Kindle Notes & Highlights
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December 21, 2022 - March 6, 2023
If you are wearing shorts, sit down cross-legged. If you’re in a skirt, sit in a chair with your legs crossed. What do you see in the mirror? If you see your underwear or lo...
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Eli had what it took to be an exemplary father. As the high priest and judge of ancient Israel, he certainly knew God’s laws and practiced obedience to them. He restrained the sin of the nation, yet strangely he failed to restrain the sin in his boys.
Eli failed to set and enforce appropriate boundaries and godly routines for his sons, Hophni and Phinehas.
As a father, Eli could not change the hearts of his sons. That wasn’t his responsibility or burden to bear. But he could have restrained them, disciplined them, corrected them, and in so doing, changed the trajectory of their lives and the generations that followed.
His sons didn’t need their father’s indulgence; they needed correction. They needed boundaries.
You establish the boundaries between what is right and wrong in your child’s life. You build routines that will serve your kids well into adulthood. You don’t want to be all about rules, but you don’t want to be ice cream and sunshine all day either.
“Rules without relationship leads to rebellion.”
Your children need to know you love them, and that they must abide by house rules. Rules within close relationshi...
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What is one boundary you need to create right now with your children or one that you need to enforce?
Lord, may I learn from the lesson of Eli’s life. Give me a supernatural awareness of what is happening in my child’s life and give me the courage to act when correction is needed. Give me wisdom to establish healthy boundaries and routines in my home from this day forward. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Renew your commitment to establish and enforce boundaries. Talk with your spouse and children today about any new rules of the household or old rules that need dusting off.
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Deuteronomy 6:6–7
Friends, when we get busy in prayer, God gets busy in the hearts and lives of our children.
The more we enter the throne room of grace through prayer, the more we invite God into the messy midst of our families.
Prayer and Bible reading shouldn’t only happen from a pulpit on church on Sunday. Your kids can watch you read your Bible and pray, and even better, they can do it for themselves!
“Most teenagers and their parents may not realize it, but a lot of research in the sociology of religion suggests that the most important social influence in shaping young people’s religious lives is the religious life modeled and taught to them by their parents.”2
None of us is perfect. Nevertheless, we play a monumental role in passing along faith to the next generation of our family.
Discipleship isn’t the pastor’s job. It’s not the teacher’s job. It’s our job.
But true godliness isn’t measured in owning a Bible. It’s about the Bible owning us.
Parents stopped teaching their children the story of redemption and miracles. Parents didn’t obey the repeated command to drive out all the Canaanites from the Promised Land. The bridge of faith between the book of Joshua and Judges was broken as a result.
Without God-fearing leadership to restrain sin, “the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served the Baals; and they forsook the LORD God of their fathers…. And they were greatly distressed” (Judg. 2:11–12, 15).
The Israelites tolerated evil and eventually accepted it as normal.
Toleration turned to acceptance, which turned to imitation.
We can decide what is allowed in the culture of our home and do our best to return to righteousness.
“We not only live in a multicultural world; we live in a multi-moral generation. People have all sorts of ideas about what is right or wrong. But we are not responsible for whatever others are doing. We are responsible for our own families.”
We’ve been muzzled in our culture because we don’t want to offend anyone or be labeled as judgmental. Instead of getting angry when right is called wrong, and wrong is called right, we are silent. We don’t want to be known as haters. Hate has very negative connotations. But the Bible hasn’t changed, and it says to “hate evil, love good” (Amos 5:15)—not to hate people, but to hate evil.
The average age of first online exposure to pornography is eleven years old. Twelve percent of total websites are pornographic, making it much easier to access porn on purpose or accidentally.8 These numbers should make you very uncomfortable.
DOES IT PASS THE ABC TEST?
• ATTITUDE:
• BEHAVIOR:
• CHARACTER:
Teach your children these ABCs so they can learn discernment for themselves as they grow older.
We’d read a Bible verse followed by a story. We’d talk about it, and we’d pray. We tried to adjust it so the story was told in a way they could understand.
Your rituals may be odd to others, and that’s okay. You are aiming for the spiritual growth of your family, not someone else’s.
Don’t worry about the starts and stops. Just keep beginning again.
We may not complete every devotional book or Bible project, but we must keep coming back to the Word of God, purposefully serving it to our children.
I can’t think of a better way to begin and end a day than with the Word of God.
Don’t allow your child to begin and end the day on a tablet playing games or watching videos. Those transitional moments are too precious to waste on something mindless or even harmful.
We need to ask more of God and less of Google. Your kids will learn how to reach out to God in prayer by hearing you pray out loud.
Do they hear us pray in the moment, or do we just say we’ll pray later, so they never hear us pray that prayer? I think one of the best ways to demonstrate your dependence upon God and your love for your kids is when they share a concern, you say, “Let’s pray right now.” It’s very powerful.
We as parents have the responsibility and honor of teaching our kids how to pray.
Kneeling can show that deeper reverence. It’s not that God hears us any clearer if we’re on our knees. It’s more about our heart attitude, honoring the God who will answer our prayer.12
Make an appointment to pray regularly with others, whether through Moms in Prayer, your local church, or with friends or family members. Taking time to pray for your child by name will completely change the spiritual landscape of your home.
I wonder if she can tell I love Jesus. Can she see from my life that I’m all in? Does she know I’m not just a casual fan of Jesus, but a die-hard follower?
We parents are surrounded by little disciples, who are watching us. Whether you have a toddler at your heels or a teen hiding in his bedroom, they are observing you. Your children are checking to see if what you say matches what you do and who you are.
Not only is modeling a Christ-dependent, grace-filled life important, we must also speak up. There are times to correct, teach, train, and coach our children using words. Life-changing truth is both caught and taught. Both elements are essential.
When your children face tests and trials, remember these are strengthening exercises so they may discover God’s ways for themselves.
“Don’t give into false guilt. How can we do anything about something we’ve never thought of? That’s why reading the Bible and taking care of our relationship with the Lord is so important. We’re changed a little bit, from glory to glory. He doesn’t expect us to know the whole Bible in one sitting.”13
Instead of noticing what is deficient in your parenting, notice what is proficient in God!
Don’t allow condemnation to keep you down. You can confess your sin before God, and He is faithful to forgive you and give you a clean slate for a new day. There is incredible freedom from sin because of the blood of Jesus. As you walk in freedom, you’ll show your kids how to do the same.
