Dear Friends,
More and more we’re encountering
parents and grandparents who aren’t
trusted by their own children
or grandchildren. These older generations are abdicating their
God-given responsibility to align the next generation’s
minds and hearts with the ways and will of God.
So many parents and grandparents are held
captive in emotional prisons of fear that they’ll be rejected by their
children — that their kids or grandkids will cut them off
if they authentically represent God’s love and
righteousness according to His Word. Sadly, many of these grandparents and parents deserve the
distrust that the next generation has of their spineless
approach to life.
In this Teaching E-mail we hope to show
you a path out this prison. When you’re freed from fear and apprehension, your
children and grandchildren will earnestly seek you out for
counsel because you’re hearing from the Holy Spirit on
their behalf.
Studies in recent decades have shown that
the United States has gone from being a “child-centered”
society to a “child-dominated” one. The causes are many. Some parents,
immersed in guilt that they’re too preoccupied with other
responsibilities, give in to their child’s demands to
appease their own conscience.
Others recoil from the way they themselves
were raised and choose to succumb to the plummeting moral
laxity of this decadent culture. Still others have little or no
support from righteous others, whether family members or
extended spiritual family who offer Godly input. You can
probably come up with other contributing factors yourself if
you think about it.
Even many Christian homes are raising a
generation of uncorrected, rebellious, hell-bound children who
think God exists only to fulfill their own selfish desires and
plans. And we grieve over the countless grandparents who are
not only giving in to this insidious trend but are supporting
it through passive assent or silence!
More grandparents than we care to count lowered the bar of
righteous standards when they were raising their children. And,
their adult children are doing likewise in raising the
grandchildren. Why has unrighteousness been allowed to
intensify with each generation while parents and grandparents
have shrugged in surrender? Consider these realities:
1. The “church growth” movement
has influenced much of Christendom for the past several
decades. In the quest to fill pews, tolerated sin is pandemic
among those who should lead the way in righteousness. Clergy
who evaluate personal success according to the size of their
congregation and the adulation they receive from professional
peers have seduced the unwary by appeasing
their sin nature rather than
confronting sin. Confession and repentance have become archaic
and outmoded in many congregations.
2. Humanism, the religion of public
education, has progressively convinced generations that a child
is inherently good, effectively countering Scripture’s
declaration that every human is inherently sinful. Humanism
theorizes that all a child needs is parental love and
toleration of whatever the child does so that his
“self-esteem” can be nurtured. Any form of
correcting a child is perceived as rejection and must be
avoided so that he won’t “feel bad about
himself.”
Humanism, the “religion”
of the universities which produce today’s educators,
exalts the child as the center of his life. God is a myth,
having neither place nor influence as Creator and Redeemer. The
child’s life purpose is to discover whatever pleases him
and brings self-fulfillment, unencumbered by any moral
constraints.
3. The majority of children of divorce are
raised by single mothers, or by mothers who have remarried and
whose husbands are relatively uninvolved in raising her
children. The children not only suffer from abandonment
(perceived or real) by a father who might enforce boundaries.
They also may lack righteous standards because their
guilt-plagued mothers have become their “friend”
and given up their parental responsibilities. Parents who feel
guilty “purchase favor” from their children
by giving in to them. This is a curse of divorce.
Even more staggering is this tragic
statistic: Children who are under the age of 4 when their
parents divorce have a 75% higher chance of becoming homosexual
when they mature than do children raised with their father (or
stable father-figure such as a grandfather or caring uncle). At
this crucial season in the child’s life, boys in
particular need to disidentify with their mother and identify with the
masculinity of their father. Think about this before you
consider divorce an option in your own marriage. This too is a
curse of divorce.
4. Too many grandparents and parents alike
have failed to understand God’s
way of instilling trust in a
child’s heart for his parents and grandparents.
(We’ll discuss this at length shortly.) Many adult
children consider their own parents the last people they’d
ask for counsel. What a dismal situation!
How would you recognize that your children or grandchildren
trust you? One key indicator is that they turn to you for guidance and direction.
If you’re a shepherd leading a
fellowship family, this same criterion applies to you. You and
your wife can righteously influence your faith family as spiritual parents and
grandparents in the arena of everyday problems and concerns.
Among our Hebraic forefathers,
grandparents often had a direct and clear role in relation to
raising and nurturing children. This interconnectedness has
often been neglected within both the Nicolaitan religious
system and the isolated nuclear family concept that plagues
this nation. As those seeking to restore the fruitful way of
life set forth in God’s Word, we need to regain and
implement biblical grandparenting — older, wiser men and women who are
trusted by the younger generations to counsel and guide them in
righteous living.
Do Your Children And/Or Grandchildren Trust
You?
In the past few months we’ve had the
opportunity to lovingly discipline not only our own
grandchildren but the grandchildren of others while we were
visiting. In each occurrence the response of the child toward
us deepened with trust! Rather than being fearful, the children
grew in affection, often coming to us before their own
grandparents and parents when they had needs or desires.
Why do you think this occurred?
All the verses which pertain to parenting
could be summed up with this:
Parents must establish righteous boundaries of
behavior and attitudes for their children, and consistently and
lovingly enforce them.
[This same criteria applies to those who
serve their fellowship family as a shepherd. We’ll come
back to this later.]
Many years ago Dr. James Dobson wrote that
a child’s sin-controlled mind is seeking boundaries. When
boundaries are established and consistently en-forced, the
child feels secure. A by-product of that relational security is
that their trust for the one who enforces the boundaries
deepens. And as we shared in Demolishing
Strongholds, two of the God-given
needs in every person are security and freedom within
boundaries.
Sue: When we’d been married about
four years and were still childless, we befriended a family
with three kids. I marveled how patient and loving the mother
was with her children. She NEVER corrected them! Mike warned me
that I was wrong in my evaluation and to not be attracted by
her nonconfrontive parenting style.
One night they invited us over for dinner.
During the meal their 2-year-old climbed up on the table and
began to crawl around the serving dishes. The parents ignored
him. That was too much even for me!
We were transferred soon afterward, but
years later heard that all three children underwent
professional counseling.
As an aside, when our son Mike was age
six, a friend asked him why he loved his parents. He
confidently replied, “Because they spank me when I need
it!”
There’s an important connection
between correcting a child and their
trust in the one who enforces Godly
standards.
Elephants Without Deference
[From our Hebraic Article: IMPUDENCE—Reflection
of the Anti-Christ Spirit in Today’s Church]
A television broadcast on the Dateline program
illustrated the devastation that results when mature influence and guidance is absent. In Africa about 25 years ago, the National
Park Service was faced with a ruinous overpopulation of
elephants. To keep the animals from plundering valuable crops
and defoliating the land, naturalists killed all the adult elephants,
preserving only the young.
As these youngsters matured, the male
calves in particular grew violent. Their fierce, aggressive
behavior was totally out of character. It was as though the restraint common
to elephants had vanished — or had never developed.
The naturalists realized that male
elephants, young ones especially, have such high testosterone
levels that they need the restraining
behavior of older elephant males to
keep them in control. It was the mature
males who taught the young to spar
with one another to relieve their sexual tension. In essence,
the older males taught the junior elephants a pecking order of deference. When the
naturalists imported adult males into the herd, deference was established
and more orderly behavior restored.
If you’re a parent with grown
children, or are a grandparent, your children and grandchildren
provide you feedback about your own parenting based upon whether they readily
turn to you for guidance. Anchor this truth:
Turning to you for guidance
is the KEY indicator of
your child’s trust in you.
Biblical parenting which includes role
modeling, teaching, praise and correcting is designed by God to
produce deference in your children. In Lifebyte 9. The Book of Daniel (Chapters
1-3) Personal
Responsibility— Deference — God-dependence, we explore deference:
• Deference is shown when you avoid choices and decisions that would offend those who serve in authority over
you.
• Deference causes you to fulfill
your responsibilities with a willing
heart rather than as a burden
of obligation.
• Deference is linked with humility, giving
honor and esteem to those who have a right to them.
Deference is the foundational character
quality of anyone who would follow Jesus. And instilling
deference is God’s means for your children to learn to
trust you. In order to accomplish this relational need, you
need absolute confidence in the righteous standards of behavior
and attitude you desire to instill in your child.
Only a working knowledge of the Bible made alive by the Spirit and your willingness to apply it to your family can bring this to fruition.
As your children come to realize that the
standards you lovingly and consistently enforce emanate from
the Bible rather than your own whim, they gain confidence in
your applications and they can grow in trust in you as their parent.
If you’re a grandparent or parent
who has fallen short in this dimension, you can get back on
track by asking your children to forgive
you for having failed them through
your negligence. Then together you can begin to establish biblical
applications for your lives — halakhahs.
This is where you grandparents
can intentionally
serve your children.
You can help do the leg work
in developing biblical applications for
your family!
If you’re a father with daughters,
remember this: Studies have consistently demonstrated that a
girl’s loving trust in her father is the single most important influence that keeps her from fornicating.
• If you’re a parent or
grandparent whose children are struggling in their marriage or
even considering divorce, do you love
them enough to intervene and help
them reconcile?
• Do you love
your children enough to do your part in
reconciling with them for the sake of your grandchildren?
A true story we heard years ago concerns a
family on the mission field in the jungle and epitomizes the
trust relationship of a child toward his father:
A young boy was walking toward his father.
As he was about to pass under a hanging limb the father yelled,
“Son, duck!!!!” The boy
immediately, without hesitation, fell to the ground. There in
the tree hanging on the limb was a poisonous viper.
• If God told you to
‘duck”, would you ask Him “Why?”, or
“How low?”
• If God told you to ‘jump’,
would you ask Him “Why?”, or “How
high?”
Pause for a moment: Do you really trust our Lord, or
only believe in Him?
How Does A Shepherd Gain
The Trust Of Those He Serves?
The principle for gaining the trust of the
people whom our Father has entrusted to your care for nurturing
and guiding is the same as parenting.
• It begins with with your confidence in His Word as you obey it in
His Spirit
• and your willingness to apply His Word as
your spiritual family’s standard
• and your readiness to uphold the biblical applications [halakhahs] that your
faith family establishes.
The faith family you serve needs confidence
in the biblical applications you all uphold. If neither you nor they are
confident that you’ve developed a biblical application in
the way that’s intended by God’s Word, then their
trust that God is using you to lead will diminish and
disappear.
Remember, prayerful discussion is the Hebraic
method of pursuing truth and applying it. The rabbis of the
Hebraic Stream taught that whenever two or three discussed God’s Word, the Holy Spirit was with them to give understanding and application.
Jesus commends the union of mutual
discussion and agreement by promising His particular presence
when this takes place. This is His declared method!
I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven.
For where two or three come
together in My name, there am I with them (Matthew 18:19,20; see also 16:
18,19).
The presence of Jesus in your midst as you
pursue applying the Bible makes all the difference in your
interconnectedness as family in Him. His promise to be
with you is what gives you
confidence in your biblical applications. This biblical process
removes control and manipulation, and stirs confident trust
that the ones serving as shepherds will uphold the applications
you’ve mutually established.
Jesus speaks of binding and loosing in
Matthew chapters 16 and 18, the only two times He mentions the
“called-out ones”, His church. In these passages
our Lord was taking away halakhic authority from the religious leaders
— the Scribes and Pharisees — and giving it to
His followers who trusted in Him as Lord.
You, your family, and the extended
spiritual family of your home fellowship would benefit from
discussing our booklet, Christian
Halakhahs—Loving Jesus Through The Way You Apply His Word (a free download). You’ll be encouraged
to realize that our Father has provided an ancient means for His
people to recognize and put into practice His wonderful ways!
• Each biblical application (halakhah) you
establish is in reality a “Thus
sayeth the Lord” for you.
Your halakhah is God’s specific command for you and your family.
To break it is sinful for you!
• A halakhah given through His Word is recognized by God as
your response of obedient trust as you apply it.
• The Bible reveals God’s
general revelation for all mankind. A halakhah is His specific
principle for you that He desires to become part of your personal
and communal character in Christ’s likeness.
Concluding Recommendations
Do you want to
be trusted by your children and/or
grandchildren as a righteous resource whose direction and
instruction are backed by God? Do you want to be trusted as a
shepherd who serves your faith family in Spirit and in truth?
Then you need to hear His Spirit and do as the Bible commands.
You must role model, teach, commend and
correct with all confidence the ones you love. And, your role
is to help them establish appropriate halakhahs and then
lovingly and willingly uphold them. Trust is always earned as
the motive of the one who is serving is revealed.
The questions below are for both parents
and grandparents to answer and discuss
together if possible:
1. Do your own children readily turn to you
for guidance and direction? If no, why not?
2. How do you correct your children? Is it
effective? Does it end with them asking forgiveness and you
forgiving them and not bringing up the matter again? Do they
turn to you in trust for counsel and help?
2. Do you correct them immediately? after
one warning? two warnings? three or more warnings? If you
correct them only after two or more warnings, why do you wait
so long?
3. When they’re acting rebelliously,
do you negotiate with them — trying to persuade them to
change? Or, do you readily confront the rebellion?
4. Do you fear your children’s
rejection? If yes, has it caused you to give in to them rather
than correct them?
5. Do you use the Bible as a reference for
the standards of behavior and attitudes you’re trying to
instill in your children?
6. Do you correct you child(ren) because
they’ve violated a biblical standard, or because what
they’re doing annoys you?
7. In your own parenting style, are you
trying to prove to your parents that you’re a better parent
than they were?
8. How do your children evaluate your
parenting? Has your parenting approach resulted in increased
love and trust for you?
9. If you’re a grandparent (whether
spiritual or biological), how are you actively helping your
children and grandchildren follow the way of the Lord? How are
you providing purposeful direction for them? Are you proactive in recognizing the areas of development they
need and actively guiding them? Or, are you reactionary, only lending
help when things go wrong?
10. As a grandparent (spiritual or
biological), are you aware of your biblical responsibility to
guide your grandchildren in the way of righteousness? Use your
concordance to explore the many passages that command intergenerational responsibility to train up following generations. Discuss
these with your children and grandchildren.
Are you headed for the Narrow Gate
yourself? If you are, you have a glorious welcome from our Lord
Jesus in store for you! And until you die, your primary
responsibility to your God, your children and your
grandchildren is to see that you leave this world with them headed for the
Narrow Gate too. There’s no greater legacy you can give
them, and your joy will be complete when you see them again on
the other side. (3 John 4)
