Parents, how would Jesus respond?
As parents, one of our goals in life is to raise, godly, well-behaved, respectful and disciplined children. This task is a gift from God that we cannot handle by ourselves.
How many times do you find yourself doing exactly what you just told your child not to do? You know who will be the first to point it out too… them! As you sit there fuming with anger because of the disrespect and back talk about the issue, you have to breathe and ask yourself, “how would Jesus react?”
Wow…how would Jesus respond? That’s a stop-you-in-your-tracks moment. I would have to say that many times I have not responded how Jesus would.
Proverbs 22: 6 ESV
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 11: 2 ESV
When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.
When we hear “practice what you preach,” we often think of the moral decisions and guidance we speak of: be kind to others, share your toys, brush and floss your teeth, don’t litter. Those are all things that we should be practicing, but how can we tell our kids to do those things if we ourselves are not doing them?
Philippians 3: 14 NIV
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do; forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Let’s challenge ourselves to focus on Christ. If we as parents are not focused on him and making him number one in our lives, then how in the world do we expect our children to do so?
Practice first, then they will see with their eyes what is important. Then preach it so they can be challenged to do the same. Again no one is perfect and bumps in the road will come, but how we respond and steer our children during those times will help them grow closer to Him.
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What’s in your heart? Where is your treasure?
Scripture often reminds me of how much Jesus knew about what was in the hearts of people. Of course He did, He is God! The heart – the center of our being, not just physically but in a spiritual sense – is what motivates who we are and what we do. The Bible talks about the heart almost 1000 times.
The Lord says that “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” Jeremiah 17:9. This sounds pretty harsh, but God through Jeremiah was issuing a warning for us to be mindful of who we are in the natural….sinners.
The best example of this can be seen in toddlers
King David – an example of repentance and consequences
But wait, didn’t David fail in a big way when he committed adultery and murder to cover it up? Yes, he did. Here’s the thing though. In Psalm 51, King David pleads with God to create a clean heart in him after he commits these sins. Because of his repentance, he was restored but not without consequence.
The good news? God restores us when we are honestly sorry, ask for forgiveness and learn from our sin. This means turning from that behavior in repentance, doing an about-face and choosing to walk in the light. But there are consequences to what we do, and it seems had David been using his time more wisely, practiced discipline and gone to battle with his men, this may not have happened.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also
I have heard it said that how a person spends their time and money tells others a lot about what matters to them. For the people of God, it should be obvious. Jesus tells us, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moths nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”—Matthew 6:19-21
This is pretty clear and there’s no ambiguity in this. Now, we are expected to be wise about taking care of and providing for our families which involves a certain level of planning, but it is planning with God at the center of it considering biblical principles. If our treasures are so earthly focused, making us no heavenly good in how we spend our time and money, there must be a realignment. In this me-focused world, it’s easy to get pulled into the “you deserve it” advertising, trying to keep up with what other family or friends have or are doing, or allowing social media platforms to consume too much of your time.
If this is you – and admittedly over the years sometimes it has been me – we need to take a breath, pray, and remember tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. We can use this reminder to refocus our priorities on storing up treasures in heaven, where moth and rust can’t destroy and thieves can’t break in and steal.
Today, let’s refocus our hearts on Christ, determine to have a heart after God and make His priorities our priorities. He knows your heart better than anyone, including all the good and the bad. It’s never too late to turn things around. With His help, you can.
If you would like to talk with someone about these things or know more about what it means to live life with Jesus, please contact us. We’d love to talk and pray with you.
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Lessons in Practical Leadership
Although I am sure I must have opened the book back then, I don’t remember reading the book until this recent move. Since discovering this book again, I have read it and the associated scripture many times in the last 6 months. It’s an easy read and based entirely on the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians.
In the last 36 years based on my career positions, and serving as a deacon and now elder for Faith Assembly, I can confidently say that the four leadership actions the book describes from Paul’s letter are absolutely right on, not so difficult to understand, but not quite as easy to put into action without loving people.
Without Paul using titles for the four leadership actions he describes, the book calls these:
- Sensitivity to Needs
- Affection for People
- Authenticity of Life
- Enthusiastic in Affirmation
The scripture verses for each follow:
Sensitivity to Needs. But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children (1 Thess. 2:7).
Affection for People. Having thus a fond affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us (I Thess. 2:8).
Authenticity of Life. Nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working day and night not to be a burden to any of you; not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, that you might follow our example (I Thess. 2-9-10).
Enthusiastic in Affirmation. You are witnesses and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers, just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring you as a father would his own children, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory (1 Thess. 2:10-12).
The bottom line of these leadership actions for work, church, or home are:
- Treating and appreciating people as people
- Caring for them appropriately
- Allowing people to get to know the real you
- Encouraging them in the issues of life
- Being sensitive to promptings to keep wise boundaries as may be necessary
When my mother-in-law wrote that I would have insight into “the satisfaction and source of good leadership abilities”, I am certain she was praying that one day I would discover it isn’t about me, it is about Jesus who modeled love and these leadership actions with great success as did many who followed including the apostle Paul!
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The Servant Leadership Example of Jesus
The “servant leadership” teaching focused on one’s heart, head, hands and behaviors. It was helpful to see how Jesus focused on these areas of teaching and application with His disciples in the gospels. The focus scriptures in each meeting were those with which we were all familiar, but this teaching helped to draw out the deeper purpose of what Jesus was doing. These were applications not just for servant leadership in and around the church (body of believers) but in all areas including jobs, neighborhoods and families. Jesus is our perfect example!
The Heart
The Head
The Hands
The Habits
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Called to be Servants
Jesus lived and taught something different to those around Him. He gave His life so we could experience freedom from sin and have eternal life with Him, quite the act of a servant. For us salvation not only includes forgiveness and eternal life, it also means taking on the character of Christ and becoming servants of the Father.
This, however, is not the way it shall be among you. If one of you wants to be great, you must be the servant of the rest; and if one of you wants to be first, you must be the slave of the others – like the Son of Man, who did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life to redeem many people. Matt 20:26-28 (GNT)
God has made us what we are, and in our union with Christ Jesus He has created us for a life of good deeds, which He has already prepared for us to do. Eph 2:10 (GNT)
If we struggle with the idea of serving others and are honest with ourselves, it looks like the only thing that stands between us being who God designed us to be and who we are today is… ourselves.
Anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal. John 12:25 (MSG)
What might be the result of giving ourselves to a life of service as our Savior did? I think it’s this: when we, the body of Christ, share His love and give of ourselves to others, we give God an open door, through us, to affect the world in an amazing way.
As for you, my friends, you were called to be free. But do not let this freedom become an excuse for letting your physical desires control you. Instead, let love make you serve one another. For the whole Law is summed up on one commandment; ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself’. Galatians 5: 13-14 (GNT)
If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain but what He pours through us that really counts. God’s purpose is not simply to make us beautiful, plump grapes, but to make us grapes so that He may squeeze the sweetness out of us. Our spiritual life cannot be measured by success as the world measure it, but only by what God pours through it — and we cannot measure that at all.
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace. 1 Peter 4:10 (ESV)
For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 1 Corinthians 9:19 (ESV)
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New Wine – God Pouring New Life into Us
Mark 2:21 – 22 (NASB) “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear results. No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”
Mark’s implication is that our hearts are like wine skins, and God is always looking to pour new life from Himself into them. If our hearts are worn and saturated with an older fragrance, an older fermentation, we are not able to receive the new life He wants to pour into us.
Lamentations 3:22 – 23 reminds us, “The Lord’s lovingkindness indeed never ceases, for His compassions (mercies) never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” (NASB)In Isaiah He says, Isaiah 43:19 (KJV) Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
What God is looking for from us is a soft openness to His continual outpouring of His mercies (Lam. 3). That softness is actually what creates a new wine skin in us.
David said in Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me”.Paul put it this way, “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. Behold, old things have passed away all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
That softness before Him gives Him the perfect conditions for creating something new in you and me. He pours in His newness of life and we are able to grow in Him as His Spirit permeates through the walls of our heart permanently becoming part of us down to the smallest fiber.
Today is a good day to start over… fresh.
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