Loving our children well

I think most parents (especially of teenagers!) desperately want their children to know how much they love them. Of course, our love must be more than simply feeling affection; it must be action. Love is a verb. The love we feel must be put on display.

Love is patient. Wait! Nobody said this was easy, right? What does your level of patience with your children say about the way you love them? If you’re often irritated when your child keeps asking you questions, quickly frustrated when they don’t seem to understand something, or find yourself snapping in anger over little things, that’s not love.

Love is kind. In the midst of a cold-hearted culture, the home must be a warm, safe place of refuge. Children need to hear that they are valued and precious, not worthless and bothersome. They need generous encouragement, thoughtful counsel, gentle support. Unthinkably, some (too many) children live with constant put-downs, name-calling, shaming, and all sorts of verbal and physical abuse.

That patience and kindness, however, doesn’t mean that we tolerate bad behavior or give them everything they want. As children grow they’re gaining and seeking greater independence, they’re formulating their own ideas and opinions, they’re pushing boundaries.

Love sometimes means saying, “No.” But instead of just saying, “Because I said so,” why not give them sound reasons for your decision that communicates your love and helps them learn to make wise choices themselves?

No, you can’t stay up playing video games all night. Because I love you, I want you get the rest your growing body needs, so that you’ll be healthy and strong physically, mentally, emotionally. Let’s read a good book together instead, or play Uno, or take a walk before we go to bed at a decent hour and get a good night’s sleep.

No, you can’t go to that party. Listen, Johnny’s parents might not care that he and his friends drink beer and watch R-rated movies, but I care about you, and I don’t want you to be in that situation. Why don’t you invite a friend over and I’ll order a pizza?

No, you can’t wear that way-too-revealing outfit. You’re a beautiful young woman inside and out, and I want you to dress modestly being confident in who you are – a woman of strength and dignity, honor and purity, wisdom and self-control.

We also display our love through discipline. When your child chooses to disobey your authority as a parent, there should be appropriate consequences for his actions. They won’t like it, obviously, but when carried out in love for their good, discipline will yield the fruit of righteousness, and they will respect you for it.

Listen, none of us are perfect parents, and I certainly don’t have all the answers. I can’t even do the patience and kindness part apart from walking in step with the Lord. But I do know that our Father in heaven loves His children perfectly, and I long to keep learning from him to parent my own children well (even though my oldest is now 21 and getting married in December!).

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). May God grant His grace to help us truly love the children He’s blessed us to raise.

 

Global Hunger Relief

At Petersburg First Baptist Church, we have been promoting an offering for Global Hunger Relief, a ministry of the Southern Baptist Convention through which the love of God is shared in word and action. The projects enabled through these funds are designed with an intentional spiritual strategy working through our missionaries already on the field and in cooperation the expertise of local leaders.

In addition to meeting crisis hunger needs during famine and natural disasters, GHR-funded projects focus on long-term, sustainable solutions to end chronic hunger through job skills training, livestock and seed distribution, clean water, home reconstruction, medical care and more.

On a mission trip to Rio de Janeiro this past summer, I had the opportunity to see how this offering is being used. Our contact missionaries in Rio have built relationships with many local churches, and the pastors of about 20 of these churches were invited to partner together to help provide food to needy families. The GHR funds were used to purchase necessary ingredients to make multiple meals, and each church is then held accountable for not only delivering the supplies to the homes, but also sharing about the love of Jesus with the visit.

The pastors continue working in relationship with the families to help them not only receive food on the table, but to receive the spiritual Bread of Life who can satisfy their greater spiritual hunger. Our team witnessed the joy of these pastors being able to meet such needs among their people.

In Nigeria, one missionary shared with us how this hunger relief project is helping 408 widows and over 1,200 children. Along with a month’s supply of food, each widow joins a co-op of 3-4 other widows to learn a trade such as sewing, knitting, cooking, raising livestock, selling firewood, etc., spending a year together to learn and make enough profit to become self-sustaining and reach out to other widows around them, as well.

Truly one of the blessings of serving the Lord in partnership like this is the ability to reach out to people in places most of us will never go. It’s humbling and joyous to see God multiply what we give and use it to display His love to meet real needs, whether near or far.

In His earthly ministry, Jesus compassionately met real needs of hurting people. He miraculously opened the eyes of the blind, made the lame to walk, healed the sick of various diseases and pains, cleansed the lepers, drove out demons, and even raised the dead to life.

But even greater than this, Jesus came to preach the good news of the Kingdom of heaven. He came with the authority to forgive sin, to reconcile sinful humanity to God, and to give eternal life to all who believe in Him.

Maybe you need a spiritual miracle today. Perhaps your soul is hungry for truth and righteousness, for forgiveness and mercy. Friend, you can come to Jesus right now and find that He is the Bread of Life who came down from heaven to satisfy your deepest hunger.  

           

           

Demons' influence and Christ's deliverance

The Bible tells us of an unseen world where angels serve the saints in obedience to God and where demons seek to destroy God’s work in league with the devil. Jesus encountered many people who were under the control of demons in various ways and to varying degrees. These evil forces attacked men, women, and children physically, mentally, and spiritually.

One such attack against a boy brought left him suffering terribly with seizures and would often through him into the fire and into the water (Matthew 17:15). Another account has a man living among the tombs, unclothed, out of his mind, always screaming and cutting himself with stones (Mark 5). We also read where Jesus attributes to Satan’s work a woman who for 18 years was bent over and could not straighten herself (Luke 13:10-16).

Demons are further credited with such activity as promoting false teachings and false religions that deny Jesus, blinding people to the gospel and keeping them in bondage to sinful desires, hindering Christians from effective witness, instilling a spirit of bitter jealousy and selfish ambition, tempting people to sin, influencing even Peter (!) to seek the things of men rather than the things of God, and more.

Friend, I do not hesitate to say today that demons still maintain much influence in our world. Behind the lies, the pride, the doubts, the fears, the guilt, the greed, the envy, the slander, the confusion, the hatred, and the chaos in our culture you will find demonic forces seeking to destroy God’s good, righteous, and just ways.

How else would you explain a deranged kid walking into his school and shooting people? How else would you explain an insane segment of our society hell-bent on making sure a woman can legally sacrifice her unborn child at any time until the moment of birth? How else would you explain terrorists hijacking planes and flying them into buildings? How else would you explain why in the U.S. alone there are on average 130 people who commit suicide every day, and another 3,780 who attempt to do so?

How else would you explain how people can harbor hatred for their fellow human beings simply because their skin is a lighter or darker color?

How else would you explain why pornography has become a global industry worth over $100 billion? How else do you explain this generation’s fascination with the immorality of homosexuality? How else would you explain the absurdity of gender fluidity or identity or whatever it’s called – especially when we’re telling boys and girls that they can choose their gender, and then give them hormone blockers and perform “sex-change” surgeries on them?

Jesus describes Satan as the “father of lies” (John 8:44) and a thief who “comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). Peter writes, “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

But I want you to know for certain that Jesus has absolute authority and power over the forces of darkness. He has already dealt the decisive blow at Calvary and by His resurrection victory. And one day soon He will finally judge Satan, his demons, and those names are not written in the book of life to an eternal torment in the lake of fire and sulfur (Revelation 20).

Christians do not have to live in fear of demons or the devil, nor yield to his influence or temptations. We have the authority of Christ to “Resist him, standing firm in your faith” (1 Peter 5:9). And we share in the eternal victory of salvation through Jesus.

If you’re not following Jesus, let me urge you now to “turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that [you] might receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in [Jesus]” (Acts 26:18).