Monday, July 16, 2012
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
This devotional is dedicated to my brother-in-law Donnie Holbrook, whose life inspired both children and adults to follow him. My husband, his younger brother, surrendered his life to Christ just days after he saw his big brother come to Jesus in 1976. You may be gone home, Dondon, but your influence in the lives you touched lives on. See you soon, brother.
Passage:
Deuteronomy 11:18-24:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%2011:18-24&version=NASB
Key Verse:
“You shall teach them
to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk
along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up.” Deut 11:19
(NASB)
Jeryn is your typical 9-year old: lively, fun and with
enough energy to get three of me going for an entire day. As she sits around
while her mom and I talk, I would never imagine that she paid attention to what
I do or don't do or to what inspires me. Therefore I was surprised when she
handed me a small gift bag containing her personal gift for my birthday two
weeks ago. Inside it, I found something she had picked herself: a beautiful,
tiny sculpture of a flying eagle coming back to her nest, where eaglets
anxiously wait for their food. It’s actually the sculpture you see my baby girl
holding in the picture below.
My little friend looked up at me, her face beaming with
pride of her finding. Her mom proceeded to tell me that she found the sculpture
in a garage sale and thought of me. She proudly used her own money to buy me
the gift. Needless to say, her gift blessed my heart. But I honestly was taken
by surprise that little Jeryn - busy-hopping-around Jeryn - had watched long
enough to know that her mom’s friend loves eagles so much. Yes - little Jeryn
may be busy playing hide and seek with my children, but she is certainly
watching. And so are my two little girls. And so are your children,
grand-children, nieces and nephews. Their little eyes and ears are watching.
And their little feet are eager to follow you.
In the above passage in Deuteronomy, Moses instructed God's
people to obey God’s laws. He emphasized the importance of teaching them to
their children. And although it seems like he was only talking about speaking
truth and teaching God’s principles, I believe he meant much more than that. He
encouraged the Israelites to teach them as they sat around their homes, from sun
dawn to sun set and as they went by doing their daily routines. In other words,
he was also admonishing them to live what they preached.
“Do what
I say, but don't do what I do”
I know that there are exceptions to this, but I believe
that, for the most part, one of the reasons so many teenagers and young adults
who were raised in church later rebel against God, is because they lived in a
home filled with hypocrisy. I have heard that from so many people and have
witnessed it in lives around me. Many of us, who go to church every week and
are highly involved in ministry, are not always teaching God’s principles with
our actions. Of course that we all do it to a certain degree, because we are
human. Therefore at times you and I will fail to present a godly character to
our children and other people in our lives. Life gets tough some days and we
may get too tired or too worried about things that are happening and find
ourselves having a bad attitude. If your heart is beating, that is normal, as
long as these attitudes are the exception, not the rule. On days like that, we
must remember we have God’s grace, repent, ask the person whom we hurt to
forgive us (yes, even if it’s your 3 year old), learn the lesson and move on.
The problem is when our entire lives are the opposite of
what we preach. If you make your children quote and memorize the fruit of the
spirit in Galatians 5, but on that same day they witness you lose your temper
with their daddy over something small (for the fifth time that week), guess
which lesson they learned? Yep. Not joy, peace, gentleness, patience, love,
goodness and self control! They just learned that mommy does not apply the
fruit of the spirit to her life.
If you go to church and shout praises to the King, close
your eyes and lift your hands in worship, come home and curse them out for the
smallest thing, guess what little Sally, who was standing right beside you
during worship, think? Probably, “which
one is my mommy, after all?”
If you are at church each time the door is open, have time
to take on one more responsibility in the name of Jesus, but have no time to
listen to your preteen share her struggles at school, I can almost guarantee
you that she will resent church and possibly God.
The truth of the matter is – as Moses instructed God’s
people on how to teach God’s statures to their children, He made it a point
that they should teach them with their lives, not only with their words. If we
live what we preach, if we strive to follow God with all our might, not to
impress people, but to attract them to the Savior, the first ones who will want
to follow us are the little ones in our lives. They will see the joy, peace and
contentment that we display and their feet will be eager to follow us. And as
they do, the promises of God will follow the next generation, just as He has
promised the Israelites:
“(…) so that your days
and the days of your sons may be multiplied on the land which the Lord swore to
your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens remain above the earth. For
if you are careful to keep all this commandment which I am commanding you to
do, to love the Lord your God, to walk
in all His ways and hold fast to Him, then the Lord will drive out all these
nations from before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier
than you. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours
(…)”Deut 11:21-24 (NASB –
emphasis mine)
My prayer is that we will hold fast to the truth that no
matter how much we proclaim the gospel, if we are not allowing our lives to be
transformed by its power, we are failing. Moreover, if we serve God in whatever
ministry God has called us to do, but are pushing the children in our lives
away from Him because of our hypocrisy, we have certainly failed. Our ministry
is first at home with our families and very especially, with our children.
Because they are the next generation to further God's kingdom and inherit His
promises ... or not.
Verses to memorize:
“The things you have learned and
received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace
will be with you.” Philippians 4:9
- Ask God to show you if there is anything in your attitude that is directly opposite of what you preach with your voice. If and when God shows you, make an effort to pay attention to your actions and change them so that your walk matches your talk.
- Make an effort to be more aware that the people in your life and especially children are all ears and eyes and are constantly watching you. Ask God to help you be a godly example that will make them want to follow Jesus.
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