Double Dose of Fridays Are For Fathers

If there was a parenting manual this would be in chapter one.  This is only an excerpt, but I’d highly recommend the rest, especially if you’ve ever been discouraged in your inability to fulfill your role as a parent.

I have a confession to make. Parenting is the hardest, most humbling task I have to do. If ever I think I have already obtained the goal of the upward call in Christ Jesus, parenting helps me realize how far I have yet to go. While parenting our daughters, my shortcomings are magnified and my sins exposed. However, I want to suggest that parenting can and should be a means of our sanctification. Allow me to share some thoughts on why the humility of parenting is of great benefit to us.

Parenting exposes the progress of our sanctification. Before we ever teach our children the truth of who God is for us in Christ, we will be declaring our faith as we live it out before them. Our children are watching us, noticing our hypocrisies, lies, abuses, speech and conduct. Parenting is so hard and humbling because our family observes us when we respond to the difficulties of life, when we have conflict with our spouse and when we have conflict with one another. It is at home where living in light of the gospel counts the most, but for too many this is where it matters the least. Let us make it a priority to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ so that we may live holy lives before our family. May we as parents provide a picture of the gospel at home.

Parenting helps us better understand and apply the gospel. Unfortunately, much parenting has behavior modification as its ultimate goal. If this is the case with our parenting, we will necessarily be instilling in our children a works-righteousness mentality – “do this, and/or you’ll get this.” I do not mean to imply that we should not hold our children to a biblical standard or that we should not discipline our children when they transgress God’s standard. My point is simply that keeping commandments is not the ultimate goal of parenting. The ultimate aim of parenting is that our children would “set their hope in God” (Psalm 78:7) or as Paul says, that our children would become “wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ” (2 Timothy 3:15).

You can read the rest at The Humility of Parenting – The Gospel Coalition Blog.

A.W. Pink on God Glorifying and Preserving the elect

Image taken from http://www.bythewayministries.ca/

A.W. Pink on Perserverance of the Saints

“God is faithful in preserving His people. “God is faithful, by whom ye are called unto the fellowship of His Son” (1 Cor. 1:9). In the previous verse promise was made that God would confirm unto the end His own people. The Apostle’s confidence in the absolute security of believers was founded not on the strength of their resolutions or ability to persevere, but on the veracity of Him that cannot lie. Since God has promised to His Son a certain people for His inheritance, to deliver them from sin and condemnation, and to make them participants of eternal life in glory, it is certain that He will not allow any of them to perish…

God is faithful in glorifying His people. “Faithful is He which calleth you, who also will do” (1 Thess. 5:24). The immediate reference here is to the saints being preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. God treats with us not on the ground of our merits (for we have none), but for His own great name’s sake. God is constant to Himself and to His own purpose of grace whom He called. . .them He also glorified (Rom. 8:30). God gives a full demonstration of the constancy of His everlasting goodness toward His elect by effectually calling them out of darkness into His marvelous light, and this should fully assure them of the certain continuance of it. The foundation of God standeth sure (2 Tim. 2:19). Paul was resting on the faithfulness of God when he said, I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day (2 Tim 1:12).”

Great is God’s faithfulness

It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the disaster that I intend to do to them, so that every one may turn from his evil way, and that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.” – Jeremiah 36:3

It has been said before that what separates the God of the Bible from the God of other religions is His grace and mercy towards sinners.  When God makes a covenant with sinners it is for His glory and namesake and not on the basis of anything deserving in us.  If God’s relationship with Israel was based on Israel’s merit then He would have left Israel in the wilderness and found a new people.  In the days of Jeremiah the people of Israel had denied God and sought only evil.  Because of their sin, instead of receiving blessing, they got disaster and judgment by means of the exile.

Although God’s people were defeated by the Babylonians, had their city burned and taken captive into a faraway land, all was not lost.  God was still faithful to His people and using judgment to teach them His holy nature, wrath towards sin and the weight of being called to live for His glory.  God’s faithfulness is also seen in the promises that He made to Israel while they are in exile.  Just because they were in exile does not mean that God give up on them or disowned them. Israel was still God’s people and their sin could never change that.  He has a plan and purpose and will protect and preserve His people through judgment (Jeremiah 29:11-14).

God has faultless foreknowledge and knows that Jehoiakim will not listen to the prophecy from Jeremiah, but still He provides warning, so that the people may have a way to repent and receive forgiveness.  Even when Jehoiakim rips up God’s Word He continues to turn the other cheek by having Jeremiah write another scroll.  God’s heart for us does not change even though our hearts are distant from Him (Ephesians 2:8).  When He seals us with the blood of Christ, we are His forever and He cannot deny those who are in Christ (Romans 3:3).  What great encouragement this is for us when we are facing the consequences for sin.  Even when God disciplines us, He never leaves us or forsakes us (Hebrews 12:6-11,13:5. When sin abounds, grace abounds even more Romans 5:20).

R-E-P-E-N-T, find out what it means to me

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
-2 Corinthians 7:10

Repentance is a gift from God and is not possible without the aid of His Holy Spirit.  To repent means to turn from my sin and to turn my gaze toward God.  This is a continual process and there will never be a day of my life where I am not walking through repentance in at least one area of my life.  A predecessor to repentance is viewing my sin the way that God does. My sin grieves God, therefore, I too must grieve over my sin.  I need to pray that the Holy Spirit will increase my hatred of sin.  There is no sin greater than mine and if the apostle Paul could call himself the chief sinner, then where does that leave me?  My sin is chief, not because of what I’ve done, but because of who I’ve sinned against.  God, loves me with an infinite love, a love so great that He would send His Son to die in my place to resolve the offense of my sin.  If my sin causes such a great rift between God and I that it would require the death of His Son, then I should hate the cause of that rift.  If it wasn’t for my sin then Jesus would not have needed to go to the cross.

I cannot make any excuses for sin.  Looking for a way to justify sin is a sure sign of worldly grief.  If I am more aware of how my sin affects myself or others instead of how it defames God then I have worldly grief.  Proper grief over my sin brings back to God and allows me to see His holiness and how He cannot have sin in His presence which is why Jesus had to die.  Worldly grieve over my sin only directs me to myself and this world while taking me further away from the cross.  With worldly grief I grow desensitized to how all sin is an abomination because it is an attack on a holy God.  This only leads to atrophy of my sin and a hardening of heart with a final result of spiritual death.

If I truly am saved, then I will live out my salvation in a manner that shows that I take my sin seriously (Philippians 2:12).  I can never be content with my spiritual growth, but always seek to strive and grow into greater Christ likeness.  This means mortifying my flesh and never ceasing from doing battle with the sin nature that is within me.  If I am truly repentant, than I will constantly be growing in my awareness of who God is and how I fall short of He commands.  The only proper response to this is to run like one seeking a prize and not stopping until I reach the finish line (1 Corinthians 9:24).  I need to be strengthened by the grace that is in Jesus Christ so I cannot be distracted from my calling and please the One who has bought me with His blood (2 Timothy 2:1-6).  I want to be ready for Christ return and live in a manner that I am not ashamed when He comes back.  I know that if I have turned from my sins and forsake this world, but live in anticipation of Christ return, then “there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day (2 Timothy 4:8).”  That is why I discipline myself to turn from my sins and turn to Christ.