Give Them Grace

I have a lot to blog about. I’m behind, again, but tonight I’m starting something new. For Christmas I sent a few of my family and friends the book Give Them Grace and I plan to do a blog book club. This is a book as it’s described “is a revolutionary perspective on parenting that shows us how to receive the gospel afresh and give grace in abundance, helping our children know the dazzling love of Jesus and respond with heartfelt obedience.” Once a week, and I hope to make it consistently either Friday or Saturday so you will know, I will post my thoughts about the chapter for the week and any questions I have. I hope that everyone I gave the book to and anyone else interested(please join us if you can!!!!!) will join along reading and sharing their thoughts in my comments. As a side note it’s very easy to comment you don’t even have to have any kind of account so don’t let that hold you back.

Honestly I meant to start this a few weeks ago and once again found myself just catching up from the holidays and then I got sick and so I’m just getting around to it now. Maybe that’s how you have felt to so this is good timing :) I’m excited. I hope it will be a blessing to all of us who are trying to be better parents or grandparents :)

I use a lot of quotes from the book so even if you haven’t read it you can get a pretty good grasp of the content from my quotes so have a read!

Also if you don’t have children this may be really interesting for your own life. I’m finding it really insightful so far.

Forward and Introduction

 The forward- written by Tullian Tchividjian (crazy name huh!!!)

(bear with me as I figure out how best to format all this…)

She talks about how as parents we want good behavior and success from our kids but God wants so much more “God wants them to get the gospel. and this means that parents are responsible to teach them about the drastic, uncontrollable nature of amazing grace.”

I was really convicted as I read this that I’m still a moralist at heart. I know my salvation has nothing to do with me but my actions often speak differently I’m afraid. I think I have a yes, grace, but disposition that I need to keep in check in my own life. Tullian says, “a ‘yes, grace, but…’ disposition is the kind of fearful posture that keeps moralism swirling around in  their hearts and if there’s anything God hates, it’s moralism.”

• Do you struggle with Moralism?

I thought these lines were just beautiful “The only time licentious people start to obey is when they get a taste of God’s radical unconditional acceptance of sinners. The irony of gospel-based sanctification I that those who end up obeying more are those who increasingly realize that their standing with God is not based on their obedience but on Christ’s.”pg 12 AMEN!!!

I probably have over done the forward but I thought she had a lot of good things to say so I’ll finish it off with this “With the right mixture of fear and guilt, I can get my three children to obey in the short term… but shallow and short lived is not what God wants. God wants a persistent obedience from the heart. How is that possible? Long-term sustained, gospel-motivated, obedience can come only from faith in what Jesus has already done, not fear of what we must do. Any obedience not grounded in or motivated by the gospel is unsustainable.” pg 12 (bold is mine)

I think this is going to be the heart of this book and I’m intrigued to see where it leads because I know I need more grace in my parenting! I’m can’t wait to see where it leads.

• How do you incorporate the gospel in your parenting? How do you strive to teach your children that they are required to obey God’s rules so therefore you and the rules you have established but still apply the principle of grace?

Introduction –Are you a Christian parent?

• After reading this let’s be honest how many of us would have responded in a “Christian answer” I definitely would have leaned more toward Elyse parenting but I thought that was such an intriguing question? What sets our parenting apart?

I think this pretty much sums up her point.

“Christian children and their parents don’t need to learn to be ‘nice.’  They need death and resurrection and a Savior who has gone before them as a faithful high priest, who was a child himself, and who lived and died perfectly in their place. They need a Savior who extends the offer of complete forgiveness, total righteousness, and indissoluble adoption to all who will believe.”

“Children can’t use the law any more than we can, because they will respond to it the same way we do. They’ll  ignore it or bend it or obey it outwardly for selfish purposes, but this one thing is certain:they won’t obey it from the heart, because they can’t. That’s why Jesus had to die.”pg 17

• So how and why do we teach them the law if they can’t use it? (I’m not saying we don’t I’m just curious what you have to say)
• how do we teach them the law and not turn them into moralist?

“We have transformed the holy,terrifying, magnificent, and loving God of the bible into Santa and his elves. And instead of transmitting the gloriously liberating and life changing truths of the gospel, we have taught our children that what God wants from them is morality. We have told them that being good (at least outwardly) is the be-all and end-all of their faith. This isn’t the gospel; we need much less of Veggie Tales and Barney and tons more of the radical, bloody, scandalous message of God made man and crushed by his Father for our sin.” pg 19

• Do you think you over emphasize outward behavior with your kids? If not in discipline is it overly important to you as a parent?
• Do any of you have a moral kid by nature who maybe is missing the heart of the gospel just because they don’t understand their need of it?

I would love to hear what any of you have to say so please leave me some comments :)