Forget The Rules

God is such a wonderful provider for us. Take a moment to look at nature and all the flowers and color and creatures that He crafted for our pleasure. When sin separated us from Him, He came among us, giving up the comfort, glory, and honor He held in heaven to serve, feed, live with, and encourage His own precious disciples.

Our life with God is not just made up of a list of rules He has given us. He comes as the servant King, the One who lays down His life, the One who is humble and meek. God gives us wisdom and guidance so that our lives will be healthy, strong, and protected.

This becomes our pattern for parenting. He served and loved and sacrificed and gave of Himself so that we would long to be holy out of our gratitude, reverence, and love for Him. He called His disciples to serve, to love, and to be holy. He gave them true life and beauty that filled their deepest needs, as well as fulfilling their longings to live a purposeful life.

Getting the rules right and defining theology correctly will not make our children want to serve God. It is laying down our lives for them—serving them, listening to them, loving who God made them to be, that will give them a desire to love God with all their hearts. By experiencing our love for them, they will more easily understand and receive God’s love, as it will already be familiar to their hearts and minds.

His Promises

God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.

They replied, “We want to perform God’s works, too. What should we do?” Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.”

Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.