Recently I have been privileged to participate in an unusual online bible study. The format is question and answer about specific biblical principles and passages. Dr. Jim Brettell is leading the studies and dialoguing with Pastor Steve Ellis and myself. We have been discussing Romans chapter 6 & 12 and drawing out principles for Christian living. I must say that these discussion have been excellent and would be helpful to any Christian trying to live the Christian life. Following are links to the audio recordings of the studies. I suggest that if you are interested in growing in your Christian walk that you catch up through the recordings and then tune in live on Sunday evenings at 7PM (central time).
Recording Links: http://brettell.org/webex.htm
Listen live: E-mail Dr. Jim Brettell and ask to be put on the list. His e-mail is brettell@sbcglobal.net
Remember to support your Pastors & leaders with your prayers, loyalty & financial giving.
This discussion will be the first in a series of articles describing the Old Man and some of the issues connected to the biblical concept. This article will provide basic definitions of necessary terms related to the Old Man (OM). We will talk about the Old Sin Nature (OSN), the Old Man (OM), OM beliefs and logic and OM behavior and actions. These definitions will help us build a foundation on which we can look at the applications called for in the bible.
Old Sin Nature (OSN)
The OSN is the selfish nature or natural tendency of fallen man. In order to understand our fallen nature, we have to revisit the Garden of Eden, look at our original nature, see how Adam corrupted his nature through sin and then passed the corruption down to all of the human race.
Original Nature
God created Adam and Eve perfect, with perfect natures. I believe their original nature caused them to put God first, as the center of their world, loving Him most and serving Him as a natural response. They naturally were in flow with God and His plan with no struggle or anything to struggle against. They lived this way for a time, we are not told how long until there was a change in Eve.
Original Sin
Eve apparently became bored with the garden, with her position in the chain of command and even with her husband. She grew dissatisfied with her place in God’s order and began to spend more and more time with her new friend, the serpent. We know the story of how satan seduced her to believe his lies and how Adam chose his love for her over his love for God. They sinned by eating the fruit and when they sinned they lost everything God had given them. They lost their righteous standing with God and He was forced to condemn them forever. They lost the garden and God was forced to curse them and the earth with thorns and thistles. Finally, they lost their perfect natures and sin corrupted their natures so that their natural tendency was to be selfish, to put self first and to sin as a way of life.
Selfish Self as the Center
After they sinned, the presence of sin itself in their bodies corrupted them. They became selfish, self centered and naturally put themselves first ahead of anyone else. It was every man for himself and everyone else was there to serve their needs, even God. Their nature now was to put their self in God’s place, on the throne of their own hearts. Their sin caused them to naturally follow the same path that Lucifer had taken, to want to be like God, to want to take God’s place. The sin nature, passed down to their children and other generations caused mankind to be totally corrupted as discussed in Gen 6.
Genesis 6:5 The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
Every motive of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil all the time. The sin nature caused the hearts of the whole human race to process nothing but sin and evil. This desperate condition was the result of the OSN being inherited by the whole human race.
OSN Inherited from Adam
Adam and Eve’s sin created the OSN that was passed down to their children through the body. The OSN is inherited genetically from father to the child in the mother’s womb.
Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.
The one man is Adam who allowed sin to enter the world of man through his own original sin. The man is the carrier of the OSN which is passed to the fetus in the womb through his sperm. Every baby, male and female inherits the OSN when the male sperm fertilizes the woman’s egg and is born with the OSN fully operational. It was this fact of the male carrying the OSN that necessitated the virgin birth. Through bypassing the male’s role in conception, Jesus was conceived in Mary’s womb and then born without inheriting the OSN from Adam. Since He had no earthly father, Jesus didn’t have an OSN, making Him perfect in His birth. His sinless life made Him the perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world.
OSN Influence
The OSN is corruption that resulted from sin that was allowed to enter into the physical body of the human race and has had an influence on all of us. The OSN causes our thoughts to be corrupted, therefore our emotions to be corrupted and we all build a system of believing, thinking, feeling and acting that is totally disoriented from God’s person and ways. In the next article we will discuss the person the bible calls the Old Man, who is the personification of our old way of life.
This article is the 2nd in the series titled The Old Man.
In a recent online discussion about Christian spirituality, the discussion turned to the Old Man, a biblical term used by the Apostle Paul to describe our pre-salvation way of life. One of the listeners, Ed, was new to the term and so in a follow up e-mail he asked the following question:
Question
I hope that you brethren can help me with the term “old man”. I don’t think I have ever heard it used with reference to an unbeliever having an old man. From implication of the term itself it seems to imply that there is such a thing as a “new man”. We know that a believer receives his “new man” at rebirth, but we also know that there are myriads of unbelievers that will perish because they never will have a “new man” because they have never exercised saving faith in Jesus Christ. I ask that you help clarify the term “old man” as referenced to an unbeliever.
The following is an answer to Ed’s question written by Dr. Jim Brettell. Dr. Jim’s excellent response is a great place to start our discussion of the Old Man.
Answer
Definition #1: The term OM is a personification. OM is the term used to personify the human soul when it is under the influence of the old-sin-nature.
Definition #2: The term NM is a personification. NM is the term used to personify the human soul when it is under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
Since every human being is under the influence of the old-sin-nature from the moment of physical birth, every human being has an OM from the moment of physical birth.
Since every human being born into this life has a genetically prepared old-sin-nature in every cell of his/her body, and the very fact that God the Father imputes Adam’s original sin to his/her genetically prepared old-sin-nature renders every human being born into this life totally depraved, lost without Christ, in need of spiritual salvation, all characterizing the UNBELIEVER – which he/ she is.
Since the NM concept is not decreed for creation or function in the plan of God UNTIL the Church Age, everything man did in previous dispensations unless temporarily endued with power was default function from his/her old-sin-nature. This included obedience to Inherent Law and Mosaic Law during their respective dispensation. This means that obedience to Inherent Law and Mosaic Law was carried out by the OM (remember definition #1).
The only reason for the NM concept is that during the Church Age God the Father has placed the standard for obedience out of reach of the OM who functions under the influence of the old-sin-nature, and He has given to Christians the proper mechanic (tool) for reaching that standard, namely, Christ-likeness by NM function.
The fact that the OM is not even mentioned in Scripture until referencing the born-again Christian in the Church Age epistles should not lead to the conclusion that an unbeliever does not possess an OM, and it should not lead to the conclusion that the OM was non-existent in the OT or the Gospels. The OM has been present in the life of every human being, except Jesus Christ, since the first procreation outside the Garden of Eden.
Since salvation does not purge the OM from the newly born-again Christian’s life, the OM comes into the Christian way of life with him/her.
In the progression of human history from the time of the Garden of Eden right up to today, the resolution of the angelic conflict in the two prior dispensations of time did not require obedience from any other source than OM function under the influence of the old-sin-nature; therefore, although every human being, believer and unbeliever has an OM under the influence of the old-sin-nature, there is no need to mention the OM in either the OT or the Gospels. It’s not until the resolution of the angelic conflict requires a higher standard that the NM becomes an issue. Hence, we learn of both the NM and the OM.
Again, it’s imperative to our understanding that just because the OM is not mentioned in the OT or Gospels, this does not imply that human beings do not have an OM. In fact, the opposite is true. By physical birth, every human being has an OM, including the unbeliever because he is a human being, BUT no human being has a NM until he/she becomes born-again.
Conclusion: Yes, even the unbeliever has an OM, but it was not worthy of mention or distinction UNTIL the Church Age standard for believer resolution of the angelic conflict required function beyond OM capacity.
As you can see, Dr. Jim gives Ed an excellent and complete answer to his question. In the following articles we will discuss the Old Man beginning with the Old Sin Nature and its resulant way of life the bible calls the Old Man.
Stay tuned for the next article to be posted soon.
I wrote and posted this article in March of this year and decided that it was worth reposting i these difficult times. Many of my friends and even family members have lost jobs and are unemployed. Their job situation will not hinder God from providing their every need.
Questions: What does the bible say about God’s provisions when the economy is down? My company is laying off and I might lose my job. I am concerned that we might lose our savings and even our home.
God is in Control
God brought the universe into existence out of nothing (ex nihilo) with a spoken word. One minute nothing existed, the next minute, the whole material universe came into being because God told it to do so. God’s creation also came into existence with natural laws like gravity and the laws of physics to govern it. When He created the earth, He made the earth, the seas, the air and the plants and animals after their kind with natural laws to govern reproduction. He made man after His own image and put into effect laws that govern the effects of sin and evil. God is the Creator, the maker of everything and the maker of the natural laws that govern everything. He is also the maker of nations, their economies and the laws that govern economies. He understands our economy, governs our economy and controls our economy. He is actually using our economy to discipline the church and offer us an opportunity to wake up from the spiritual stupor we have slid into over the last years.
Let’s discuss why God is allowing our economy to suffer, His control over the economy, the opportunity for us to learn from these times and God’s promises to sustain His children in any and every economic situation.
God Trains His Children
First, I believe God uses adversity to discipline His children to train them in righteous living. Heb 12:5-11 explains that sometimes God whips His children to help them change their ideas. In America, over the last 60 years, we have believed lies about materialism and happiness through financial prosperity. The American dream of happiness through financial prosperity is a false idea that the devil has promoted and we have accepted. One of God’s goals is to help the church corporately and believers individually rethink this view about prosperity. He wants us to understand that He has given us far more than we need and that what we call needs are really wants. He wants us to realize that we can live happily in Him with far less, in a lesser home, with an older car, with the same clothing, with less retirement, with less insurance, etc. God is training us to understand that He is our happiness and security, not houses, cars and savings accounts.
Government is of God
Second, God is in control of human history in all of its facets, including the world economy and national governments. When an election appears to reflect the will of the people, it actually reflects the will of God. Listen to the book of Romans
Romans 13:1 Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.
God is the ultimate authority over every authority system in the world. In the first century, Rome was the controlling power over the nation Israel. Jesus and His apostles didn’t fight Rome, they complied with the laws of Rome and Paul even used the laws of Rome to defend himself in court. The point I am making is that God controls the governing economic policies in a nation and therefore the rise and fall of the financial status of nations. While the 6:00 news reports nothing but bad news the truth is that God is in control. He allows the economy to rise and fall to teach us His word and His ways and He can change it anytime He decides. We should not allow bad reports and the stock market to determine the way we think about what God is doing with the economy.
Hard Times are Good Times
Third, hard times can be good times and in fact, they can be the best times for families. God uses difficult circumstances to teach us to trust Him.
James 1:2-4 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
To lose our dependence on financial gain and redirect it toward God is a blessing of great magnitude. When children are raised during times of scarcity, they have a greater appreciation for what they do have and what is required to earn it. When we lose hope in financial gain, we can then place our hope in God’s promises and enjoy the simple things of life together. We can learn that the blessings of inner peace, capacity to love and happiness apart from circumstances are far greater and more enduring than the pleasures that money can buy. Instead of worrying about the material losses you might suffer in this difficult time, focus on what God is graciously teaching you through adversity.
God Provides for His Children
Finally, God’s promise to supply all of our needs are unconditional and not dependent on a good economy. When God brought a 3-year drought on the nation of Israel, the prophet Elijah caught in the same drought, was provided sustenance by God’s grace.
1 Kings 17:2 And the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 3 “Go away from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. 4 “And it shall be that you shall drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there.”
God provided water from a stream and birds flew in bread and meat morning and evenings for Elijah. When the brook dried up, God sent Him to a Gentile widow and made miraculous provision for him and her family. In an agricultural economy like Israel, years of drought meant starvation for people and animals. The economy was not down, it was almost non existent during this time and God was not hindered from providing for His children. Regardless of how bad it gets for us in this economy, God will provide our daily bread. The question for us is if He allows us to be reduced to daily bread and we lose many of our material blessings, will we be content with His provision.
Philippians 4:19 And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
God will supply our needs and even our wants depending on what He decides to teach us through this economy. Trust Him for what He has promised and tell yourself that material prosperity will not bring happiness. Tell yourself that His love that sent His Son to die for you will bring happiness in this life and in the next. What He has given us for eternity is so wonderful and so secure, that nothing we might own in this life can compare. If God is trying to teach us that lesson and give us the reality of it so that we feel that way, rejoice as James says that He has decided to free your from being a slave to what you own. When we can be content in any circumstance, we are truly blessed.
As in every other discussion we have on this site, let me encourage you to devote yourself to spiritual growth through learning and using God’s word. The bible studies and resources on this site are intended to help you build a foundation in the faith and enable you to grow to be a mature Christian. There is much to learn and every promise and principle we learn about God blesses us with joy and peace.
My good friend Richard Statham, an excellent Pastor-Teacher at Palmerdale Baptist has published several articles in a blog. He and I are working together to publish some biblical literature to edify the church at large. Check out his work.
http://www.richardstatham.blogspot.com
Al
Joe was born with a debilitating disease, common to many, that he inherited from his parents. This disease was terminal in time and for many years, without a cure. One day, the cure was found and Joe was totally healed. His excitement and elation was off the scale but to his surprise, short lived. After he was cured, Joe thought that he would no longer experience any of the symptoms of the disease but soon discovered he was wrong. He continued to exhibit many of the feelings and behaviors associated with his original condition. Joe asked his friends about the situation, read articles on the internet and wracked his brain for an answer. Finally, he went back to the doctor who had given him the cure to find the answer to his riddle. The doctor said, Joe, you were born with this condition, you lived many years with it and with the problems that it caused. Your mind and body adapted to it from the beginning and formed methods of compensating for it. Your mind and body are so used to living with the disease that they are still functioning as if it were still there. What do I do about it Joe asked. How do I retrain myself to live like a man who is cured? You learn everything you can about it Joe, the doctor said. You learn about what it is like to live a healthy life, you learn all about the problems and patterns your disease caused and you learn the methods of renewing you mind and body. As you learn about all of these things, you put them into practice, slowly, daily, changing the way you think and act. As you catch your mind and body acting like a sick man, you confront the problem, stop doing it and practice acting like a cured man. It will take time but if you will commit to the process and stick with it, you will be able to totally renew your mind and body to live like a healthy man, cured of your disease. Joe’s mind was now more at ease. He understood why he continued to have the same problems and now knew what to do about it. He left the doctor’s office with new excitement and a desire to help others experiencing the same problem by teaching them the solution to the hangover behaviors.
The Analogy
Knowing that I am a Christian Pastor-Teacher and counselor, you no doubt have surmised that Joe’s story is an analogy that I created. It is an earthly story with a spiritual meaning. I wonder how many of the parallels you have put together. Let me give the interpretation of the story.
Interpreting the Story
The Meaning of Joe’s Story: Joe is any and every born member of the human race. The disease is sin that we inherited genetically from Adam and Eve passed down through our own parents. The cure is the death burial and resurrection of Jesus that paid for all of our sins. We are given the cure when we believe that Jesus died to pay for our sins and was resurrected to defeat death for us. Once we take the cure, we are saved from the judicial penalty of sin and we are secure in Christ forever. The surprising ongoing symptoms are the sins and the destructive patterns we continue to think, feel and practice after we are saved. These patterns are surprising because we are saved, indwelt by the Spirit and have the power to reject sin as a way of life, yet we don’t. The search for answers corresponds to the difficulty we all have trying to understand our own souls and why we continue to struggle with negative feelings and actions. The doctor’s answers are analogous to the teachings of the bible that explain this mystery.
The rest of this article will expand the explanation so that we can understand our struggle and have solutions to resolve it. We will discuss that all mankind is born separated from God with a sin nature, that we all develop habitual thoughts and behaviors that are brought into our new life and finally we will examine the concept of transformation where we take off our old ways and put on the new ways in Christ.
A Choice – A Disease
Joe’s disease is called sin. Originally sin was a decision to disobey God. When sin was chosen, it infested the human body and soul and became like a disease. Sin resulted in all mankind being born spiritually dead, separated from God and we also inherited a sin nature. Joe, like the rest of us was born separated from God because of Adam’s sin. When Adam sinned, he caused the whole human race to become spiritually dead. Spiritual death means that we are unworthy to be accepted by God and that we are unable to function in the spiritual realm. Let’s examine the impact of spiritual death.
Human Needs Unmet by God – Frustrated
God created the human soul with inner needs. Adam experienced these needs even in perfection. Man was designed to need God and to a lesser degree, to need one another. All of us are born with divinely designed needs that only God can meet. In the garden, God was there to meet their needs but after the fall we are born permanently separated from Him. Our spiritual death and separation from God causes us to be unable to have a relationship with Him to meet our needs. In addition, spiritual death renders us unable to understand anything spiritual that He might say to us. The result is that our deepest needs go unmet as we develop our own ideas about life. We grow up without God. As we go through the stages of human development and build our own views about life, we experience continuous frustration from our unfulfilled longings and don’t know why. Only God can fill the emptiness within the heart of man but the heart of man is cut off from Him. Driven by these needs, we are left to our own feeble devices to find a source to fulfill them. Human ability is unable to create a solution so that the human soul is left hopeless and helpless to change our situation. Therefore, spiritual death separates us from God, frustrates us as we try to meet our needs and leaves us confused about why we cannot find happiness through relating with other members of the human race.
The Sin Nature
The second result of Adam’s sin is the corruption of our human nature. God created us with a nature to love and worship Him. The corruption of sin causes us to redirect all of our loyalties away from God onto our self. This corrupted nature is called a sin nature and it causes us to view our self as the most important person in life. In contrast, the bible explains that God is the most important person and His plan is the primary goal of the universe. Our corrupted nature driven by needs, causes us to build an idea system that is contrary to God’s truth. The inner hunger we feel so dominates us that we view our self and our needs as the primary issue in life. We are loyal first to self and then to others only after we have what we need. Our sin nature corrupts the development of our ideas so that our belief system is built around self first. We believe that meeting our own needs is the most important task of our life. All of our thoughts, ideas, feelings and actions are built around meeting our needs. Our hunger for love, belonging and significance becomes our dominant goal and all of our thoughts are arranged with this priority in mind. The sin nature causes even the best of us to be selfish and build our ideas around the belief that selfishness is justified and right. From birth and beyond, we begin and live totally disoriented to God.
The Cure of God’s Grace
The disease is sin. Its results alienate us from God both judicially and experientially, both in our thoughts and our behaviors. We are born condemned to die physically and then to die a second time by being placed into the Lake of Fire forever. The disease is terminal and without a cure, all of us will die and then die again. But God, whose great love motivates Him to show mercy devised a plan to cure us from sin and save us forever. God’s plan to save man is called grace. Grace is God’s genius plan to personally resolve the judicial penalty for sin on our behalf and then offer this resolution as a free gift to the undeserving. He sent His Son Jesus to defeat spiritual death by paying for our judicial debt and then to defeat physical death by returning from the dead. Having accomplished this great mission of mercy, God offers what Christ earned as a free gift to be accepted by believing that He did it for us. When we hear the gospel (the cure), understand it and choose to believe it, God credits the work of Christ to our individual accounts. This is the cure, the only cure that God has provided. Once we accept Christ and His work as our means of salvation, God settles the issue of our sins in the courtroom of heaven and pronounces us pardoned forever. We are cured from the terminal disease of sin, never to be condemned again. Yet, our problems are not over. At first, we think we have it made and in the judicial realm we do. But in the experiential realm of beliefs and behaviors we still have a long way to go.
The Old Man
Habitual Beliefs and Behaviors: God made both the human mind and body to operate on habits. We form ideas and behaviors that become habits that we use instinctively and unconsciously when the occasion arises. The beliefs we formed when we were separated from God and on our own have become deeply seated habits of thought that fire off almost without conscious choice. From these habitual thought patterns come emotional, verbal and overt behaviors that we use to interact with our world. Before we were saved, we all formed a habitual way of life that we unknowingly carry into the Christian life. Our beliefs chosen over the course of our lives with their corresponding behaviors are deeply ingrained and operate habitually under the level of awareness. These old beliefs are called the Old Man in the bible. After salvation, we still have the same needs to be met and we are just as driven to meet them. A great difference is that after salvation we now have God to meet our deepest needs. The problem is that initially we don’t really know what is going on inside of us and don’t realize that we are still using habitual ideas that promote selfishness and sinful behaviors. Even though the Spirit indwells us, we are still unconsciously thinking the old ways and therefore acting in old ways. Some of these old ways can even look like the spiritual life but are motivated to serve self rather than God. We are saved, secure in Christ, the Spirit indwells us giving us power but we still find ourselves sinning in the same old ways. We have to find an explanation to this disturbing hypocrisy.
The New Man in Christ
After we are saved the old habitual ways of living that we developed continue to function within us. These old ideas producing sinful behaviors become apparent as we learn about Christ and see His perfection. As we know Him better, He shows us our inconsistent behaviors. As we grow in Him we also begin to feel new thoughts, feelings and practice new behaviors that are like His. This new belief and behavior system is called the new man (NM) and is created by the Spirit in the heart of the believer who learns and believes the truth. Individual pieces of truth are built together into a viewpoint of life that produces Christ like behavior when we operate from His view. We grow and build divine viewpoint into our souls so that these ideas can become our habitual, unconscious thoughts, feelings and actions. It is the new man that thinks, feels and acts like God. It is the new man that we now want to be and who we want others to see in us. It is the new man we thought we would just automatically become when we were saved. Some churches even teach that from the beginning you have the ability to say no the old and yes to the new, totally and completely. But, nothing could be farther from the truth.
The Old Way Endures
The old way has been our way for a long time and it operates under the surface, without us even knowing. It is the fruit of the old way with its sinful, destructive behaviors that blows the whistle and reveals that something is very wrong inside of us. We try to resist the temptations of the old way and fail miserably. We try harder to no avail. We study more, pray more, seek counsel from the wise and still the old way resists our attempts to put it aside. We keep our mask in place to hide our inner confusion and our habitual sins. We learn Christian words and emulate those we believe are enjoying success in the Christian life. Inside we are still driven, frustrated, fearful and we still struggle with sins that threaten to destroy us.
The Old Man Exposed
The old man is revealed through his sinful behavior. The old man is exposed through good bible teaching. None of us are able to see the truth from God’s eyes on our own. God made us so that we would need His Spirit within us and need each other to teach and encourage us. God gave each of us a spiritual gift that works in unison with the other gifts to edify the church, both individually and collectively. One of these gifts is Pastor-Teacher, which is the ability to look into the scriptures, see the truth and communicate it in an understandable way. As we listen in bible class and learn how/why the old man was built, how/why he operates and how we can put his ideas aside, we grow in our capacity to say no to his desires. To see the old man requires much knowledge and a measure of maturity. Baby Christians are not ready to take on the challenge of our deepest inner motives. When a Christian reaches the adult stages though, he/she must look beyond the surface and begin to seek change in the depths of the heart. It is at this stage of growth that we take on the challenges of transforming the inner man.
The Old Man Rejected
The old man (OM) is the belief and behavior system built into the heart by humans during the time period from their birth until they are saved and in a relationship with God. The OM is a belief and behavior system that views life without God, without God’s truth to see His perspective, without God’s power to contemplate victory and without God’s love to deal with the shame of being weak and selfish. The OM is the system we all built seeking to meet our needs in the devil’s world, using our own abilities, using our own understandings while looking to people for what we need. Before we were saved it was our only option and the only way we knew to protect our self and find happiness. After salvation though, now we have God. God’s Spirit is inside of us, His truth is in the bible that we can learn and use inside of us. After salvation we are able to learn God’s perspective, adopt it as our own and use it as the basis of our emotional attitudes and actions. Now we have the option to reject the ideas of the OM and replace them with the ideas used by Jesus in His humanity, the NM. Now we can say no to the OM because we can see that his ideas are disoriented to God’s plan and disobedient to God’s will. What was the only truth we knew has now been exposed as a lie and we have been given the power to lay it aside and replace it with what God has said in His word.
Transformation – Renewing the Mind
In the 1600’s Spinoza said “nature abhors a vacuum” meaning that nature has a tendency to fill empty spaces. This principle seems to hold true for the soul as well. When we reject the ideas of the OM it leaves a hole in the heart that we are compelled to fill. The opposite is also true as demonstrated by many sheltered college freshmen who went off to school, abandoned their parent’s morality leaving a void they filled with another type of morality. When we reject the OM, we must replace its ideas with NM ideas and allow them to become our way of life. In the bible this process is called in Greek metamorphoo, translated transformation. Transformation is the process God uses to cause believers to grow spiritually. In transformation, the believer lays aside specific ideas previously adopted by the OM and replaces these ideas with specific principles from the word of God. The transformed Christian stops believing the ideas of the OM and therefore rejects them as a basis of action and then replaces them by believing ideas from God’s word and uses them as the basis of action. The Greek metamorphoo is the root of the English word metamorphosis, a process of change that occurs in stages resulting in the emergence of a different way of life. After salvation, God enters all of His children into this process where they grow in stages, taking off the OM, putting on the NM, finally resulting in the believer being like the Lord Jesus Christ.
Summary
After salvation we retain the belief and behavior system we built before we were saved. We carry these ideas into the Christian life and operate on them unconsciously, below the level of awareness. As long as these ideas remain in the heart as an object of faith, we will continue to view life from their vantage point and use them as the logic for our actions. At the point of salvation God enters His children into a process of change called transformation, the mechanics of spiritual growth. We have to enter it willingly and endure in it and when we do, the Spirit will change our hearts to be like Christ. He frees us from slavery to the hunger, fear and self-destruction of the OM and enables us to willingly enslave ourselves to the Lord and live our life by means of the influence of the Spirit. We learn/believe the concepts taught in the bible, assemble them into a belief and behavior system called the NM. When we habitually use the NM as the logical basis for our actions, it becomes our new nature and our natural way of life. We live as imitators of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Him be the glory and honor forever.
Desires & Hurdles
Our natural tendency it seems is to wish that life was easy, without problems, and where we get everything we want without a struggle. That sounds a lot like heaven to me or like the images I have in my mind about heaven. I am not sure that even heaven will be without challenges. The reason I suggest such an idea is that problems, conflicts and challenges are what motivate us to grow. To be more specific, hurdles standing in the way of what we want, forcing us to overcome them to get what we want is what motivates us to tackle them and in doing so, we grow. Let’s put a few simple thoughts together about growing through taking the challenges in life. This article will discuss our desires which are the root motivation of the human soul, our problems that stand in the way of what we want and finally overcoming our problems by developing new skills and strength to obtain what we want.
Designed to Desire
God’s Design – Needs
First, it is important to understand that God designed the human soul to have needs. God made us with needs, some that only he can meet and some that other people are intended to meet. For example, only God can meet our spiritual needs and only another person can meet our marital needs. Keeping these needs separate is rather important because we don’t want to confuse how these different needs are met. Look to God for what he provides and look to God to provide the right people for what man can give us.
Needs Feel Like Wants
Our needs are experienced within us as desires. Our God given needs feel like longings, hunger, yearnings, cravings ie desires. The bible makes it very clear that it is desire that motivates us to action. We have desires that are sinful and that we choose to fulfill through sinful actions. If we are saved and growing spiritually, the Spirit will also produce desires in us to please God and to love God. If we are discussing our sin life or our spiritual life, desire as an expression of our legitimate needs is what drives us to action to meet our needs. A clear passage teaching this concept is Gal 5:16-17.
Gal 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, & you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. 17 For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, & the Spirit against the flesh; for these oppose one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.
Desires of the Spirit
The Spirit defeats the flesh and both the flesh and the Spirit produce desires as motivators of actions. When we embrace the desires created by the Spirit and walk by means of what He says, we will say no to the desires of the sin nature and act to please God. Notice that it is by giving in to desires, the desires produced by GHS that we win the war against the sin nature. A point to ponder, focus on what you want, the wants that God puts in your heart, not the desires you feel apart from Him and your actions will follow His will and you will please Him. The point of this article is that the desires we feel inside us are what motivate us to take all the actions we choose all of our lives. We, by design, want and use our wants to guide what we think, say and do.
Growing Through Adversity
Too Easy = Boring
The second idea to think on is that there are always problems that stand in the way of us getting what we want. Dang it!! You say, I wish life were easier and that nothing would stand in my way of me getting everything I want. I want it all and I want it now!! Yet life would be so boring if it were that easy. We would wish for something and there it would be for the picking, without any effort and therefore without any growth.
God Given Hurdles
Those things that stand in the way of what we want are the God given hurdles that He uses to inspire us to grow. To get what we want, we have to find a way over, around or through the problem. To get past the hurdle, we often have to use what we have learned and bring it online in real life. For example, God has given us promises that correspond to every problem in life that when used by faith to face these problems will give us total victory over them. It is the hurdle in our way that caused us to use the promise, to believe it to deal with the problem that allowed us to see it work and therefore expose God’s power and faithfulness. Without the problem to overcome, we would not have had to use the promise and we would not have seen God’s power work through His promises. The problem blocking our desires was actually God’s grace gift that caused us to grow in our knowledge of His power invested in His promises. Thank God for our problems, in fact James says they are an occasion for great joy when we visualize the good He will bring about through them.
James 1:2-4 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
God Given Imagination
Consider is the Greek word hegeomai meaning to guide your imagination or to purposely choose the images you visualize in your mind and the ideas you verbalize in your mind. God promises to use everything in life to produce divine good (Rom 8:28), even our difficulties. When problems occur, James says that if we will intentionally visualize and verbalize God creating this good, it will bring us joy. He also explains that the adversities are the hurdles that exercise our faith making us stronger in endurance and building us into the mature, complete Christian warrior ready for battle and able to overcome and obtain the desires the Spirit has put in our hearts.
Grace Giving
Problems standing in the way of our goals make us grow to overcome them. When we grow, we gain strength, knowledge, wisdom and most importantly, we grow in our capacity to love, forgive and give to others in grace. We grow in our ability to relate to our loved ones in ways that help them grow and in ways that build them up, not tear them down. Giving in grace means to give expecting nothing in return. Just like God gives to us, with no strings attached, His only desire is that we accept His gifts and benefit from them. One of God’s goals for us is that we develop the capacity to give like He gives, generously without reservation, freely without hesitation, confidently without fear of having enough for ourselves and in grace, expecting nothing in return. Giving without expecting a return is called grace giving.
God’s Promises are Grace Gifts
God’s promises are gifts that he gives all of His children, earned by the work of Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. These gifts are freely given and His only desire is that we use them and benefit from them. He never wants us to feel like we owe Him in return for letting us use His promises, He only desires what is best for us and only desires that we accept what He offers. Again, giving to help others, expecting nothing back is called grace giving. We please Him by taking His promises and using them by faith to enjoy total victory over every problem found in the devil’s world. We further please Him by understanding His grace giving and choosing to become grace givers as imitators of Christ. Our problems are a necessary part of building the capacity to give in grace. Rejoice that God loves us enough to give us problems that inspire us to grow to be like Him, grace givers.
Today is the Day
To finish, today is a good day to stop complaining about the problems and hurdles God has allowed into your path. Today is a good day to finally believe what he has said in His word and apply the principle that He uses all things for good. Our problems, even those we have self-induced are part of God’s plan to grow us into His own image, like His son Jesus Christ. A life without problems would be a life without growth, a life without change and we would stay the same losers in Adam for life. It is time to see our problems as opportunities to prove out God’s promises by using them to overcome the devil’s schemes to tear s down. He wants us to lose heart, complain and fold up. He wants us to use our own abilities to deal with life so that he can neutralize our witness and cause us blend in with his people in the world. Today is the day to stand firm against his schemes by trusting God for what He has promised. Today is the day to believe that your problems are God’s gift to make you a grace giver like Jesus.
If you have been reading my articles and you are wondering why they stopped coming, they haven’t stopped, just slowed way down for the moment. I am just resting, digesting some new lessons from the Lord. When I am finished with my rest phase I will cycle back to writing phase again, so please be patient. We are learning many things at many levels and have many new challenges coming faster than we can handle.
If you want to help, ask the Lord Jesus to bless us with more energy and more finances. These 2 areas are what steal us away from the ministry, especially when I have to use my time and energy to make money to support my wife and 4 kids.
Thanks for reading and for those who have sent financial support. Rhonda and I are very grateful for your partnership with us in ministry. As Glen Cunningham said in the title of his inspiring book, Never Quit!!
Al
This article was prompted by a question I received from a reader
Question: My parents used spanking as their main way of punishing me as a child. I am wondering if spanking is really good for children and how my wife and I should discipline our children.
It is very important to develop an overall plan for training your children that includes understanding the benefits of ongoing learning as parents, knowledge of developmental stages, the limitations of age related abilities and the importance of consistent application. It is also very important to build agreement between husband and wife so that you can present a united front to the kids. Having an idea about how to proceed makes all the difference when you are in the heat of the moment, making decisions. Knowing your child’s capacities and limitations allows you to use wisdom as you correct their behavior. In this article, we will discuss the benefits of learning parenting skills, the different stages of human development, age specific capacities and limitations and the importance of consistency.
Parental Responsibility to Train & Discipline
Ephesians 6:4 And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
God’s Agents
Parents are God’s responsible agents for raising children. In modern USA, many have delegated this responsibility to the state through public schools and through the church. While a good church offers support for parents through Sunday school programs, responsibility for training children in the Lord remains with parents, especially fathers. Notice that parents are commanded to nourish children up in the discipline and knowledge of the Lord. Many types of knowledge are important for children to become mature adults, but knowledge of the Lord is primary.
Living Examples
Parents train their children in the Lord by teaching them concepts from the bible and then and most importantly by becoming living examples of these concepts in real life. The most effective training mechanism in the parent’s toolbox is the life they live in front of their children. Children pick up on what we believe, our attitudes, what/how we say and how we behave in relationships. What children see from their parents, they will imitate in their own life and often not know why they feel the way they do.
Parenting like God
Finally, parents are responsible to train their children using the same motives and methods that God uses to train His children. He trains and disciplines in love, always for the benefit of the child. Every word and act toward your child should be intentional and intended to edify him/her in the Lord. The previous article “Grace Parenting” deals with this concept in full.
In order to train our children effectively, we must learn how and why and when to use different levels of discipline.
Benefits of Learning to Parent
Knowledge is power and knowledge about parenting gives us the power to feel confident about decisions that we make as parents. Most of us as parents don’t need radical change, just the chance to see the situation differently, from God’s perspective based on accurate knowledge of the word. Parents need the Holy Spirit to be their coach who can provide knowledge and encouragement. As we learn about children and parenting principles we are able to
a. Gain skills and knowledge that enable us to formulate an overall plan.
b. Able to face normal changes with confidence and flexibility based on knowledge.
c. Able to discern our child’s needs based on their present stage of life.
d. Know our child’s abilities and limits of understanding in different developmental stages so that we can have realistic expectations and use age appropriate interventions.
e. Recognize the importance of being consistent in the way we apply rules and boundaries to help our children develop good habits of behavior.
Parenting Manual
Children don’t come with a manual so we have to find help from the accumulated wisdom of those who have come before. I encourage you to continue reading your bible and learning from Christian classes on parenting so that you can offer your children the best opportunity to grow into strong and healthy adults.
Marriage In Parenting
Another critical issue in parenting is the status of the marriage. As a rule, happy marriages produce healthy children. A happy marriage is not one without conflict but one where normal conflicts are managed, resolved and used for growth. When dealing with children, a united front where both parents say the same thing and work in unison is critical. A united front lends credibility to the ideas being presented and hinders the children from being able to divide and conquer parental authority. Children feel more secure when parents work well together and agree with one another about discipline issues. When both parents understand the development of their children, they can use accurate information to craft effective training methods.
Egocentrism
Another important piece of information about your child is the concept of egocentrism. All children are egocentric, which means that they are only able to think about themselves and only able to see the world through their own eyes and feelings. To a small child, he is the center of all things and all things truly exist for his pleasure. He/she at these early stages in incapable of experiencing empathy or look at a situation from someone else’s point of view. Egocentrism is more than a choice to be selfish though that is how it appears, it is the incapacity to think beyond their own self. This condition moderates at times and is mostly left behind by growth around the mid-20’s.
Stages of Human Development
Human beings grow and develop in stages from birth all the way to death. Psychologists have studied these stages and have written about the different developmental tasks that challenge us at each stage. The early stages focus on the challenges of physical development and the latter stages emphasize mental development. It is the challenge of these developmental hurdles that motivates us to grow and increase our abilities. The following table describes the different age categories and the abilities children normally possess at these ages.
Age Developmental Tasks & Abilities
0-2 yrs Develop senses & motor skills – sucking, grasping, looking, listening, crawling, walking, comprehension, talking, self-awareness, attachment, trust. Infant uses their senses and motor skills to relate to their world. They begin to develop basic categories of concrete objects in memory (hard, soft, color). Totally egocentric; None or little discipline, only positive reinforcement is effective to motivate.
2-6 yrs Develop symbols & language to understand & relate to the world. All thinking is concrete and the child is not yet capable to conceive in the abstract. Imagination flourishes and language becomes the primary means of influencing their world. Total to mildly egocentric which moderates about age 6; Light and immediate discipline is effective. Spanking with a rolled newspaper or very small switch. The goal is to communicate about behavior not cause great pain.
7-11 yrs Development of logic and examples (parables). Learning about classification of categories & numbers. Mildly egocentric so sharing & sympathy can be taught; Age where planned training & discipline based on rules is effective. Choices & consequences can be used to discipline ie loss of privilege; spanking for rebellion and rejection of authority.
12-Adult Development of abstract thought and hypotheticals. Understanding of ethics, law, morality, social issues, theoretical concepts. Focus on adaptations to society and how the person fits into the world. Able to understand concepts without concrete examples. Egocentrism fades up to mid 20’s; Focus on choices & consequences as the person interacts in relationships. Puberty, sexuality & preparation for marriage. Discipline through consequences; no spanking girls after puberty and boys for rebellion and standing up to authority.
Stages & Hurdles Cause Growth
Humans develop in stages from birth until death. The descriptions and age limits of these stages are generalities and approximations, not absolutes. Each stage brings new challenges to overcome and new opportunities for growth. Expanding thinking abilities and building a framework for life is the mission of each stage. As egocentrism (self centeredness) diminishes and the capacity for theoretical thinking increases, children are able to prepare for adulthood with its complex responsibilities.
Age Specific Capacities
Discipline needs to be crafted and aligned with age specific abilities to comprehend and capacity to learn the lesson being taught. Discipline should never be considered as nor called punishment, but as teaching and training to extinguish unhealthy attitudes and behaviors while replacing them with good ideas and behaviors. For example, you can spank a one-year-old over and over for a boundary violation but he is not yet able to understand what you are teaching him. You might even be able to convey the idea of “don’t” but he has not gained a positive perception of his world that helps him make informed choices. Spanking one-year-olds is not an effective means of correction. When he is two or three, spanking has more impact because he is more able to understand the lesson being taught.
Clear Boundaries
Boundaries should be as clear as possible for children, especially in the younger years. Small children are concrete thinkers, meaning that they can only understand something that has a physical example or application. It is not until age 12 + that children gain the capacity for intangible thought. As teenagers, your children are ready to discuss morality and more subtle boundaries related to motives, but not before. Boundaries for small children are made clear by making them physical. For example, “do not leave our yard” makes a clear boundary of where a child’s body is to be at any given moment. His heart might be with the kids across the street but his body better be at home. This is clear and not easily misunderstood by a child. If he does leave the yard, then consequences will be next. At later stages, issues of motivation and attitude can be used as boundaries. For example, your fourteen-year-old son can be expected to take out the trash with a good attitude without complaining. His mind-set and demeanor can become part of a boundary system intended to teach him about life issues.
Consistent Application
Boundaries also need to have clear consequences connected to them when violations are chosen. When he/she does cross the line, what discipline will take place to teach him to obey? Will this consequence of their action take place every time, some of the time or only after the parent has built up anger and comes at him like an wild person? The lines need to be clear, the discipline also and the consequences need to be consistent.
Consistency is one of the most important issues in parenting. Children don’t do well with mixed signals. When a parent says one thing but does another, it takes away credibility and believability in the child’s mind. He doesn’t believe you when you say, I am going to discipline you for crossing the line because you have proven that you mostly won’t. The child learns to ignore the lines and what you say until the signal of building anger is seen and then they get busy complying with commands. When you are consistent, meaning that the same discipline happens every time the boundaries are crossed, with an even temperament, the child becomes habituated to listen the first time. He/she learns that boundaries are real, important and that you mean what you say as a parent, not because you are angry but because these lines are good for the child.
Love that only builds and never tears down for our children is a given. Along with love, if we provide a united front, knowledge of the stages of human development and age specific limitations of children, clear boundaries and consistent application will provide our children with a healthy environment in which they can grow to be healthy adult.
Methods of Discipline
Proverbs 13:24 He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.
The bible makes it clear that spanking is part of God’s plan for raising children, but it never precludes using other forms of discipline. As an educated counselor I am aware of the literature that suggests that spanking is an ineffective for of discipline, but I don’t believe what the studies suggest. I depend upon the bible for all of my instructions about training my children which includes spanking, but that is not my only form of discipline. Let’s discuss when and why to spank and suggest an alternative form of discipline that I have found effective.
Spanking
Spanking in my home is usually reserved for rebellion and stubborn refusal to comply with parental wishes. When a child rebels by deciding that he/she is not going to obey, that view that tells them not obeying is even an option, must be eliminated from their minds. Spanking works very well for breaking rebellion but never so hard or long that it breaks their spirit. Spanking helps the child return to sanity and tell himself that obedience is in his self interest. Yet spanking is over-kill for lighter offences and I consider it inappropriate for some situations.
Deprivation
When children are slow to obey, when they complain about obeying or have a general whining disposition, I find that depriving them of some privilege they enjoy to be an effective means of getting their attention. We take away TV time, computer time or ground them from friends. For some children, this form of discipline motivates them to change more than spanking and is preferable to spanking.
There are many ways to teach a child that his thinking and behaviors need to change. Be creative and find something that works for each individual child. May the Lord bless you and keep you as you train your children in the love of the Lord.
When Christian parents love and train their children the same way God loves and trains His children, I call this
Grace Parenting
The Importance of Parenting
Raising healthy children is one of the most important assignments anyone receives from the Lord. In present day USA, with the number of single parent homes on the rise, good parenting skills are even more important. Children, by God’s design grow healthier with both a father and mother in the home. When one parent is absent, a heavier burden falls on the remaining parent to provide the love, patience, training and correction that children need, but one parent can produce a healthy child. If you are a single parent, God will help you and enable you to parent your child in a way that will bless them and prepare them for adult life.
God – The Perfect Parent
When any person believes the gospel, the death burial and resurrection of Christ for their personal salvation, God adopts them into His Royal family forever (Rom 8:15). When we become His children, He enters us into a training program that inspires us to grow into strong, responsible spiritual adults who willingly take on spiritual responsibilities.
Hebrews 12:5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him; 6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.”
We begin as spiritual babies (1Pet 2:2), grow into different levels of spiritual childhood and if we endure in His program, we grow to become mature, spiritual adults (Heb 5:14). God perfectly parents His children and enables them to grow up to spiritual adulthood. As we seek guidance to parent our children, we find the perfect example in the way that God parents us.
Four Areas of Parenting
Raising healthy children that are able to grow into adults and handle adult responsibilities requires that parents think and act using the principles of God’s word. A good parent acts toward his/her children in the same way that God acts toward His children in Christ. Children need a fair authority to draw clear boundaries, they need attentive parents that will protect them from the world, they need informed parents that will train them to take responsibility and they need healthy parents who can set a good example of how good people live. In this article we will examine how God parents us in grace, four areas of parenting and finally we will develop God’s grace provisions that enable Christian parents to parent like God.
God’s Grace Parenting
When Christ hung on the cross, He paid for all of the sins of the world. Before we were saved, in fact before we were even born, all of the judicial penalties for sins were paid in full and resolved (1Jn 2:2). When we trust in Christ for salvation, we enter a parental relationship where all of the penalties for boundary violations are already paid. When God uses corrective measures as our parent, it is never as retribution, revenge or as a means of making us pay for disobedience. God corrects us for one reason and one reason only, He loves us and intends to teach and train us, for our own benefit. His grace has already paid for our sins and now His grace corrects our bad habits of thinking and behaving to help align us with His boundaries so that we can be blessed. God’s grace parenting is motivated by love and is designed to benefit us by training us to habitually behave in ways that will bring blessings to our life.
Parenting Like God
God gives us firm boundaries and never compromises His position of authority. He corrects us because He loves us and wants to change the way we think and act. When we understand God’s love and training program for us, we can train our children the way He trains us. We correct our children because we love them and want them to make decisions that will bring positive, not negative results. When they violate the boundaries we establish, we can be firm and implement corrective strategies while remaining calm, kind and loving. We can parent them with grace. Grace never takes revenge when lines are crossed, grace corrects to benefit the one who needs to change. With grace in mind, Christian parents can build their corrective methods around the idea of helping children change their thinking and habits, not pay for what they did wrong.
Fair Authority – Clear Boundaries – Appropriate Consequences
God is the Boss of the universe and He has given clear guidelines to His children about what is right and what is wrong. God is the perfect parent. Like all Christians, all children need a fair authority figure to give them clear boundaries of right and wrong, along with appropriate consequences for violating the boundaries. When children are young, they have yet to develop the ability to look at their circumstances and draw reasonable
conclusions on which to act. The ability to improvise and make good decisions comes with age and experience. Because of this, children need clear cut lines that tell them where they stand in relation to right and wrong. They need to know that obeying the adults in their life is right and that lying, cheating and stealing is wrong. They also need to understand the consequences both good and bad that will occur from the choices they make. Good parents teach their children that good decisions reap positive results and that the opposite is also true.
Gal 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.
Protective Parents
In an evil world where the devil’s philosophy is dominant (Jn 8:44), it pays for parents to pay close attention to the outside forces that come into contact with your children. Clear boundaries not only teach behavior but they provide protection. There are many in our world who will take advantage of the innocent and even hurt them in permanent ways. Children naturally trust others and without parental oversight can get themselves into trouble. While God loves children, He has temporarily allowed evil to exist in our world and expects parents to protect them. Protect them from evil from the outside and also protect them from the evil ideas they bring home by training them in the Lord.
Children are also very curious about adult experiences and will seek ways to enter into adult situations way before they are ready. These experiences can push them forward into adult life before their hearts are ready, resulting in extreme feelings of guilt and shame. For example, people who experience sex as children will have a permanent sexual fixation even in adult life and their sexual life will be distorted in their marriage. Children who are damaged early in life have a difficult time healing as adults. They spend a great deal of their adult life trying to recover from damage, rather than use their adulthood to enjoy and contribute to their world. Over zealous protection of your children will frustrate your children but will also protect them from making terrible mistakes. Protect your children by knowing where they are, who they are with and what they are doing every moment of their childhood so that they can enter into adult life as healthy people.
Parental Training
Parents, especially fathers are charged with the responsibility of training their children in the knowledge of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:4 And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
The word discipline means to train them by educating them and by using corrective methods to steer them into good habits of behavior. All of us form habits of thinking and acting when we choose specific paths over time. When children are taught about the Lord and persuaded to act within the guidelines of the Lord, children will form habitual behaviors that will pay them dividends in adulthood. The word instruction means to admonish, teach and give warning about behavior. Parents are commanded to teach their children the principles of the word, correct them to form good habits of behavior and admonish them about violating God’s boundaries of wise ways of living.
A Good Church
A good local church can be helpful in training your children in the Lord. Often parents allow their children to choose the church they attend because of the entertaining youth program. If the youth program provides sound instruction in the word and is talented enough to make it entertaining then you have been blessed. If the program is full of fun but light on the word, you will be well served to find a church who takes the word more seriously (just my opinion after 30 years and raising 4 children). It is the promises and principles of God’s word that will empower your children to find Christ for themselves and live a blessed and successful life. If you cannot find a good bible church to teach your children the word, then you must educate yourself and teach them at home. Their spiritual education is the most important advantage you can give your kids, so don’t leave it to others to see that it is done.
Parental Examples
Children learn information by listening but they learn how to live by imitation. Children are natural mimics and they will look for people they respect to imitate. Your children will most certainly imitate you, either for the good or the bad. The best thing you can do for your children is to submit your life to the Lord, grow to maturity in the word and live the Christian life for real. Parents who know the Lord and live their lives in His service set the highest example for children to follow. Living for the Lord gives no guarantees that your children will follow, but your genuine Christian life will give them the best chance to do the same.
God parents us in grace, consistently correcting us to help us form good habits of behavior. He gives us clear boundaries and provides us with authority that is firm but kind and loving. He commands us to protect our children by closely monitoring their friends and activities. He commands us to train and nurture them in the Lord and provide a spiritual environment where they can learn the word while providing good examples of people who live their lives for Him.
Finally, I encourage you to pray for your children every day. What you can’t do with your human limitations, God can do because he has none. Ask Him to protect them and provide good influences in their life. Ask Him to lead you to a good bible church where you can learn the word so that you can be one of the good influences.
