special opportunity for God to give this paying-attention grace. We don’t put all of our hope in these specific moments, and with God’s help we will not despair when these do not turn out as we hoped, but it seems fitting to consider them from time to time. Times that may stir up this kind of conversation include:

  • A Good Friday or Resurrection Sunday service
  • A funeral or memorial service
  • Christmas morning
  • An unexpected moment of fear or suffering, such as an accident or the diagnosis of cancer
  • A memorable sermon on a normal Sunday
  • A family worship time that is particularly moving

Consider how to make the most of whatever special markers God by his providence has provided you. They truly are gifts.

Show Them Christ

We can ask God for help to be alert to what the Spirit is doing in our children’s lives, and be on the lookout for those five horses tilling the soil of the hearts of our children and grandchildren.

Maybe you’re thinking, “I haven’t seen any of these graces in my son or daughter,” and your heart is heavy. Perhaps you have a child who is already 10, or 25. What would I say to you?

First, I would remind you that Jesus is moved by your hurting heart, and your Father knows your cries even before you pray them (Matthew 6:8). Consider Psalm 94:19: “When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.”

Second, remember that the best of parents cannot make one soul live. This is not a responsibility designed for us. It is easier for parents of the 10-year-old to fall into this trap, so let us learn from the parents of the 25-year-old. It is likely that these parents have learned their inability to give spiritual life. We will find freedom when we yield to the Spirit the work that he alone can do.

Third, keep praying to the Father in Jesus’s name, and hope through tears. Whether it’s a 10-year-old or a 25-year-old, love them during this season in obvious ways, and patiently keep pointing them to Christ, who is supreme in love.

Point on, dear friends, with a loving tone in your parenting and a hopeful heart in your God.

Reblog: Why Kids Need Rules and Consequences

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But They’ll Be Mad at Me: Why Kids Need Rules and Consequences

by Katelyn Alcamo, LCMFT

It will come as no surprise that in my work as a middle school therapist, I come across kids who test boundaries, break rules, and make poor choices. It is also not uncommon to meet with parents at a loss for what to do and how to regain control.

Raising an adolescent is one of the most challenging jobs a parent will have. Suddenly you go from raising a sweet and affectionate child to managing a moody and rebellious teen. You might wonder what happened to the child you once knew. You also might find that the parentingstrategies you once relied on no longer work.

While it is not all bad, it is easy for parents to get overwhelmed by the social, emotional, and behavioral changes that happen during adolescence.

Many parents don’t reach out for help until things have gotten out of control. When I meet a family for the first time, I am often meeting desperate parents who have tried everything in their bag of tricks to improve things, to little or no avail. By that point, the family has become quite entrenched in negative patterns.

During the first session or so, I explore with the parents the strategies they have used to address any concerns. Often parents report that they yell, lecture, threaten consequences, or try to rationalize with their teen. I follow up by asking which strategies have worked and which have not. No surprise, yelling often leads to escalation; lecturing doesn’t garner the desired response, and how can one rationalize with an irrational teenage brain?

Despite their desperation to change things, many parents tell me that they don’t often follow through with any threatened consequences. And why not? “Because they’ll be mad at me,” I’m inevitably told.

I am often incredulous. Of course teens will be mad when there is a consequence, especially a meaningful one. Trying to prevent a teen from being mad at you is like trying to prevent a baby from crying. Good luck.

So why this avoidance of angering a teenager? I believe the reason is both selfish and selfless. First, what parent wants to deal with a sulking, bitter, angry teenager? No parent I know, including me. And it is understandable for parents to want to be loved by their children. We sacrifice so much and work so hard to love and care for our kids. It is validating to get that love in return.

We are programmed to want to make our children happy. This desire often translates to avoidance of anything that makes our child upset, including enforcing consequences for negative behaviors.

Why would we want to make our child upset when there is enough adversity in the world? Let me tell you.

Rules and consequences are important for every child. Despite how they may act, teens need rules and boundaries so they can both test them and feel protected by them. Creating structure and having predictable responses helps teens learn to self-regulate. It also helps them learn from their mistakes.

Raising a teen is like bowling with bumpers. Sometimes the bumpers take the form of support and validation and sometimes they’re in the form of rules and consequences. Regardless, they serve to gently guide teens down a healthy and successful path. Not having rules and consequences is like removing the bumpers before your teen has developed the skills to function in the world.

Allowing your child to express anger in a safe environment also helps them to develop emotional intelligence. If you are constantly shielding them from frustration, anger, or sadness, they may not learn how to regulate these emotions or how to express them in socially appropriate ways. It is important to remember that parenting isn’t about being liked. Giving in on rules and consequences makes it harder for teens to engage in a world where there are rules and consequences.

Read the rest here.

Reblog: The Thing About Sex

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by Tim Challies

One of the significant difficulties many husbands and wives encounter is the place of sexual desire and pleasure in marriage. I want to speak to this today by answering a representative question, one of many I’ve received. “You speak of sex like it is a pure and holy thing. Yet when my husband wants to have sex with me, I feel like he is just responding to bodily urges and wants to use me as a way to relieve those urges. It’s all about the release. What is holy about this?”

False Messages

I believe that the heart of the issue here is that very few Christians have developed a Bible-based theology of sex. Fewer still live out that theology of sex. Instead, much of what we believe has been imported from outside the Bible and carries messages antithetical to God’s desire for the sexual relationship.

From an evolutionary perspective sex is little more than a means of spreading genes, of ensuring survival from one generation to the next. From a pornographic perspective, the meaning of sex is physical gratification so that a person’s worth extends no farther than her (or his) ability to satisfy another person’s cravings. From a romantic comedy perspective, sex is a component of an exploratory phase of a relationship and one that precedes expressions of love and loyalty. These are ubiquitous, powerful messages that compete with truth.

A Christian perspective on sex could hardly stand in sharper contrast. There we see that sex belongs to marriage and that marriage has been created by God for a very specific purpose. Before it is anything else, marriage is a picture, a metaphor, of the relationship of Christ and his church.  Within that picture, that representation of Christ and his church, we have sex. Sex is a necessary component of marriage so that a couple desiring to live in obedience to the Bible will regularly have sex together (see 1 Corinthians 7:1-5). And here is where we come to your concern.

While it is always difficult to speak in generalities, it is probably fair to say that more often than not, it is the husband’s physical desire that motivates the sexual relationship. And I think the heart of what you are noting is an apparent contrast between a husband’s physical desires and this picture of Christ and the church. It is a contrast between what we believe sex is meant to be and what sex actually is. Aren’t these things at odds with one another?

Physical, Emotional, Spiritual

Here is what I want you to consider: What if the physical, “the release,” as you call it, isn’t the thing? What if it’s not the point of sex? What if the deepest purpose and meaning of sex is not physical but emotional and spiritual? And what if the physical desire is a God-given gift to compel us to take advantage of all the other benefits that sex brings?

This is where a Christian understanding of sex is so much better and greater than the alternatives. It heightens the purpose and importance of sex by celebrating all that sex is and all that it is meant to be, for it is here that the physical, the emotional and the spiritual come together in the most powerful way. Literally: the most powerful way. There is nothing in the human experience that brings these three together in such dramatic fashion and this is exactly why sex is reserved for the marriage bed. God wants marriage to be a unique kind of relationship and nothing marks marriage’s uniqueness more than sex.

Yet so few people think of sex in such terms. Even sex that is holy before God–sex between a husband and wife–can be marked by sin and ignorance. Few husbands have the words to express to their wives that the physical pleasure and relief that may come through sex are bound up in the much better and greater unity they find in making love to their wives. And yet somewhere they know it, they know that the greatest joy in sex is not orgasmic but in the joy of being body-to-body, soul-to-soul, and completely exposed before another person. The intimacy comes by way of vulnerability. There is no other place where a person is so exposed, so bare, so vulnerable. Sex is a declaration: This is who I am. Sex is a question: Do you accept me as I am? Sex is an answer: I accept you as you are. There is no other place where a person can be so loved and accepted.

This is the point of sex! This is its purpose. And the physical desire is a trigger, a reminder, that motivates us to pursue this kind of intimacy that is so integral to marriage. Not only that, but the physical desire allows this all to be a source of great fun and pleasure. It truly is one of God’s gifts to us.

The Call

I believe there is a call here for husbands to think about sex from a biblical perspective and to learn to express this to their wives. A husband should be able to explain to himself first, and then his wife, that the joy of sex goes far beyond the physical. It is not less than physical, but it is certainly so much more. And the husband needs to live as if this is true. Satan’s greatest victory in the area of sex is making it all about chasing that physical relief while ignoring the much deeper unity. A man can make hate to his wife instead of making love. He can have sex with his wife in such a way that he pursues nothing more than relief for his urges and when he does this he cheapens sex rather than elevates it. Husband, learn to understand and express to your wife what it really means to make love to her.

And there is a call here for wives not to resent the physical component of sex, but to see it as a God-given gift that motivates a husband and wife to pursue sex’s greatest gifts. She needs to understand that a man who is following the leading of his body toward that physical and emotional and spiritual unity, is a man who is looking to his wife for that thing that she and she alone can provide–this one expression of their deepest unity.

The fact is that as Christians we are good at teaching what sex is not, but not nearly as skilled at teaching what sex actually is and what it is meant to be and to display. The reality is far better, far more satisfying, than so many of us believe.

Find the original article here.