The Lies We Love to Believe: Helping Parents and Teenagers Replace Lies With Truth
I’m told the best way to spot a fake dollar bill is by studying a real dollar bill. Counterfeit money in circulation is a big deal. It produces mistrust, causes great loss, and, if not checked, would result in a complete collapse of our financial system. Lies in circulation about God’s word are just as destructive. As parents, we are all too familiar with the lies our children are prone to believe about themselves. When they miss a goal, fail a test, or aren’t included in a group text, Satan begins to spin lies about their worth and purpose.
We need to help our children learn how to decipher truth from lies. In order to protect our children against the danger of lies, we must be dedicated to studying the truth of God’s Word and encourage our children to do likewise. Like with money, the better they know God’s Word, the better they will be able to spot any lies that contradict it.
When our children feel the weight of the world’s lies, we want to validate their very real feelings while also pointing them to what is true. Parents can help their children discern lies from truth by showing them what God’s Word says about who they image and what their purpose is.
Most every lie we believe stems from (1) whom we image and (2) what our purpose is. The world tells the lie that we should aspire to look like whatever we put our eyes and ambitions on. “Just be you! Unless ‘you’ is not who you want to be, then claim to be whomever you want.” The world also tells us that we should do whatever we want because we deserve whatever we want. But Scripture tells us the truth about our image and purpose: we are created in the very image of God and he gives us a royal responsibility…
Family Discipleship Through Daily Conversation
“The galaxy has always been here,” answers my son. At seven years old, certain yet curious, he confronts the idea that God made everything, except surely not this. The galaxy is too big and concrete to have ever not been there.
“Ry, do you remember when we read about how God created the sky, the sun, the moon, and the stars?” (Genesis 1:14-18) The time we spend at night reading from his Jesus Storybook Bible comes to mind. We have read this book from cover to cover many times, cuddling in bed, surrounded by his faithful stuffed animals. He remembers looking at the pictures of the expanse covered with tiny stars, but somehow the story now chafes with the idea that creating the universe might be “too great,” even for God.
“The heavens!” he counters, “they have always been here because heaven is where God lives.” I can see his mind working as he sifts familiar ideas with a new perception of reality. I reply, “Remember how in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1)? But although he has heard this before, the idea that the heavens and the earth were created, and not eternal, feels impossible.
He is right, it is impossible. Our limited human minds are incapable of comprehending the unlimited. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true. My son and I got to talk about “ex nihilo,” how God created “from nothing,” while I was at the sink washing dishes and he was avoiding homework. This is where discipleship happens in my home.
(continue reading at Rooted Ministry)
Changing the Parenting Game: Making the Moves That Truly Matter
As my husband and I discuss our children’s future, we sometimes feel as if we are playing a game. If we just move this piece here and maneuver there, then our kids have the best chance to pass go and collect the one hundred dollars (or two hundred if you land on it, house rules!). Or, if we make a “bad move,” it may cost them the game. Except we aren’t playing a game, we are affecting their future. That’s a lot of pressure.
The world says that if we get our kids in the right schools, sign them up for the most extra-curricular activities, and help them make the best teams, then their future will be secure, happy, and prosperous. The desire for our children to be secure, happy, and prosperous is not bad, but we can often mistake our God-given calling to make disciples with the world’s misguided goals… (continue reading at Rooted Ministry)
Jesus the Co-star?
I love driving in my neighborhood during the Christmas season to see it transform into a twinkling realm. This week I drove past a house displaying a giant blow-up Santa standing proud beside a sleigh. The jolly man bent to the left and right, hiding a quaint manger at the whim of the breeze. As the manger drifted in and out of view, I realized how this sight was a picture of our cultural relationship with Christmas.
Jesus is the reason for the season… but that’s not what I see displayed here, in the stores, or really in my own home. The story of a magical North Pole is hardly dangerous, but what does it mean when baby Jesus co-stars with a red-nose reindeer? In our culture, fictional characters mingle with historical figures, and we soon forget which stories are true.
Read more at: https://rootedministry.com/jesus-the-co-star/
God’s Goodness is Good Enough For Our Kids
“Be good, make wise choices!”
How many of us have said this to our kids? I would assume in one way or another we all have.
A reminder or even a plea to do the right thing is not wrong, but if the pursuit of being “good” is primary, then discouragement and failure will follow. Failure is inevitable. Our sin nature makes sure of this. Our kids will fail tomorrow, and they will fail the next day and the next. We have only to look at our own efforts to see this to be true
I hiked two 14ers in Colorado this year and let me tell you, it was hard. There were moments when placing one foot in front of the other seemed overwhelming. My goal was to reach the summit. Well, and to not die.…
Read more at https://rootedministry.com/gods-goodness-enough-for-kids/
The Battle of Enchantment
An enchanted world makes us think of a land of talking animals or fairies. Where the lighting almost glows and normal humans are anything but normal. Man’s abilities heightened, and talk seems to invariably reverberate into song. Something about the enchanted world pulls us in as reality bends and the impossible, becomes possible. But when the lines of entertainment and reality blur, our hearts and minds begin to be taken captive by falsehood.
It did not begin with falsehood. In the beginning, the void and dark world was formed and created to perfection into an expanse of waters and land, vegetation, plants and trees with creatures that swarmed in the waters and animals who crawled over the lands. Our best imagination of this captivating Eden must pale in comparison with what Adam and Eve experienced themselves. But instead of living happily ever after, Adam and Eve became enchanted by a false story, a false reality, twisting God’s original order and design.
To be enchanted by God’s beauty and His handywork is good and an act of worship, but sin has changed this forever. We too often become enchanted away from God’s truth and thus, deceived, and in awe of death and destruction packaged as fairy dust and wonder. You see, an enchantment seeks not the intellect at first pass but overcomes the mind through emotion and feeling. Enchantment is one of Satan’s crafty tactics in which to lure our hearts and minds away from truth, away from God Himself. Eve was captivated by the illusion of enlightenment and freedom through Satan’s cunning performance. She devoured the lie and stepped into a false reality which had dire consequences for herself and all of mankind after her. We too become disillusioned to what we perceive as reality and become swept up by a false hope or sweet whisper earnestly seeking to deceive the heart.
Our response to this brokenness is to reenchant ourselves to God and guard our hearts against the world’s deception. The act of guarding our hearts becomes a necessary and crucial response as culture seeks to draw us into its glamour. The poison of relative truth clothed in a juicy apple. Everyone can craft their own reality, just take one bite… How do we defend against this? First, with God’s own Spirit. The creator God invites us into relationship with Himself and girds us with His Spirit. Pursuing God and seeking to know and understand His truth through His Word become both weapon and shield. Grounded by reality, emotions can be checked so that heart and mind are not lead astray.
Our ability to be resolute is found only in the honest pursuit of God’s heart. When culture woos us to be captivated by anything other than God, we must caution our heart and with both heart and mind, seek to learn more of the goodness and beauty of the Lord. Step through the wardrobe and see the wonder of God.
Teaching our Children to Contend for God’s Truth
I remember playing a game called Telephone in grade school. A whispered secret met my ear as I strained to hear the message. At the end of the game, I remember feeling surprised and confused that what I had heard along the telephone line, was in fact… not the original message. I had received words secondhand and somehow, the words passed on were skewed, and in some rounds, lost entirely.
Secondhand information permeates every sphere of our lives and if we aren’t careful, we will make decisions based on faulty information. Our children will learn from us to do the same. …