Category Archives: Gospel

How Do I Worship God in My Family?

prayer

A big challenge Christians have is making God the primary object of their affections and the only God they worship. This struggle has transcended time. Adam and Eve surrendered to this temptation when they fell and mankind has doing the same ever since every time they sin. Therefore, it seems to me teaching children to honor the 1st commandment should be one of those “first order” issues.

Two things must be true for us to be able to truly worship God: 1. we must know and acknowledge God as the only true God; 2. we must worship him accordingly (Westminster Shorter Catechism, #46). In other words, we must believe the right thing about God and do the right thing as a result. I’m assuming the reader believes God to be the only true God. The question I’m trying to answer is, “How do I teach my kids about that?” Three thoughts about that:

  1. Private Study. To be able to show your children your love of God, you must actually love God. Seems trite, I suppose, but it is foundationally true. When you know God as the true God, you know about his holiness and your sinfulness, his Lordship and your rebellion. You also know he takes these kinds of people and makes them his own. A proper understanding of his gift makes one unable to be satisfied with a mumbled prayer and lifeless reading of Psalm 117. When you truly know God, you will love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. You will pray. You will read. You will know and acknowledge him as the only true God.
  2. Family Study. Your love for God will inevitably spill over into relationships. You will want to teach your children from God’s word. To maximize effectiveness, make family devotions a routine. Pick the same time every day and practice family worship then. Help your children understand the Bible in two broad categories: 1. what they need to know about God; 2. what they need to do to worship him. Then you can tell them, “Love God and do not steal,” or “Love God and be kind to your sister.” Worship of God is expressed in action. Give your children the joy of being able to worship God from an early age.
  3. Corporate Worship. It is easy to neglect corporate worship. However there is no better way to teach your children that God is the one true God to be worshiped. Tell your kids: “We’re going to worship the Lord now.” Tell them how you love to worship the Lord. Don’t allow them to speak negatively about the worship of the God who bought you at the cost of the life of his Beloved Son.

Worship of the true God forms the foundation of all that we will do in our homes and with our own lives. Is the Lord your God? Then worship him by yourself, in your family and in your church.

Parenting. What’s the Plan?

Father & Son Fishing

When it comes to talking about what we should do in parenting there are many voices. This truth is evident from the amount of material that has been produced to address parenting questions. amazon.com has 55,614 books on parenting. With this kind of information we should have no more questions. Of course this isn’t the case.

Parenting is never quite so neat as in a book (or blog post). Sin so often interferes with the serene thoughts of an author sitting in his study. However, that does not mean there is no plan. In fact, although I hate to be simplistic (not really), Amazon could list only 1 book in their section on parenting: the Bible. The Bible is sufficient to address every area of our lives. If an explicit command is not given there are sound biblical principles that we can apply. Below are 10 biblical ideas we can apply in parenting that should help our families honor the Lord.

  1. You shall have no other God’s before me. The only way a person has peace is through Christ’s salvation. Do not allow your child’s sports, hobbies, or work take priority over the worship of God and thereby take away their peace.
  2. You shall not make for yourself a carved image. Idolatry is whatever we invent to replace God’s directions for serving him. Set his word before your children and give them the comfort of following the unchanging God.
  3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Your family is called by God’s name. Make sure you are a faithful witness to each other and the watching eyes of others.
  4. Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. Teach your children that God directs their time. God is not one of many activities to fit in a day, but he gives us our day.
  5. Honor your father and your mother. Your children are not your buddies. They are your children to be trained of up for God’s glory. Lead them and do not allow them to defy you.
  6. You shall not murder. Teach your children to rule their emotions, instead of being ruled by them.
  7. You shall not commit adultery. Proper use of entertainment, the Internet, and clothing are important. Train your children to love truth, honor and purity (Philippians 4:8).
  8. You shall not steal. Teach your children to respect the property of others whether it be material or immaterial.
  9. You shall not bear false witness. Love does not “rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.” (1 Corinthians 13:6). Say no to tattling, lying and deception.
  10. You shall not covet. Do not allow your children to envy the success of others, but teach them to be content with what God has given them.

The Ten Commandments, of course. Each will require its own thoughts, but my contention is that Christians have hidden behind “legalism” and avoided God’s good moral law so long that we do not even recognize its use anymore. Apply his law in your home and lead your children in expressing love for God (1 John 5:3).

Why Should Christians Be Joyful?

Gift

One time my wife and I gave our oldest daughter a doll house. She had waited for what must have seemed like an eternity. Finally on her third birthday we gave her the doll house as a gift. When she took off her blindfold and saw the gift set up on the table for her all she could do is jump for joy, shout “thank yous”, and hug and kiss her mom and me. We could tell it was a precious gift for her.

Transitioning now to the spiritual realm, our response is not often the same when it comes to the gift of eternal life. We know from the Bible the God is the maker of all things. He made all things visible, invisible, spiritual, or material. Everything we see around us is obligated to him. The bad news is that we also know from the Bible that we sin against God every day. Our thoughts, words, and deeds are not faithful to him, neither can they be because of our sinful nature. This condition places us in a position of great guilt before him. Only when we realize the truth both of who God is and who we are will we realize the greatness of his gift to us. If we do not think much of the greatness of God, we will not realize his gracious condescension. If we are not aware of the depth of our sin, we will not grasp our desperate need of salvation. Without this understanding the Bible will be just another fantastical fairy-tale, or some opium for the masses.

However, the Bible is good news for those who receive God’s promises by faith. In fact, the news is so good, our response should be 10,000 times that of my daughter when she received her doll-house. If someone gave you one million dollars, you would do more than buy a canned Hallmark card and no one would have to tell you to do so. Yet we Christians often respond with apathy and indifference toward the things of God. It seems we have missed the preciousness of God’s gift to us.

Spend some time in Genesis 1-3, meditate on the significance of what is recorded there and go out and live with joyful enthusiasm for the God who made you, redeemed you and sustains you.

Why the Fall Matters

gavel

Every time I drive from Augusta to Waynesboro I pass a sign. In big, bold letters it proclaims: “God is not angry with you, no matter what.” That may sound fantastic, but it is not biblical. After God made Adam he commanded him not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Gen. 2:16-17, ESV). Of course, we know Adam & Eve did eat of this forbidden fruit. Their rebellion against God immediately changed them.

The next time we see Adam & Eve they are hiding in the garden because they hear God approaching. They know their relationship with God has been severed. They know they are deserving of God’s judgment and it won’t be pretty. Of course, judgment is not a popular idea in our day. However unpopularity has never negated truth. The Bible tells us Adam sinned and we all sinned in him (Rom. 5:12). That means God’s wrath rests on us because of our ungodliness and unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18). So it seems we are in a heap of trouble.

So What?

A healthy understanding of God’s wrath against our sin teaches us about our condition as people. We are in desperate need of someone to save us. However, if we do not reflect on God’s wrath against sin, why would we want to change anything? Let me illustrate. Recently, I began hearing a rattling sound from the front left side of my car. I just ignored it because the workings of the automobile are a mystery to me. However, I gave one of my fellow elders a ride one day and he pointed out that I had a broken strut. He told me I needed to get it fixed. Without him showing me the condition of my car, I would have happily put up with a little bit of road noise. The same is true when it comes to our need for salvation. God tells us of our sin and guilt so we would know we are in need of salvation. He tells us so we might flee to the cross of Christ.

God hates sin. He is wrathful toward it. We would do well not to minimize the Bible’s teaching on this subject but use it make us see we need to turn us to Christ or face God’s judgment.

Who Cares About Creation?

space

Ok. Here we go. First real post. And I chose the topic of…. creation. I’m going to acknowledge up-front that I am not trained in the natural sciences, so you will not get a lot of argumentation from me along those lines. There are people who are much more qualified than I to do that kind of article. That is not even the point of what I want to write. What I want to do is consider the theological implications that surround the issue of creation. I want to ask the question, “Why should I, as a Christian, care about God creating all things out of nothing, in the space of six days, and all very good?”

From a theological perspective, creation is important because the Bible says it is important. The first words of God’s inspired word deal with how the earth was formed: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen. 1:1). God speaks and the physical universe is formed. Later, in Colossians 1:16 we learn creation is not just physical or material, but also spiritual, including the things we cannot see. The Bible’s teaching could not be clearer: God made everything.

So What?

More than an old stuffy book written by Moses in his spare time as he wandered the wilderness, Genesis lays out a proper order for understanding all that follows in the Bible. If God made us, it would follow that we are obligated to him. If God made all things, it would follow that all things are obligated to him. By contrast, if the world is formed by random chemical mutations (a very generalized and incomplete summary of naturalistic evolution, I know) we are not obligated to anyone. So creation is important because it helps us to see our obligation to God. And when we are obligated it speaks to our theology (how we should think) and our ethics (how we should act). We are not free to set our own agenda, but follow that of the One who made us.

Don’t skip over this truth, don’t allow the world to trivialize it. God made you, he put you together. That means something. You are obligated to him in thought, speech, and behavior.