Chapter 1 Give them Grace

note: I really did want to post this yesterday but I couldn’t get it finished. Sorry it’s late.

Hello my friends. Here is my second post on the book I’m reading with some of my followers. I hope that others have joined up. I really am hoping to get in a chapter every weekend. We’ll see if I can make it on a consistent day or just before Monday… I’ll take what I can get :)

I will try to make these post informative enough that you could read them if you don’t have the book and they might be beneficial. This is some serious food for thought in my life, hopefully in yours as well.

From Sinai to Calvary.

If I’m being honest, my head (maybe actually my heart) is spinning a little with trying to grasp some of these concepts, I think you will see in my writing how I struggle with being a moralist a little bit. I think at heart I forget that even my best works are filthy rags. I take pride in being a good mom and wife and doing what I see as God’s commands, which is a very good thing, but, I do them because I feel satisfaction in myself and get self worth from it instead of doing it because I love Christ… I think I may be subconsciously  parenting in a similar way. Trying to get my kids to obey to make God happy when all they need is Christ and if I’m not careful I will inadvertently teach them that somehow they can do good things to make God happy with an unregenerate heart and when their hearts are regenerated they bring glory to God through Jesus not themselves.  Where I struggle a bit I think is that our obedience does glorify God and is to be a part of our lives. Simple but seriously deep stuff if you ask me.

I just read Rom 6-8 and found it so helpful. Give it a read and let me know if that helped you. I’m sorry if what I’ve written is a little confusing, welcome to my head :)

I think I use the bible as a rule book because I’ve been taught religious obedience (I am so thankful for that for the record, I just wish that I didn’t often miss why I should be obeying not just obeying). She gave different types of obedience that we teach our children; initial obedience, social obedience civic-obedience, religious obedience. I thought she made a few really good points under religious obedience she says “We call this form of obedience “religious obedience” because it has to do with the practices of the faith but it is not necessarily the fruit of saving faith. It may be the fruit of any number of things, including a desire to avoid discipline or, worst of all, a desire to feel good about their own obedience”pg 31. Ok so I quoted that because I think it secretly nails my heart but thanks be to God that I don’t live there. I can take all that to Christ and realize it never could be me and never will be. she also says it may be the fruit of real faith because I’m sure like you I’d never want to discourage my child from seeking God by telling them it wasn’t real faith I can’t judge their hearts.

(ok I know I’m a little all over the place. I’ll get it. next week maybe I’ll just answer the end of the chapter questions. )

I thought she had some had a really good point on pg 33 she says “religious obedience is probably the most difficult and dangerous form of obedience simply because it is so easily confused with conformity to God’s law. It’s the place where most Christian families go terribly wrong. yes, we are commanded to teach the Word, prayer, and worship to our children but their acquiescence to these things won’t save them. Only the righteous life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ saves them.”

here are some pretty heavy quotes. What do you think about this? Do you find yourself fighting this idea at all?

On pg 35 she says “the law does show us the right way to live, but non of us obeys it. Not for one millisecond. Even though our children cannot and will not obey God’s law,we need to teach it to them again and again. And when they tell us that they can’t love God or others in this way, we are not to argue with them w are to agree with them and tell them of their (I think she should say our!!) need for a savior”

pg 36 “We are commanded to give them he law so that they will be crushed by it and see their need for a savior. The law won’t make them good. It will make them despair of ever being good enough, and in that way it will make them open to the love, sacrifice, and welcome of their savior, Jesus Christ.”

“Every way we try to make our kids good that isn’t rooted in the good news of the life death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ is damnable, crushing, despair- breeding, Pharisee-producing law. We won’t get the results we want from the law. We’ll get either shallow self righteousness or blazing rebellion or both. We’ll get moralistic kids who are cold and hypocritical and who look down on others. WE have to remember that in the life of our unregenerate children, the law is given for one reason only:crush their self confidence and drive them to Christ.”

I’m out of time. I have to leave for soccer. I would love to know though what your thoughts were of this chapter. did is nail you? Did you think she goes over board?

Do you think I miss represented her at all because I’d also love to hear if I missed something.

If you have the time answer one of the questions from the end of the chapter. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we played flag football but I didn’t take any pictures. I love family sports days. They are always loads of fun. I really should have taken pictures :( 

That night our extended family gets together at my moms and we sing Christmas Carols and open my Grandma’s gifts and gifts to the family and such. My mom decided to have a h’orderves competition for the food. I believe the bacon wrapped asparagus won. I over heard a few sore looser say that of course it won it was bacon… lol. I Voted for something else. After the singing and gift opening there was a stocking decorating competition. I thought I took more pictures of those but I just got the winner and I was impressed!

love my big crazy family

alright alright I’ve been slacking again…

So yes I haven’t updated in awhile. at first it was simply because the holidays were busy and then we had to get back into school starting so I gave myself a time out. Now I realize I’m a little intimidated because I know I have a lot to blog about so I didn’t really want to get started because I knew it was going to take a big chunk of my time but here I am getting it done :)

Gingerbread houses

One of our favorite holiday family traditions is gingerbread houses. My sister was messing with our dates on when she would be back from school so we almost did it with out her because the dates were pretty limited and more then one of the boys in the family put a foot down and “said what’s the point if Rach isn’t there?” pretty sweet huh? I thought so! So she came into town and we had a party :)

how cute are they?!?

for time sake I’m going to just let the pictures speak for themselves

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 :)

Church Christmas party

our church has a dessert auction Christmas party to raise money for a charity of some kind. This year we did it for the Elisha foundation . They offer retreats for families with children with disabilities. What a great cause!

My mom sets up a children's music program for each of the Sunday schools classes for the entertainment. It was pretty sweet.The kids all dressed up  My class, the 2.5-preK class were angles and the next classes were shepherds. My class sang away in a manger with the hand motions and the other classes sang Silent Night, Joy to the world (I think) go tell it on a Mountain and this song called JOY (if you want to listen to it, which I highly recommend, follow the link, click the drop down menu arrow on the side and click on Power of Encouragement CD and scrawl to the last song. Their music is my favorite bible kids music!!!) It all went great and my kids had fun being a part of it. baby and daddy weren’t feeling well so we had to leave them at home but other than that it was a fun night. I even got the dessert I wanted! yum.

my fellow comrades for winning our favorite dessert :)

Allie doing the baby sleeping :)

My little shepherd boy.

Becca looking thrilled.

playing with the “candles”

let the auction begin.