Posts Tagged ‘ theology ’

If I had a daughter, this is what I’d tell her…


People told me everything would change when I got married. I didn’t understand what they meant, and then I got married and saw for myself. People told me everything would change when I became a father. I didn’t understand what they meant, then I held my infant son for the first time and my world was different.

I can only imagine the difference if I were to have a daughter. Though I don’t currently, that doesn’t mean I never will. And because I don’t, I want to make sure that my son learns how he should and should not treat a girl, young woman, or lady (depending on the stages of life!). I want to teach him how to treat here so that he’ll find a life of happiness ahead of him with the right girl (decades down the road!) but also because I believe in the principle of sowing and reaping. If I teach my son how to treat a young woman, then I believe that it is good seed being planted when I eventually have a daughter, so that she’ll have a young man that treats her the same way.

But even so, if that day ever comes, there are some things I want to make sure she knows from me. Today I came across the following posting from The Christian Pundit (thechristianpundit.org) that put it so perfectly. I want to share it with you.

Enjoy

DK

It Matters Whom You Marry
August 15, 2012 By RVD in Marriage, Women

My husband and I were once with a youth group. There were three kids sitting across from us at a meal: two guys and a girl. The one guy was a computer geek with glasses. The other one was a college student with slightly cooler hair and no glasses. The girl was obviously with him. But while the computer geek was busy serving everyone at the meal, clearing plates and garbage, the college student got angry with the girl for a small accident and poured red juice over her leather jacket and white shirt. She picked the wrong guy, and the juice didn’t seem to change her mind. She is in for some grief if that relationship continues and especially if it leads to marriage.

So to all the young, unmarried Christian girls out there, listen up: who you marry matters. You might think that the way he treats you isn’t so bad. It’s not going to get better after the wedding. You might think that he’ll change. It’s possible, but most don’t. You might think that you’ll be able to minister to him and help him. Possibly, but if you can’t now, you won’t then, and you will be at risk yourself. A husband should lead and cherish you, not need your counsel for basic personality or behavior issues.

Unless someone married is very frank with you, you can’t understand how much a husband will impact your entire life. Next to salvation there is no other long term event that will change so many areas of your life so deeply. Here are just some of the ways that marriage will impact every aspect of living.

1. It will impact you spiritually. If the guy is not a believer, you can stop right there. You have no business yoking a redeemed soul with an unregenerate one, even if he seems open to change. Christ has bought you with a price and it is not an option to give away that blood bought heart to someone who doesn’t know and love your Lord. It will cripple your spiritual development, open up a host of temptations, stifle your prayer life, make regular church going difficult, and cause massive parenting conflict if you have children.

If the guy is a believer, is he a strong one? Will he lead you in prayer, Bible reading, family devotions, and public worship? Or will you be on your own? Is he going to make spiritual growth a priority or do other things come first? Is he going to ask you how it’s going with your soul so he can help you grow in holiness and love for Christ, or will he leave that to your pastor? Is he going to lead the children in this, or will you have to spearhead that? In church, is he going to help the kids sit well, pray, find the hymn, or will you be the one pointing out what is happening next and helping the family keep up? Many women have married spiritually immature men, thinking that it wasn’t a big issue, or that the man would change, and they were wrong. They bear the scars.

The health of your eternity is at stake. Think carefully.

2. It will impact you emotionally. Is the guy you’re thinking of going to encourage you, love you, be kind to you, and seek to understand you, or will he want to go out with the guys when you’re having a hard night? Will he listen when you are struggling with something or will he be preoccupied with a video game? Is he going to be annoyed when you cry or will he get you Kleenex and give you a hug? Is he going to going to understand that you are probably more tender than he is, more sensitive to issues and comments, or is he regularly going to run rough shod over your feelings? One woman was struggling to breastfeed her new baby, believing that that was the best thing for her, but it was very difficult. Instead of giving support and encouragement, the husband would make mooing sounds whenever he saw his wife working at it. We have to get rid of princess complexes, but we do have emotional needs. Any guy who is uncaring about your feelings and self esteem is selfish and should be left alone.

Be careful – a husband can cripple or foster emotional health.

3. It will impact you physically. Is the guy you’re with going to provide for your basic needs? Will he be able to shelter, clothe and feed you? At one point in our marriage, I was worried that there was no employment opportunity. My husband assured me that he would work at McDonalds, dig ditches, clean up roadkill – whatever it took to provide for the family, regardless of his gifts and training. That’s the kind of attitude you want. A man who doesn’t provide for his household is worse than an infidel (I Tim. 5:8). You might have to help ease the financial burden, but unless your husband is disabled or there is another unusual circumstance, you shouldn’t have to carry it yourself.

Will the man you are with care for your body or abuse it? If he gives you little smacks, kicks, etc. when you’re dating, get away. It’s almost guaranteed that he will abuse you after marriage, and stats show that’s especially true when you are pregnant. Is he going to care for and protect your body or will he hurt it? There are women in churches across America who thought it was no big deal to have little (sort of friendly) punches or slaps from their boyfriends, but who are covering up the bruises from their husbands.

Will the man you are with care for you sexually? Is he going to honour the marriage bed in physical and mental faithfulness to you or will he flirt, feed his porn addiction, or even leave you for another woman? You can’t always predict these issues, but if the seeds or practices are already there, watch out. I recently saw a newly married couple and the husband was flirting openly with another woman. Unless something drastic happens, that marriage is headed for disaster.

Is he going to be tender and gentle to you in bed? An unbelieving co-worker once told my sister that after her first sexual encounter, she had trouble walking for a few days because her boyfriend was so rough. In other words, he wasn’t selfless enough to care for the body of the woman he said he loved.

Watch out. Your body needs care and protection.

4. It will impact you mentally. Is the man that you’re thinking of going to be a source of worry or will he help you deal with your worries? Is he going to encourage your intellectual development, or will he neglect it? Is he going to value your opinions and listen to what you are thinking, or will he disregard your thoughts? Is he going to help you manage stress so that your mind is not burdened that way, or is he going to let you struggle through issues alone? Is he going to care for you and be thoughtful of you if you are experiencing mental strain, or will he ignore it? I know of a woman who could handle pregnancy and child birth very well physically but postpartum depression took a huge toll on her mind. The husband overlooked it, continuing to have more children, until his wife ended up in a mental institution.

You might think that the intellectual or mental side of a marriage is small. It’s bigger than you think. Consider it seriously.

5. It will impact you relationally. How’s your relationship with your mother? Your dad? Do you love them? Does your boyfriend? Fast forward ten years: you tell your husband that your mother is coming for the weekend. Is he excited? Disappointed? Angry? Making snide jokes with his friends? Of course, a husband should come first in your priority of relationships, as you both leave father and mother and cleave to one another. But parents are still a big part of the picture. Whatever negative feelings he has about your parents now will probably be amplified after marriage. Your marriage will either strengthen or damage – even destroy – your relationship with your parents. The people who know you best and love you most right now could be cut out of the picture by a husband who hates them.

It’s the same with sisters and friends. Will they be welcomed, at reasonable times, in your home? Will the guy who you’re with encourage healthy relationships with other women, or will he be jealous of normal, biblical friendships? Will he help you mentor younger women and be thankful when older women mentor you, or will he belittle that?

Don’t sacrifice many good relationships for the sake of one guy who can’t value the people who love you.

So how will your boyfriend do after the vows? Because this is just a sampling of the ways that a husband can bless or curse his wife. The effects are far reaching, long lasting, and either wonderful or difficult. True, there are no perfect men out there. But there are great ones. And it’s better to be single for life than to marry someone who will make your life a burden. Singleness can be great. Marriage to the wrong person is a nightmare. I’ve been in a church parking lot where the pastor had to call the police to protect a wife from a husband who was trying to stop her from worshiping and being with her family. It’s ugly. Don’t be so desperate to get married that your marriage is a grief. If you are in an unhappy marriage, there are ways to get help. But if you’re not married, don’t put yourself in that situation. Don’t marry someone whose leadership you can’t follow. Don’t marry someone who is not seeking to love you as Christ loved the church. Marry someone who knows and demonstrates the love of Christ.

2013
04/18
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Bible
children and family
Christian Life
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BFF


We just started a new series at Life Christian called BFF that’s all about the Holy Spirit. I had the privilege of preaching the intro message, looking at who the Holy Spirit is. It was a lot of fun, so i wanted to share it with you! Just click the link below and you’ll be redirected to the message.

Hope you enjoy!

DK

Who is the Holy Spirit

2013
04/11
CATEGORY
Christian Life
ministry
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Famly + God = Success


Today I’m going back in my own archives to 2010. I love resourcing families and I believe in the leadership of parents to influence their children for God. Putting those two things together, enjoy this repost from a few years back on doing family devotions!

DK

One of my big things is the idea that I am a resource to parents and families, not the replacement for mom and dad as the primary influences in their children’s spiritual development. A while back I actually taught a Sunday morning about influence and the need for parents to be parents. I provided a variety of resources at that time that were user-friendly and ready for mom and dad to pick up, read, and apply in their families.

One of those resources was a simple two-sided sheet of paper on how to do family devotions. I’ve heard so many parents say that they don’t do devotions with their kids for all numbers of reasons, the greatest being they don’t know how to relate spiritual truth to children. In my efforts to find something a dad in a hurry or a single mother could use that offers practical instruction, I came across this blog post from 2006 by Pastor Erik Raymond. As soon as I read it I thought ‘this is it! This is usable!’

So i did a google search, found him, copied the post and asked if I could have permission to use it. Thankfully, he said yes. I share it with you for the same reason I handed out copies to every parent in my church…you need to be involved in the spiritual formation of your child(ren), without exception. If you are already doing a family devotion time, maybe this will reinforce its importance or help you improve that time. If you’re not, here ya go: no more excuses.

DK

This information comes from a blog by Erik Raymond published 30 08 2006 and is reused by permission of the author

Doing Family Devotions

Ephesians 6:4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

The Scripture is pretty clear on the fact that we have a responsibility to be training our children in the truth. Christian fathers in particular have a responsibility to be leading and training their families in the Revelation of God.

Many men struggle in the area of family devotions. It is kind of like evangelism, we know we have to do it but it is the doing it that is the problem.

Because I have echoed the Scriptures command for you and me to act like men and because some folks have requested that I talk about it, this is a quick guide to doing family devotions.

What follows is not an exhaustive how-to manual but rather some things that we do in trying to “teach them diligently” (Duet. 6.4) as God has commanded. Most of these things are things that we do, I am not saying that everyone has to do them, but rather supply suggestions in effort to be helpful.

-1- Be in the Word yourself

If you are going to teach your family to love the Word of God you better love the Word of God yourself. God’s design in commanding men to lead their families in the truth is to be preserving faithfulness throughout generations not modeling self-dependence and hypocrisy.

If you have not gone to the well of truth to draw fresh water from heaven than do not pretend to have something to say to your family. Instead, retire to a place where you can open up the Bible and drink from the fountain of grace that you might be fueled to speak of how impressed you are with Christ. You must know the Jesus you speak of, and not just know him but love him; this love is birthed by divine grace through the word of God and sustained by the same means.

-2- Choosing a Topic

In our family we usually go through books or sections of books of the Bible. We have been most recently going through Mark’s gospel, but I felt the need to work on teaching my family to pray more biblically, so we have been working on the Lord’s prayer in Matt. 6.

I have found that narratives are great for our family due to their ages. This also forces me to continually explain the context and themes of the book. I am learning too!!

You may have something that needs to be dealt with in your family. Family devotions are a great place to do this. Study as the leader and communicate what the Bible says and apply it to specific circumstances.

-3- Open the Bible

This is always a good thing! When you as the leader open the Bible you show your submission to what God says and you are modeling faithfulness to the Word. You may have the text memorized, it doesn’t matter, open the book and read it. Show your family you love the Bible.

Your own handling of the Scriptures expresses your view of the Scripture. Is it authoritative? Then you must open it up, interact with it and submit to it as you endeavor to apply it.

-4- Have a set time

It is good to set a routine for when you will read together. We like to read in the evening after dinner or before bed. I have brought the Bible out to eat with us to read and talk while we wait for the food. This encourages your family not to fear man and shows them that their Dad/husband loves the Bible.

-5- Talk about the Word all the time

As a family we may not sit down every single night and do a devotion, however, there is not a day that goes by that I do not speak to my kids about God. I want to make sure that the climate in my home is Christ centered therefore everything is a sign to point to Jesus. With little children their discipline is within the context of the gospel, for we are not trying to teach morality but Christianity! Their framework for obedience must be a holy and righteous creator and an accountable humanity. The only way to have this work right is within the context of the gospel.

My wife is a great help here. She talks about the Bible all the time with our kids during the day and we talk about it at night. It is important to create a climate that supports the sufficiency of Scripture and our dependence upon God.

-6- Make it fun

Family devotions should not be like doing chores. We don’t want to be all cantankerous and mean hitting our kids with a 45 minute running commentary on the book. Instead I have found it helpful to use a lot of illustrations that apply to my children’s lives. I have used action figures to explain a narrative, made up rhymes about “Elijah who likes to play with fy-ahh!” And “Ehud was a tough dude” …kids remember stuff like this.

I have also found it helpful to pause a lot and ask question of individuals. My 11 year old son could sit and listen to a sermon but my 4 year old girl will listen for 4 minutes and then start day-dreaming about a pink Pegasus. I have to reel her in frequently and ask her a question. Sometimes it is as simple as, “What did Jesus say to the woman?” Other times I’ll make a statement like, “Jesus heals people to show that he is the King, he is God, and he has power” then I’ll ask Alaynah (4), “why does Jesus heal people?” It is good to keep asking questions.

-7- Make application

After teaching the passage to your own heart make specific applications to your family’s. You may ask them questions like, “What can we do tonight, tomorrow or this week to live this scripture out?” and then being sure to follow up on that.

The time you spend in the word will serve to be a great resource for instruction in the days and years ahead.

-8- Addressing your wife

Your wife is your helpmate but she is also your responsibility as the husband. You are to lead her and teach her as well (Eph. 5.25-29). Sometimes the tendency is to spend so much time on the kids that you forget about your wife. It is good to involve your wife by asking her questions. The kids get to see that Mom knows and loves the Word too.

One thing to consider is that simply being a leader is a huge edifying factor for your wife. During devotions your wife gets to see first hand that her husband is a man! It shows that you love God and your family.

Something else to consider: more than likely, your wife rarely gets to sit down during the day. So, to sit with the kids and rub their hair or scratch their back while you do a devotion has several effects: your wife gets to hear God’s word, to learn something, to get time to be with the kids, to rest and to see you lead. How edifying is that?

-9- Teaching Prayer

Devotions are a great time to teach prayer. You as the leader can model biblical prayer. However, this is not the only time. I try to pray whenever I feel compelled to. This may be driving or some odd time during the day. It is good to teach your kids dependence upon God throughout the day not just during “quiet time”.

This is also a great opportunity to teach. Sometimes one of our kids will get loose with an unbiblical prayer and I often stop them and instruct them biblically and help them to think and pray in a way that God has prescribed. What do you do if your 5 year old prays for Satan to be saved? This is a great time to make personal application based upon what God has prescribed. Our recent study in Matt. 6 has really helped this.

-10- Gospelize your family

Remember that the whole point in doing this is to point your family to Jesus. Therefore, it is right to continue to explain and apply the gospel. Talk about the gospel all the time. Remember that your kids are young, they have not been dwelling upon the gospel for years, they probably don’t understand it like you do and they need to hear it! For we learn in Romans that “faith comes by hearing and hearing from the word of Christ” (Rom. 10.17). So since the gospel “is the power of God for salvation” (Rom. 1.15) and we want our kids to be saved, then what should we be telling them?

-11- Remember that this is a command

God does not ask us to lead and teach our families, he commands it. This is a regal decree from the King of heaven to us as his followers and leaders of our families. Therefore we must be good stewards of our time, pouring into our kid’s hearts and lives the unsearchable riches of Christ.

If you are struggling with this discipline then resolve today to get started; and the best way to get started is to get started. Open up your Bible read it and apply it to your life. Go home tonight and tell your family that you want to read the Word of God to them. And then do it again tomorrow, praying that God would water his word.

2013
03/21
CATEGORY
Bible
children and family
Christian Life
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Well I’ve certainly been having fun as we’ve looked at evidence and asked some questions. We’re almost done with this series, and today as we begin to wrap up, I thought we should address the famous book by Richard Dawkins that slams God, religion, and specifically Christianity. So…without further ado…

DK

Question: “Is God a delusion?” (www.gotquestions.org)

Answer: Richard Dawkins is the world’s chief apostle for atheism and has been Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University since 1996. In his 2006 book The God Delusion, he labels God and belief in God as delusions. Dawkins is a gifted writer, and his position at the leading university in the English-speaking world gives him great prestige in intellectual, cultural, and political circles. His atheism is fierce. The jacket of The God Delusion calls the God of the Old Testament “a sex-obsessed tyrant” and the deistic god of the 18th century Enlightenment a “more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker.” Belief in God, says Dawkins, subverts science and knowledge, breeds ignorance, foments bigotry, and abuses children. All this happens for the simple reason that God is a delusion. Not only are “fundamentalists” unintelligent for “know[ing] they are right because they have read the truth in a holy book,” but even moderation in faith, says Dawkins, “fosters fanaticism.”

There are plenty of intelligent answers to Dawkins’ contentions about life, history, science, ethics, and God, as well as to his general crusade against all things religious and, particularly, all things Christian. But what does the Bible say about people like Dawkins and the arguments he proposes? The Bible is just as firm as Dawkins in its assertions about God and man. Psalm 14:1-3, for example, says, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” Fools who deny the existence of God are corrupt and vile, and so are their deeds. Because their understanding is also corrupt, “they do not seek after God.” Note that the Bible and Dawkins are directly opposed to one another. Dawkins says there is no God, and people who believe in Him do terrible things. The Bible says there is a God, and it is rather the people who deny Him who do terrible things. Further, the apostle Paul declares that the reason people who deny God can gain and maintain such large followings, as Dawkins has, is that the human race in general is lost in sin and self-delusion and seek after those whose rhetoric reflects the same. Those who deny God follow eagerly after Dawkins and his ilk because they have hatred for God in common (2 Timothy 4:3).

The Bible sees the denial of God as the true delusion, and this delusion extends to the atheist’s view of humanity as “good,” all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. A sober assessment of human beings recognizes that we lie, cheat, steal, lust, complain, become embittered and resentful, envy, hate, forget, and are careless, ruthless, disrespectful, and loveless. Not only do we do all these things on a daily and hourly basis, but we do them naturally from our birth. This is what God’s Word means when it says, “There is no one who does good” (Psalm 14:3). This does not mean we never do anything positive, like obeying our parents or giving money to a church or charity. It means that we are so obviously sinful that it is silly to call human beings “good.” Nobody teaches children to lie; they do it naturally. Nobody teaches teenage boys to lust; they do it naturally. Nobody teaches the employee to resent his boss or spread malicious gossip about the coworker with whom he is competing for a promotion; he does these things naturally. Nobody teaches the wife to unjustly criticize and complain about her husband, or the husband to neglect and condescend to his wife; both do these things naturally. Yet in the sixth chapter of The God Delusion, entitled “The Roots of Morality: Why Are We Good?”, Dawkins explains why human beings are good—based on nothing more than his own opinion—despite the fact that there is no God who defines what is good. Again, Dawkins not only directly opposes the Bible’s teaching but he denies what is obvious to even the most casual observer of human nature and behavior.

At the same time, Dawkins titles his ninth chapter “Childhood, Abuse and the Escape from Religion.” There he reports replying to a question about clergy sexual abuse by saying, “Horrible as sexual abuse no doubt was, the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage inflicted by bringing the child up Catholic in the first place” (p. 317). Human beings are good, says Dawkins, and even the sexual abuse they perpetrate is better than a religion which tells them they are not good. How he explains the desire for “good” men—priests or otherwise—to abuse children sexually in the first place is a mystery. The Bible, however, does explain it. Men do evil because their hearts are evil (Matthew 12:35), and unless they are made new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), they will continue to do evil because it is their natural inclination.

The apostle Paul explains the function of law (to convict of sin) and the salvation from sin—that has come to the world in Jesus Christ. “But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world?…There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God” (Romans 3:5-6, 10-11). The Bible here is saying that it is not the psychological abuse we suffer from religion that makes human beings, including some pastors and priests, do evil things like abuse children. Rather, it is our inherent sin nature that makes us do these things, and it is our insufficient attention to God, to Jesus, to Christian truth, and to the Bible’s teaching that causes this behavior to continue even where religious activity and institutions are present. It is not that the idea of God has caused us psychological damage; it is that we are born psychologically damaged, with a natural inclination toward what is evil, and we ignore and reject God, who is the only source of salvation from our sin and psychological damage. Even though we may intellectually accept the idea of God’s existence, when we ignore Him and reject His Word, we are as good as saying He is a delusion.

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines “delusion” as follows: “Something that is falsely or delusively believed or propagated; a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary; also, the abnormal state marked by such beliefs.” The last clause is significant: intellectual and moral delusion have permanent effects on the mind and heart. Believing lies causes the mind to begin to operate abnormally and to exist in a state that is not healthy and perhaps even dangerous, both for itself and for others. This is what the Bible calls “sin,” and a core element of our sin is our delusion that God does not exist.

It should be stated clearly here, given how often atheism presents and promotes itself under the banner of science, that science is not to blame for atheism or any other symptom of human sinfulness. In fact, many great scientists of the past were Christians, believing Jesus Christ to be the representative of God on earth, the same God who made the heavens and the earth and established the laws by which the natural world operates and which scientists investigate. Most of the “giants” of modern science and most founders of hospitals, orphanages, soup kitchens, and every other kind of charity that has humanized and softened a world made inhumane and hard by human sinfulness, were Christians. They pursued rational understanding of the cosmos because they believed God, who has a mind, had created the cosmos according to the principles of rational and mathematical operation that govern the human mind, which is designed in the image of God’s mind.

Belief in God is thus no delusion. It is inherently and fundamentally rational. It is the source of true wisdom regarding why human beings do evil things so often and so naturally, why we can work so hard to be good and still fail, and why Jesus Christ and only Jesus Christ is the spiritual hope for mankind. It also explains why people who believe in Jesus Christ have done so much not only to remedy the effects in this world of human sin, but to scientifically understand this world and to organize and publish the principles of science.

2013
02/13
CATEGORY
Bible
ministry
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