2 Concerns for Today's Christian Parents July 13, 2017

(Image courtesy of http://kidsministryresources.com.)

Until three or four years ago, I questioned my salvation.  How could God love me? I would often think to myself.  I am no good at keeping His laws.  If I was truly a child of God, I would be able to do all the things He commands of me.

I used to doubt that I was even saved until a few years ago, when I encountered the Word of God head-on and was left feeling eternally joyful and grateful because of Christ Jesus my Savior.  After further reflection on my life, I have come to believe that I, indeed, submitted to Christ early in life, but I failed to receive the proper, doctrinal teaching to help me walk in newness of life.

Reflecting on my own life leads me to address two concerns I call parents to be aware of today, that we may avoid the unintentional errors of those before us.

To Love Like Christ July 10, 2017

(Image courtesy of https://www.lds.org.)

"Do not think I that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17). 

"And He said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets'" (Matthew 22:37-40).

Jesus Christ is the only person to ever live in perfect submission to the Law of God.  If you are a Christian, this should be as truthful to you as the reality that you are breathing right now.  Jesus Christ was perfect.  Not only did He keep all the external commands of God given to Israel, more importantly, because of our stone-like hearts, He did what we could not: He loved God and people perfectly.

Jesus Himself says that the essence of the Law of God is love: "On these two commandments [of love] depend all the Law and the Prophets."  The word picture here is of a hook or hanger on which all the other commandments hang.  Furthermore, Christ says that He came not to abolish this law, but rather to fulfill it.  It was not that Christ checked off the boxes of keeping the whole law that made Him worthy to be our propitiation - the Pharisees did that (see Matthew 5:20)!  No, Christ was perfect because His heart was perfect, both in His submission to His Father and in His servanthood to people; that is to say, Christ was perfect both in His love for His Father and His love for people.