How far would you go?

In the span of one week my daughter and my husband both presented an idea to me. Neither one of them had an ulterior motive they simply wanted to share something they had thought of with me. And neither one of them had discussed what they’d thought of with the other.

My daughter was the first one to share her thoughts with me. She came to me one day and told me of something she’d been thinking about. It went something to the effect of ‘can you imagine what it would be like if you knew the day every person was going to die but you didn’t know your own death date?’

I don’t remember how the rest of the conversation went. It was just one of those discussions that happen as we go about our lives seeming to have no significant meaning and comes to an end.

But then less than a week later my husband presented the same idea to me. Only he did it in a way that held much more meaning. It wasn’t just an abstract idea. And as he told me of what he had been thinking that day, I remembered the discussion with our daughter, and then it took on a deeper meaning for me because what were the odds that two different people would come to me with the same idea in less than a week, not having shared the idea with each other?

My husbands thoughts on that went much deeper than our daughters had. Where she had voiced the idea, where she had wondered how it might affect the person that knew…my husband had taken it into Christianity.

What if we had the ability to know exactly when every other person on earth was going to die but we couldn’t know our own death date?

The very thought is staggering and enough to drive a person crazy. But…what if?

On the surface I think of what I would do if I saw that my husband or my child was going to die today. What would I do differently that I might not otherwise do? If I knew that my mother or sister was going to die today…what might I do? Would I try to spend today with them? Would I call them and tell them I loved them? Would I spend the day in tears waiting for the moment I would discover them dead or get a phone call informing me they were gone?

What would I do?

But that wasn’t the idea my husband presented to me. His was different and more lasting. It was more about the spirit and less about the body. It was more about eternal and less about the earthly.

At the time that we discussed it it was simply something my husband thought of, something our daughter had thought of, something we talked about at the time. We discussed how it would make a good book or movie but wasn’t something a Christian should be a part of because it go into paranormal or science fiction. But we both agreed that it could be good if it wasn’t anti-Biblical.

I remember in my teens watching a television program about a man that got the newspaper a day ahead of when it was supposed to come out. Basically this man knew the future every day. As a result that paper controlled his life. He was always trying to stop things from happening when people got hurt or killed. He had a friend that always wanted to use it to win the lottery.

It was a show I enjoyed watching way back when. It isn’t something I would watch today but as I think about those conversations with my husband and our daughter I’m reminded of it. Back then I used to wonder what it would be like to know what was going to happen a day before it happened. Today, weeks after those discussions with my husband and our daughther, I’m reminded of them. Of the what if of those discussions. What if a person really could know the day of death for everyone on earth except themselves?

It’s never going to happen but what if it did? And what if that person wasn’t just any person but a true child of Christ?

How far would they go?

What would they do?

If that person could somehow see…maybe through a little bubble above everyones head, maybe with a date stamped on their foreheads…the day that person would die. What would they do?

As a Christian they would know that that person’s day to die couldn’t be changed. There would be no point in telling them to stay home on the date their death was to happen. In that show I used to watch the main characters often saved people from death simply by stopping whatever it was that was supposed to happen to result in them dying. As a Christian I know that isn’t possible. Even if one method of dying could be stopped because their day had come another method would be used to end their life. And even that isn’t going to happen. The Lord has every persons end planned before their beginning happens.

But for just a moment let’s go with the what if…

What if this Christian, who knows it will do no good to try and change the day of death for anyone, could see the day they die. What would they do?

As a Christian, as a person, as a wife, husband, son, daughter, mom, dad…we all have people close to us whose souls we hurt for, whose salvation we beg for. Then there are all the other people out there that we hurt for but not in the same way we do our loved ones. Our earthly love for certain people ensures we hurt a little deeper for them than for strangers.

Imagine this person that has given the ability to know when everyone would die but they didn’t know when they would. How much would this person try to share the gospel with those around them? They might pay more attention to those dying within the next few days than with those whose deaths were years away. How much would they pay more attention to sharing the gospel with loved ones? How much more diligent would they be?

Now imagine for a moment that that person is you. How far would you go to tell those you know, those you love about Christ, the true Christ? How far would you go to give them the gospel?

If you saw that their day to die was tomorrow…what would you do? How far would you go? How much would you hurt? Would you quit telling them of Christ, quit telling them to cry out to Him, quit telling them to beg Him to save them, just because they don’t want to listen? Would you hush and quietly go your way if they told you they didn’t want to hear anymore? Or would you risk their wrath, would you push them further than they wanted to go to try and bring them to the point that the Lord might save them?

What if you walked into an airport and saw lines of people waiting to board a plane? What if 99% of those lines had people with different dates for their deaths but one of them…everyone had the same date, the very day that is was? What if the loved one whose death date you had been watching rapidly approach was in that line…this was their day to die. And it was the day that many others would die with them? Would you follow after them telling them again, in desperation, to repent and believe, to cry out to Christ? Would you fall to your knees and beg them? Would you stop crying out to them and cry out to Christ on their behalf? Would you stop trying to reach that person alone and start speaking instead to the entire line of people about to board that plane? Would you tell them all what you’d been trying to tell your loved one, hoping, praying, that even one of them might believe so that the Lord could save them?

What would you do?

How far would you go?

If your loved one scoffed at what you said, made fun of you for begging, got angry with you and told you to leave…would you give up on them? Would you turn your attention to the little girl with the sweet smile? To the old man that was eager to talk to you? To the woman holding a baby on her hip? Would you speak to all of them, beg the crowd instead of just your loved one? Would you pray for the souls of the children that were too young to understand?

What would you do?

Would you stop talking when the airport personnel told you that you were making a scene and disturbing their customers? Would you grow quiet when they threatened to throw you out? Or would you climb up on the ticket counter and continue to share the gospel and beg the people about to board the plane to repent and believe?

How far would you go?

The whole idea of a person knowing anyone’s death date is impossible. There are times that we think we know the exact day a person will die. About nine years ago I had a great aunt in the ICU on life support. The hospital staff and doctors told us the only thing keeping her alive was the machines she was hooked to. They asked us to make a decision about her life, told us if we disconnected her from the machines she would die. Her son’s made the choice to turn the machines off. The hospital chaplain was called in. Prayers were said. We were told exactly what to expect. She was going to die. There was no getting around it she couldn’t live without the help of the machines she was hooked to. Painfully we admitted that we understood and stood close to her side as the machines were turned off. Within minutes of being disconnected from the machines my aunt woke up and began talking to us.

At the time we were expecting her to breathe her last she was gaining strength. The doctors had been so sure they knew she would die that day. They were wrong. She lived another year.

A friends grandson was found floating in a swimming pool a couple of years ago. He was rushed to the hospital where he was put on life support. Family surrounded him, flying in from overseas to be near him. A week after he was found in the pool the family made the decision to disconnect him from all life support. They were told that his brain was dead and he would die within minutes of the machines being turned off. He didn’t. That little boy held on to life for another day. The doctors had said he was dead, that he couldn’t live on his own, but he did.

My aunt did.

So sure were the doctors that they knew when death would come that they told the family there was no hope of life in their loved ones. Only they were proven wrong.

No person can know the day and time of another’s death. Even when we think we can we can be wrong. Even medical professionals can be proven wrong. The Lord is the giver and taker of life, only He knows the day and time a person will die.

But what if a person could know?

How far would they go?

How far would you go?

After admitting that you couldn’t change when they were going to die what would you do?  Knowing that the only thing you could do is spend time with that person and try to get them to cry out Christ? How far would you go?

Would you give up when they got angry? Would you quietly spend the last day or days with them knowing they didn’t want to hear what you had to say, praying hard for the Lord to save them? Or would you tell them you love them enough to make them angry, love them enough to push them past where they want to be, love them enough to share the gospel whether they want to hear it or not?

How far would you go?

 

Grateful to be His

On this journey I am taking to Christ I have noticed something in myself. I remember when reading the Bible was boring. I remember when I did it because that was what I understood a Christian was supposed to do. I remember when I sat day after day reading it to be able to say I have read the entire Bible. And I remember the day all that changed and all of a sudden I couldn’t get enough of reading Scripture. It was like a craving, it fed my soul and the more I read the more I wanted to read. And that’s how it still is today.

I have a daughter that is now where I used to be. She states emphatically that the Bible is boring. This same daughter used to sit for hours and read the Bible with  no prompting from me. She picked out and bought with her own money a Bible because it was what she wanted to do. That same daughter was thrilled when a couple of years after that I took her to the Christian book store and told her she could pick out a new Bible for her birthday because the one she had had such small printing that it gave her headaches to read it.

But now…a few years later…the Bible is boring.

I understand because I’ve been there. Until the Lord opens our eyes Scripture is boring. But once our eyes are opened…oh how it comes alive.

When I read the Bible now I simply can’t get enough of it. The more I read it, the more I want to read it. The more I understand, the more I want to know. That desire for the Word of God was through no desire of my own. I was just like my daughter at one time. Although I claimed to be a ‘Christian’ I couldn’t quite get truly interested in reading the Bible.

There were times I wondered what was wrong with me. Times I thought I was the only one that just couldn’t gain that love of Scripture. And there were years that I didn’t worry about it.

Then the Lord opened my eyes and I saw in the pages of the Bible things I had never seen before. I understood. And I loved it.

When my daughter…or anyone…says the Bible is boring, now I want to tell them it’s as far from being boring as anything can get. That there’s something amazing inside its covers. That just one page, or part of a page, contains so much. But I know they won’t understand. And so I tell my daughter…I understand. I used to think the same way. I pray someday you will see it differently.

Because it’s within the pages of the Bible that the Lord reveals His plan for us. It’s in those pages that I get sucked inside and don’t want to come out.

When I was a child I used to watch a movie about a boy that had a book that he got sucked into the story when he read it. That book was so engrossing to him, it pulled him into the pages of the book and made him such an important character that he couldn’t not finish reading it. He stayed home from school to read. It was fascinating to him.

That isn’t quite my response to Scripture but it comes close. I never become a part of the story in the pages of the Bible and yet…I’m in every page. I never get sucked into the Book to the point that I am one of the characters I’m reading about and yet…I’m there on the pages just the same.

It is a Book that was written for those that are in Christ and once we have that standing the Bible opens up like never before.

I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15"I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. 16"They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.…John 17:14-16

The above verses are just one place where ‘they’ are spoken of. Sometimes the word they is used, sometimes it’s saints, sometimes it’s the elect. Whatever term is used…it’s in those passages that those that are in Christ, that are truly saved, that are born again, that are regenerate, are spoken of.

And because ‘they’ are spoken of…I find myself in the pages of my Lord’s Book. I am written into His story because He has a plan for the world, a plan for all of time, a plan for His people.

I am very grateful to be called His.

 

Candy Christianity

When was the last time you sat through a Sunday service in a church building? It’s been a couple of months for me. I used to do it twice every Sunday. I went for the early service and stayed through the regular service. I remember during one of the early service’s the preacher made the statement that he believed there were more ‘real Christians’ in that service than during the regular service. I have no idea why he made that statement, what made him think that. He didn’t elaborate and during the many service’s I attended I never saw any difference in those in the early service than those that came to the regular service…with the exception that there were less people in the early service, they didn’t seem to mind getting up early, and they were quieter. But for some reason the preacher thought the early service had more ‘real Christians’ than the regualar service did. If that was true I never saw any indication of it.

I don’t know what that preacher meant when he referred to ‘real Christians’. Since he didn’t seem to be reformed I doubt that was what he thought a ‘real Christian’ was. But to him, whatever a ‘real Christian’ was, there were more of them in the early service than there were in the regular service.

During the time I was going to that ‘church’ so much I met my husband, not at the ‘church’ but elsewhere. As he and I talked, getting to know each other, he used to tell me I should get up on the stage before a service and ask if there were any monergists there. It was something of a joke between us for a while. As much as I would have liked to know if there were any other people in those services that believed the way I did I knew there was no way I could ever get on stage and ask that. I couldn’t even ask it to individuals as we talked together. For one thing I didn’t fully understand my own belief back then, for another I understood that claiming to be a monergist or a Calvinist was a good way to get yourself thrown out of a ‘church’.

Even then I wondered why admitting to believing that way could get you thrown out of a ‘church.’ What was it about the kind of belief that I had, that my husband has, that could have gotten us kicked out of many ‘church’ buildings? I understand better now. We are a threat to the professing ‘Christian’. Just the way I have been a threat to the ‘Christians’ in my family in the past, just the way Christ was a threat to the unbelievers in His time. We, quite simply, speak against the lies that the professing ‘Christian’ bases their entire faith on and that is a threat to their security in eternity. Therefore the ‘church’ that may accept and atheist, that may accept a devil worshiper, won’t accept a true child of Christ.

Rather than listening to a monergist, the professing ‘Christian’ would prefer to throw them out of their ‘church’. It would seem that if what they believe is right then it wouldn’t be any harder to hear what the monergist has to say and to refute what they believe with the beliefs of the professing ‘Christian.’ It would seem that way but it doesn’t appear to be that way. It’s much easier to get angry, defensive and kick them out of their midst.

Why?

Is it because most of what is considered the ‘church’ today doesn’t understand what they believe well enough to give a convincing argument for why they believe it? Is it because they don’t know enough of the Bible to be able to use it to defend their faith? Is it because they cling to their easy believism and don’t want anyone trying to shake it?

There’s a man with a program where he goes around challenging people from crowds on the street to explain their beliefs…then he tells them why they’re wrong. My husband introduced me to that show and I must admit that of the different Christian programs we have watched I believe he is my favorite. There’s just something about seeing these people, no matter what they believe, stumble through a defense of those beliefs. How can a person place their entire existance in a belief they can’t defend? How can they believe in something they can’t fully explain? Now, some of these people can and do defend their beliefs very well but most of them don’t. Most of them stumble through their defense and more or less go around in circles with what they’re saying. They believe what they believe and that makes it right for them and so long as it’s right for them than it’s right.

To me that sounds like nothing more than confusion.

The other day my husband and I were listening to a different Christain program and the man speaking said something to the effect of when you take God out of right and wrong you no longer have right and wrong. Up is no longer up, down is no longer down, left is no longer left, right is no longer right.

And wrong is not wrong.

Without God there is no line by which to determine what is right and what is wrong, there’s no line by which to measure all of life.

God can, at least to some extent, be found in most ‘church’ buildings. God is the basis of the sermons, He is the reason the congregation gets together. On the surface. But the question must be asked ‘which God do they gather for?’ Is it the God of the Bible? Or is it the God they have made using bits and pieces of the Bible? Is it the God they find acceptable because they have created Him in their minds using the parts of the Bible that don’t offend them?

I have been in many ‘church’ buildings. Some only once, some weekly for years. And through all of those experiences I formed an idea of who and what God was based on the general belief of the ‘church.’ My family held the same beliefs as I was growing up and so I was raised being ‘fed’ a steady diet of a God that doesn’t exist. As a child that ‘God’ was more like something we did, we played at belonging to Him when it suited us, but He was never the God of our lives. When I was grown He kept the same place for a while and then steadily gained more and more ground in my life until He was the God of my life, He was the measuring stick I used to determine everything else in life. Only by then…He was the God of the Bible and not the one I had been raised on.

Sadly most ‘church’ going ‘Christians’ don’t have the same God. They don’t measure life by the same God. Many of those ‘Christians’ can’t even defend the faith they believe in.

Recently, I was something one of the main women that attends the ‘church’ I sometimes go to wrote. And I found it disturbing. Now this ‘church’ claims no denomination. They simply believe from the Bible. At least on the surface.

When I first discovered that ‘church’ I found that to be a good thing. And to some degree I still do. But I’ve also discovered that no denomination often means a melting pot of denominations. I didn’t know when I started going to that ‘church’ that being nondenominational meant the beliefs of all those other denominations come into the ‘church’, that they are allowed and encouraged. I didn’t know it just meant that they don’t stick to a certain denominational belief. More or less it meant…they adopt them all.

The writing of the woman that I recently saw was 100% prosperity gospel. I found that disturbing because this woman holds a place of importance in this ‘church’. But I know of others in the same ‘church’ that lean the same way. Even the preacher sometimes seems to lean that way.

Not all that long ago I read online where ‘most’ ‘Christians’ believe to one degree or another in the name it and claim it ‘gospel’.

Is it surprising then that they despise the true gospel? Is it surprising that they can’t stand to be in the presence of those that represent it?

"If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. 19"If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.… John 15:18-19

No…it isn’t surprising. What’s surprising is how many can’t defend even the basics of what they believe in. I’ve long admired the Amish people. I think anyone that believes so strongly in something that they can stand against the world deserve our respect for what they’re doing. I know much of what they believe isn’t in keeping with what Scripture teaches. I know that a good part of their religion is works righteousness. But they believe strongly enough in it to stand for it.

Against all opposition.

That, to me, is way more than most ‘Christians’ do. I’ve known many ‘Christians’ that are like chameleons. They change their actions, words, and behavior based on the company they’re with. When they’re at ‘church’ or among ‘church’ friends they wear their ‘church’ face. When they are at work they talk and act as those at work talk and act, when they’re with friends they talk and act as their friends do. They don’t stand for Christ no matter the company they keep.

What kind of ‘Christian’ does that make them?

So many of the ‘Christians’ in our society blow where the wind blows them. Even if they hold fast to what they believe in they don’t stand strongly for it. And many of them are easily swayed by the teaching of this preacher or that preacher. They are influenced by this book or that one. They accept and adopt this new teaching or that one. Not because they change what they believe in but because they have no measuring stick by which to determine if this teaching is Biblical or not. Because the ‘God’ they believe in is made up of what they want Him to be then any teaching can easily fall into the teaching of their ‘God’.

Why is it so hard for them to take Scripture as Scripture? To accept what it says…the way it says it, without adding to it or taking away from it.

"For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this Book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this Book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the Book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this Book" Revelation 22:18-19.

When a person believes in ‘God’ based off what they want the Bible to say about Him, when they make ‘God’ out to be what they want Him to be…are they not changing the Bible to suit themselves? When a person says God is love, when they believe He holds no wrath or anger…have they not taken away much of what the Bible teaches in order to believe in the ‘God’ they have built up in their minds? When they say ‘God’ just wants to bless us…have they not changed God into a god of nothing but benevolence?

Whether or not they’re changing Scripture as it’s written…they’re changing it in their minds, in the words they use as they speak to others and as they teach them. They may hold the exact same Bible in their hands as I hold in mine but their Bible doesn’t say the same thing mine does because they pick and choose what they want to believe from its pages.

They ignore the black and white of the text to read a hazy gray that only they, and others like them, can see. And if you can’t see that hazy gray writing they will gladly enlighten you with their beliefs until you can see it.

If you try and show them the black and white in your Bible, or in the identical one they hold, they can’t or won’t see it. So much of the modern ‘church’ despises the Truth. They hate true doctrine. They abhor Scripture as it is written. Assuming they get so far as to see it which most of them don’t because they are blinded to the Truth. And because they are blinded, because they believe in their false ‘God’ they hate any teaching that might tell them they’re wrong.

They cling to their easy believeism. They hold fast to the faith they have in the ‘God’ that believes the way they do, the God that wants them to have everything they want, the God that stands for everything they stand for.

I saw an article online not all that long ago about a preacher that said abortion was Biblical. This was a preacher that used the Bible. Apparently it was the same Bible most Christians and professing ‘Christians’ use. But somewhere in his Bible it condoned abortion.

Not in my Bible!

My Bible says murder is wrong. It’s evil. Yet, this preacher found within the pages of his Bible that abortion is okay. Did his ‘God’ also say it was okay? He must have.

What kind of Christianity is that?

It’s not the Christianity of the Bible and yet this preacher not only believes that abortion is okay but he’s teaching it to others, not just in his ‘church’ but through mass media. His poisonous brand of ‘Christianity’ is being spread far and wide. How many so-called ‘Christians’ have latched onto his belief that abortion is okay because it fits what they want to believe in? How many of them compared what that man said against their Bibles, against the black and white version of what the Bible is, and realized that that man is nothing short of a false teacher?

‘Christians’ often grab onto any teaching that fits what they believe because it lets them continue to believe that way, it doesn’t challenge their belief, it doesn’t make them question if they may be wrong. So many ‘Christians’ want a watered down, easily changed, happy go lucky brand of ‘Christianity’ so that they don’t have to give up the things they love.

They go to ‘church’ on Sunday so that they can be encouraged to continue believing those things. They don’t want to hear a sermon on sin. They don’t want to be told that they quite possibly are going to hell even though they think they’re saved. They don’t want to be told that the movie they’re planning to watch that afternoon is sinful. They just want to be given a sermon that supports what they already believe, that might push them to ‘grow’ in that belief just a tiny bit. They don’t want a day long sermon that breaks for lunch then comes back. They want music that plays on their emotions, that lifts their spirits, that puts them in a good mood so that they can handle the twenty to thirty minute sermon that follows. And a good number of them are ready to leave for lunch long before that’s over.

They want an instant meal of ‘Biblical’ teaching that they can throw in the microwave and eat while sitting before their favorite program. They want to be encouraged to believe what they believe but they need it cut into bite sized pieces for them so that they can chew it up and swallow it in the midst of their play.

It isn’t necessarily that they don’t want to learn, they may very well want to learn much about what the Bible teaches. Not so long ago I wrote a post about Noah. In it I spoke of how I was raised to see only the feel good, fuzzy side of the story where Noah saved all the animals on the earth. Those are the types of stories the ‘christian’ is used to and they’re the types of stories they want to hear. If a preacher uses deeper truths in a sermon he’d better be ready to cut it into bite sized pieces so his audience can handle what he’s feeding them.

So many of the services I’ve attended have been filled with stories and anticdotes that fit what was being said. The truth, if it’s given at all, is so cut up, so watered down, that it’s hard to find amidst the stories being told. How much more would a preacher get his audience’s attention if he left the fancy clothes at home, walked onto stage looking like every other common man and said…

You’re going to Hell!

How many more people might he reach with the truth if he followed that by saying….

If you aren’t going to hell it’s only by the grace of God because out of His mercy He saved you.

And how much truth could he teach if he continued with…

If you think that prayer you said when you were 10 saved you and yet you live life as if God doesn’t exist except for the once a week that you come to ‘church’ than you aren’t saved. You’re going to hell if God is nothing more to you than something you do every week. All the crosses hanging on your wall aren’t going to save you. That’s idolatry. All the Bibles in your house, be it one or one thousand, won’t save you if you only use them as coasters. People you’re dying in sin and you don’t even know it. Go home, examine yourselves. See if you truly believe in God or if you believe in a god that lets you continue to live in sin and the lusts of this world. Repent and believe in the God of the Bible, in the God of the Old Testament. Then come back next week for another sermon on the real God.

What would the congregation in that ‘church’ look like next week?  How many would return? Chances are the pews would be empty. There might be one or two people that came back out of the hundreds or thousands that had been there. Even if a hundred came back…it would be a small percentage of those that had packed the room. But oh, how blessed those few would be to have a preacher that taught nothing but Truth.

The offering plate may not get filled, the bills may go unpaid, they might lose their building and have to hold services in each others houses or under a tree but the Truth would be taught.

I have an uncle that used to speak against ‘church’. He was never a believer beyond maybe the basic I believe in God kind of belief but he spoke against ‘church’ buildings. He always said ‘if I want to worship God I don’t need a building with a bunch of hypocrites in it. I can take a Bible out in my yard, sit under a tree, and worship Him there.’ How right he was.

And yet there are numerous ‘church’ buildings in every town, even tiny towns have their share, some towns seems to have one on every corner. There are thousands of ‘churches’ in each state. They draw crowds in by the hundreds of thousands and they teach them about a ‘God’ that doesn’t threaten their belief in the American dream they’re chasing. A ‘God’ that doesn’t tell them they must give up their movies, their video games, their curse words, their…anything.

The pews are packed the instant meals are served. The masses leave the buildings full and happy recharged for another week. They have plugged themselves in for a quick, emotional recharge much the way we plug our cell phones into a power outlet to recharge the battery. They have been refueled for another week and they’re happy to go about their business until their battery starts to run low again.

But what are their batteries running on? Are they charged on the Word of God? On Truth? Have them been fed meat that will sustain them or have they been fed pureed bits of candy and ice cream that will give them a sugar high just long enough to see them through the day and leave a slight lingering feeling of euphoria through the week? Have they been fed on Truth that leaves them wanting more, more, more. Or have they been fed from a sugar coated café that gives them what they want but doesn’t touch what they need?

And they are fed on the same meal week after week after week. One week they may be served gummy candies and taffy, the next week it’s jelly beans, and another week it’s chocolate. Once in a while they’ll be given chocolate covered fruit or yogurt covered raisins. During those meals they’re given  a little of what their bodies, their souls, really need but it isn’t enough to truly nurture them.

And because they don’t have to swallow too much of the good for them stuff they return again and again to eat from the sweet stuff so that they can feel as if they’re feeding themselves what they need when in reality what they’re getting is sugar coated poison.

What would happen if one week they walked into their ‘church’ building and were fed on nuts and meat, fruit and vegetables? What would happen if they were given the Truth and nothing else? And then told they would be presented with the same kind of sermon week after week from that day on?

How long would that preacher last? How long before the ’church’ kicked him out and replaced him with another candy maker? When I was a kid I used to like to watch a movie about a man that owned a candy factory. It wasn’t just any candy factory…he had candy the likes of which no one had ever seen. To my childish mind it was a dream come true. And I watched it time and again. But how many times would I have watched it if, after having seen it the first time and dreaming about all that candy, I turned it on the next time to see a man that owned a green vegetable factory?

Such is the condition of the modern day ‘church’ building.

The congregations not only want candy, they demand it. Feed them Brussel sprouts and they will go to a different candy factory.

If we stop to imagine hundreds, thousands, of people feeding on nothing but sweets, if we imagine them chanting ‘candy’ over and over when vegetables are carried in, if we imagine them leaving a building like angry ants from a disturbed anthill when they’re told there will be no more candy to feast on…it becomes almost humorous but how funny is it when as they clear the doors of the building they fall into the flames of hell?

This is the sad reality of so many ‘Christians’ in our day. They want nothing to do with Truth. Instead they feast on candy coated bits of good for them food that does little for their soul and they’re told by the cooks and servers that what they’re being fed will give them ever lasting life. And they go to hell believing they were saved.

What may seem funny if we imagine it as nothing more than a story becomes gravely disturbing when we think of it in terms of souls that are lost. And it becomes disheartening when we think of what would happen if we were to walk into the midst of those demanding candy for meals and try to feed them green vegetables. They would begin to throw those vegetables at us. They would turn on us and tell us the food we’re trying to feed them is poisoned and they don’t need it and they sure don’t want it. They would kick us out of their restaurants because we were trying to take over for the cooks they love.

And that is exactly what happens when true Christianity is taught to the candy ‘Christian’ crowd. And the crowd is so blinded by the taste of sugar that they can’t begin to see that vegetables just might be good for them.

 

False teachers

As I was looking up Scripture verses I came across a blog post that sounded good. I read the article only to discover at the end that the author was a name it and claim it believer. The post had a good title, a good lesson, only it never delivered on what could have been so good.

The writer was someone that started out writing on something that could have been so good only to lead the reader astray at the end…and only touched the surface of the topic through the rest of the post.

As disappointing as that was I can’t help thinking that writer was just an ordinary person doing their best to share what they believe through their blog…much the way I am with mine…but as I think of that, think of that post, I also find myself thinking of the many, many preachers that do much more than that.

A preacher doesn’t just voice their thoughts and ideas to a few people, holding very little influence. They influence large numbers of people throughout their lives. Right or wrong, good or bad, whatever they’re teaching is often accepted and followed by large numbers of people. And like the author of that blog, some of them may start out with a good title, a good subject, only to lead their listeners astray at the end.

How many ‘church’ members and visitors put absolute faith in the preacher? How many of them walk through the door, babies in the learning of all things Biblical, ready to be taught and influenced. They walk in open to whatever is being taught and take it that they’re being shown and told of the truth of God.

And they get led astray.

Over and over in Scripture the Lord warns His church about false teachers. We are warned that they will lead the flock astray and teach false doctrines.

These false teachers may think they’re teaching the truths, they may fully believe what they’re preaching on, but if what their teaching isn’t straight from Scripture as it is written without their ideas, opinions, beliefs, thoughts, and stories influencing it then they aren’t teaching Truth.

How many preachers teach on tithing? How many encourage it? How many demand it? That is one very small drop in a big pond of false teachings in the ‘church’ buildings.

These false teachers, or false shepherds, are leading their flocks in a way that doesn’t teach the Truth of Scripture. Like a wolf in a flock of sheep these preachers lead their flocks down a path that takes them far from where the true Shepherd is.

This false teaching, this leading astray of thousands of people, is allowed and used by the Lord. He will save His people out of any kind of teaching, system, or doctrine. There is nothing a person can get into that the Lord can’t find Him in the midst of and get him out of it. If a person is one of the Lord’s elect than they will be saved no matter what they believe, follow, or want.

But even knowing that…there are still so many warning against these false teachers. Our Lord knew they would be there, He knew that we would encounter them and He warned us against them. The Old Testament is full of those warnings….

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture! Therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel against the shepherds who feed My people: “You have scattered My flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings,” says the LORD. Jeremiah 23:1-2

But the Old Testament isn’t the only place those warnings can be found. The New Testament teaches against them too. Christ warned His disciples about them…

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.” Matthew 7:15

We are warned in other places also…

 “For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.” Acts 20:29

 “But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies…” 2 Peter 2:1

The Lord knew these false teachers would be among us. He knew that with their false teachings and false doctrines that they would test His flock. His chosen ones will know these teachings for what they are, they won’t be led down those paths very far before they see the truth of what they’re encountering. Our Lord will keep us safe from following anyone but Him.

There are so many out there that don’t have that protection. They don’t know what they stand for and so they follow whichever ‘God’ sounds the best to them, they follow whichever preacher gives them the ‘God’ that works for their life.

These teachers lead the flock of God astray and teach false doctrines. They rely on their own works to bring about their salvation. And they teach those beliefs and doctrines to thousands of others, leading them far from the Truth.

I know someone that is easily influenced by others. This person follows a group no matter where they are leading. They follow the teachings, the lessons, right into whatever belief is being taught. This person is tossed about by whatever wind is blowing at the time.

But it doesn’t take someone easily influenced for a false teacher to lead them astray. So many people go into religion seeking…something…and they find whatever brand of ‘God’ is being sold by the preacher in a given ‘church’ building.

We are warned by God, by Christ, by the apostles that false teachers will enter the church. Scripture tells us that these false teachings will lead a great many people astray. Because of these false teachers many will find a brand of religion but they won’t find true faith. They’ll believe in lies.

2 Chronicles 18:21 tells not only how a demonic spirit went out and decieved the king but it tells us that God allowed it to happen.

Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ And the Lord said to him, ‘By what means?’ 21 And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be ia lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.’ 22 Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of these your prophets. The Lord has declared disaster concerning you.”

The people that were deceived weren’t deceived against God’s wishes but were deceived with his consent. The Lord not only said the spirit could entice them but He said they would succeed.

In Matthew 24:11 Christ said…

“Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.”

These false prophets aren’t a surprise to the Lord, they aren’t working against Him. They are here, teaching the things that they teach because He has allowed them to do so.

Paul warned of these teachers in 1 Timothy 4:1

 Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons

And in 2 Timothy 3:13…

But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived

 I’ve seen several different things online lately that have spoken about how many ‘Christians’ are leaving the ‘Church’. Some of these articles talk about how Christians are fed up with the system, fed up with the things that are being taught. Those articles say that those Christians that are leaving the ‘church’ aren’t abandoning God, they aren’t walking away from their faith, they are simply giving up on playing ‘church’.

I’ve played ‘church’ off and on my entire life. I can walk into a ‘church’ building and play along. I may not agree with what’s being taught but I know how to play the game. Years ago I read about how children in public schools are taught to be institutionalized. That the very nature of the public school depends on the children believing that they have to do certain things, on the parents believing that they have to make their child do those things even if they don’t believe in, or like, what is happening within the school. It’s a system that relies on each child falling into line in order for the single teacher in each class to be able to control so many children.

Imagine the chaos that would ensue if one day all the kids in a classroom, or entire school, decided they didn’t have to follow the rules. One teacher couldn’t control fifteen to thirty five kids, a hundred teachers and faculty couldn’t control five thousand kids. Everything depends on the fact that the children follow the rules and do what is expected of them.

‘Church’ is much the same way. There’s a system. One that draws the people in and usually keeps them coming back. Music, a sermon that pulls at the emotions of the people listening and lets them walk away feeling like they learned something. There’s visiting before, during, and after the service. People come in expecting a good time and usually get one.

Sometimes when I visit a ‘church’ building I wonder what would happen if during the sermon someone stood up and questioned the preacher. What would happen if someone used Scripture to correct him? But that never happens because there’s a right way and a wrong way to play ‘church’ and those in attendance know how to play.

But how does a person know when they’re playing ‘church’? How do they know when they’re being taught by false teachers? How do they know if they’re being led astray?

The answer to all those questions and more lie in the reading of one book.

The Bible.

It’s in the pages of the Bible that we’re taught of false teachers, warned of wolves in sheep’s clothing. How can a Christian recognize what is false if they don’t know what is Truth?

The sad thing is that unless a person is regenerate all the Bible reading in the world won’t keep them from false doctrines. Reading the Bible 24 hours a day won’t save them from the teachings of false teachers. Because until they’re saved by the Lord their eyes can’t see the full Truth of Scripture. They are blinded to so much.

They may read but they can’t see.

And because they can’t fully see they will fall victim to the teachings of false teachers because they don’t understand all of the Truth. But once they are regenerate, once they are saved, the word of God opens up to them like never before. At that point they see the Truth. And at that point they can read and understand it like never before.

 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. James 1:16

It is once they reach that point that they’re able to see false teachers for what they are. So many of them come in wolves clothing that it may take even the most discerning Christian a few minutes to figure out that the person they’re listening to is teaching something that doesn’t hold with the teaching of Scripture.

A while back I wrote a post titled Who is leading them astray, in it I questioned whether or not it preachers are responsible for leading could-have-been Christians astray so that they never find saving faith.

Whenever I come up against this very idea my mind wants to argue with what I’m thinking because on the one hand I know that the Lord has His elect and that they will be saved no matter what but then there’s the other hand…where I wonder if these people were being taught the Truth instead of lies and half lies would they have found saving faith.

It wasn’t part of the Lord’s plan for them. I know that. But all those false teachers, so many preachers in ‘church’ buildings that are teaching people to believe a certain way and claiming those beliefs come straight from the Word of God.

I grew up being taught that way and the Lord saved me despite the many false teachings I received. He will save every other person that is one of His. I know that. But…that’s where my mind wants to argue. Where these false teachings are leading people by the thousands to their own destruction and all while making them believe they have found a way into heaven.

It’s wrong.

Yet it’s in Scripture.

The Lord has it for a purpose and He will use it to carry out His plan even if my mind does sometimes have a hard time with it.

I read recently that a Christian should know the Word of God in such a way as to be able to defend themselves against all false teachings. Long before I knew Scripture well enough to be able to defend anything with it my mind had a way of blocking out Sunday services. For some reason, no matter how hard I tried, I simply couldn’t pay close enough attention to the sermon to be able to retain anything I had heard.

The Lord protected me from many of those false teachings even as I exposed myself to them week after week. And then one day He opened my eyes so that I could not only see Scripture for what it was but I could see the false teaching for what it was.

I have discovered many times since that day that the Lord has placed a discernment in me that I would never have expected. I have picked up books only to flip through a few pages and put them back because something in me recognizes with the reading of a few words or sentences that it is a false teaching. I’ve started to read a ‘christian’ blog only to discover a few lines in that something in me is pulling away from what I’m reading. I’ve started to listen to preachers, started to watch a ‘Christian’ movie… the list goes on but the reaction is the same.

The Lord keeps me from being deceived. He saves me time and again from wolves in sheeps clothing. And I’m not the only one He does that for. It is something in His children that only He could have given us, something that keeps us from being led astray.

but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. ²⁷ My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. ²⁸ I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. john 10:26-28

One

I recently wrote a series of posts on Adam and Eve. My intention with each of them was to put myself in their places for just a moment. It was my intention to imagine what life might have been like for them.

I wanted to know them. To imagine what might have gone through their heads and hearts at any moment. I wanted to feel what they might have felt.

I wanted, for a brief moment, to experience the awe they might have felt as they began their lives.

Now I’d like to take it just a little further. In the post I titled ‘What was it like for Adam and Eve?’ I got into what marriage might have been like for them.

But do we understand what that really meant? Do we even understand what marriage really means? Yes, we know the definition. Yes, we know what marriage is. But do we truly understand just what it is, what it represents? I’ve written on that before and yet I don’t feel I’ve done it justice. I don’t think I will ever do it justice.

Marriage is something I always considered sacred. I remember in my teens, when all my extended family treated marriage as something that was more or less disposable, my thoughts on it were different. And yet…I didn’t know why it was that I saw it that way. And as I got older my thoughts on marriage stayed the same. It was something sacred. It was something you don’t mess with. Even when I still didn’t understand why I felt the way I did, I knew that I felt that way. Deeply.

Today I understand why I feel the way I do. I understand why I think it’s sacred. Because it’s sacred to the Lord. It’s a representation of Christ and the church. It’s the forging of one person into two.

A few days ago my daughter told me that she had a dream that my husband and I got a divorce. She couldn’t tell me anything else about the dream because she woke up as soon as we got the divorce. For me her waking up was significant. I wake up when I have a dream that takes me somewhere that scares me or makes me uncomfortable. I believe that is why she woke up as soon as the ‘divorce’ happened. It was a scary or uncomfortable place for her.

I assured her that that was something that wasn’t going to happen. My husband told her it was something Christians don’t do. And the moment passed.

But the memory lingers. It was one of those brief discussions that happen and then they’re over but the effect can stay behind. I don’t, for a minute, believe that my husband and I will ever divorce. We are both too committed to the Lord to do that to Him much less to each other.

But as I think of what it would mean to divorce, I think of severing something that can never be healed. My husband is so much a part of me that he is much like my relationship with Christ. Without him, I’m not me. I wouldn’t want to live without him.

My husband is fond of saying ‘and the two shall become one’. He says that often. Until I married him I had no idea what that really meant. We have forged a bond that began with Christ and has spread out over our entire marriage.

There are so many aspects to our marriage. And in each one we have become one. There’s nowhere in my life where he isn’t welcome, nothing I won’t share with him, nothing I won’t tell him. And I’m that deeply ingrained in his life.

We are quite simply…one.

And out of that oneness comes a closeness I never thought possible until I married my husband.

It’s with that oneness in mind that I think of Adam and Eve’s marriage. It’s with that oneness that I wonder what the first marriage was like. It’s with that oneness that I imagine what life might have been like when you had your spouse and no one else.

I don’t plan to cover the same things I covered in that post on Adam and Eve, I simply wish to elaborate.  More precisely I want to capture a feeling that I’m not sure I can capture.

Oneness.

As I think of the children my husband and I created together, I think of that oneness. Not because of the physical relationship that created them but because of the becoming one in everything. The babies, in some way, are a representation of the oneness between my husband and I. It is the making of a whole new person through us. Because of my husband and I, our babies had life. It is a melding of the two of us much the way we have melded our lives together.

It took parts of him and of me to make them. The Lord took me and my husband, mixed them together and created a new person.

In a similar way the Lord took my life and my husband’s life and melded them together until we had one life not two.

I’ve seen marriage ceremonies where the couple lit a candle together, poured two different colors of water into the same vase, and poured two different colors of sand into one jar. With the candle, where there were two flames they create one. With the water…red and yellow made orange. And with the sand the two colors made layers that could never be separated again.

Of the things above my favorite was the sand. The candle left the two original flames and just created another. The colored water took two colors and made one. But the sand…it mixed the two different colors into layers where you could see both colors but melded them together in a way that you couldn’t separate the individual colors again if you tried. But it did something else too. The sand that was once in each bottle, solid colors that weren’t all that nice to look at by themselves, layered together to create something interesting that could keep you looking at it for a good long time. It took the ordinary and made it extraordinary. It took two, mixed them together and left the same two but better than they were before.

My husband and I did none of those things at our wedding. We didn’t need to. Those things were only an outside representation of what was happening with our lives. The Lord took the two of us, once completely separate people, and layered us together so that the two of us still exist but that we were mixed together in a way to create something new and better. Our hearts, minds, and souls have met and meshed.

Together we became the vessels the Lord used to give life to our children. Together we became the vessels the Lord used to represent something sacred. Together we became…

One.

Even

I recently wrote a post titled gone. It was on the subject of abortion, a subject that has horrified me since the moment I first learned of it. Even as a child I couldn’t fathom the idea of anyone killing their baby. I still can’t. I’ve heard their reasoning, heard their excuses, heard the terms and explanations but nothing said or explained can ever justify the killing of innocent babies that have yet to even take a breath.

After the loss of our baby a few months ago my husband and I talked of that very thing. While we were grieving for our baby, mothers were killing theirs. While we were hurting over the loss of a baby we very much wanted, mothers were destroying babies. My husband said something to the effect of how what appears to be trash to one person is a treasure to another. I wish I could remember exactly how he worded it but I can’t. What I do remember is the feelings in both of us as we thought on that. In my pain, just days after losing our baby, I would have gladly embraced and loved one or many of those babies whose mothers didn’t want them.

Today, as I once again carry a precious baby within me, I think of that. I think of how my husband said what is trash to one person is a treasure to another. When I took a test to confirm this pregnancy I was thrilled to see that positive line, thrilled to know I carried our child within me, thrilled to know that we had been blessed, once again, to bring a child into this world. Even as fear for the life of this child filled my mind and heart…I was thrilled. Even as I prayed to be allowed to keep this one…I was thrilled. Even as I knew there is a chance I may only be allowed to keep this baby a short while…I was thrilled. Even as I knew that I may wind up experiencing deep pain…I was thrilled.

I was thrilled.

I am thrilled.

And as I think of this precious baby growing within me, I also think of the many precious babies that are seen as something to be gotten rid of. Even as I experience the joy of carrying my child, I think of those whose mothers will choose to kill them.

Yesterday marked the three month mark since we lost our precious baby. I knew of the existence of the baby now growing within me before we reached that three month mark. Even as I thought of how that baby would be growing and developing inside me had it lived…this baby had begun to grow. Even as I thought of how I would be feeling that baby move inside me…this baby was taking hold, beginning to form. Even as I thought of how I would be showing by now...this baby was barely beginning to grow.

I haven’t forgotten that baby. It lives in my heart even as I go on with life. And I’m reminded as that life unfolds with me in the midst of it that the Lord has a plan for my life that is beyond my control.

There’s nothing that makes that more obvious than to remember the baby I wanted so much, the baby my heart still wants, and to think of the baby that now lives within me, the baby I want so much, the baby I love. When I think of those two babies, both wanted so much, both loved, I’m forced to admit that I never could have had both of them. For this baby I now carry to live, my womb had to be empty when it needed it. For this baby to live, I had to lose that one.

The Lord knew that even as I anticipated the life of the baby I so recently carried and lost. He knew that He would be taking it away and would soon give me another baby. He knew…and He had a plan. Even as I made plans for the baby I carried within me…He knew I would soon lose it. Even as I made plans for one baby…He knew it would fulfill its purpose long before I could hold it in my arms.

Today as I treasure the life that grows within me…the Lord has a plan for both me and my baby. He has a plan for my husband. He has a plan for our children. He has a plan for everyone that this baby will touch.

I don’t understand what plan the baby I so recently lost fulfilled but I know it did. And I know that this baby has a plan to fulfill even as I treasure its existence. Even as I hold tight to the knowledge that this precious life grows within me I know that the Lord has a plan for both of us.

Whether I’m given days or decades with this baby my Lord’s plan will be fulfilled in both our lives.

And I’m blessed to have even a second to love this precious baby.

A new blessing

Three months ago today I lost a baby we were expecting. That baby died long before it had a chance to live outside my womb. It was a trying and painful time for me, my husband and our family. It was also an eye opening experience for me. There have been many times I have spoken with someone that has lost an unborn baby or child and all I could say was I can only imagine your pain. Now I do much more than imagine the pain…I remember it. I also remember the sweet time I cradled my baby within my body and how blessed I was to be that baby’s mother no matter the length of time.

Recently I discovered that I am once again expecting. This baby wasn’t a surprise and it’s very much wanted. I do, however, find that this baby has created a feeling in me I’ve never known in relation to a pregnancy before…fear.

Hard as I try to not be anxious my mother’s heart still fears for the tiny life growing within me. I want so badly to carry this baby to term, to hold it in my arms, to give it a name, to see its features, to watch it grow into all the Lord has in store for it.

But even as I want all of those things I am reminded that we aren’t promised tomorrow. That we are to focus on today and let tomorrow take care of itself. And so I turn my fears into prayers, I petition my Lord on behalf of the precious life I carry. And I treasure every moment I’m given with this baby, be it days or decades.

When I was first beginning the loss of my last baby the midwife told me to guard my heart and I knew that that I never could, that I must love my baby for every second I had with it. I will do nothing different with this little one. I have known people that chose not to reveal their pregnancies until they were past the three month mark so that they didn’t have to make any explanations if they lost the baby. I’ve known people that didn’t reveal their pregnancy until they’d had their amniocentesis, presumably so that they knew the baby was healthy before they disclosed its existence. I’m not one of those people. I won’t hide my precious baby until I’m sure I won’t have to go through the inconvenience and the pain of disclosing a loss should it happen.

For however long we have this baby it has been given to us by the Lord. It deserves to be celebrated and enjoyed. And that’s exactly what I plan to do.

When my fears rear their ugly head I hope I remember to always turn them into prayers, for fear serves no purpose but prayer and faith do. And as I pray for my child I pray also that the Lord will keep me in prayer and not in fear as I enjoy this precious baby that he has blessed us with.

 

Raising souls

I’ve heard it said many times that children go through phases. There’s the newborn phase, the infant phase, the toddler phase, the terrible twos phase, the preteen phase, the teenager phase. Not to mention the phase of lying, of hitting, of pushing the limits. Children, it seems, are constantly in one phase or another.

But I don’t remember ever hearing that parents go through phases. I’ve never heard of it but as I think back over my years as a parent I know that we do. When I became a parent it wasn’t by choice, I didn’t have the normal nine months to get ready to be a parent. I poured over no books, prepared in no way. One day I was in the teenage phase of life and the next, with no warning, I entered the parenthood phase.

Without ever going through the nine month get ready period I became a mother. In those early days I had no idea what was happening, I simply thought I was babysitting. It was months later before I realized that I had become a mother to a child that wasn’t mine.

Because I fell into parenthood I went through no preparations. I had no thoughts of how I might raise that baby. I didn’t even pick out clothes for her. I simply answered the door one day and had a one week old baby handed into my care.

And that was how I became a parent.

My parenting style pretty much came the same way. I never planned how I wanted to raise that child, never thought that I was raising her. I was simply caring for her as she needed to be cared for in that day.

Days became weeks, weeks became months, months became years, and I was still parenting the same way. I reacted in the moment, raised her by the methods I had seen my mother and grandmother use. I went with what I knew and never thought about whether or not I should do anything different.

Five years later I became a mother again. That time I had the nine months to prepare. I shopped for clothes, diapers, and furniture. I had a baby shower. I was given plenty of well-meaning advice.

And still I simply parented in the moment. I fed my hungry newborn, changed diapers as they became soiled. I changed clothes, washed clothes, fed the baby, and changed diapers. Anyone that’s ever had a newborn understands exactly how much of a cycle that is. Somewhere in all of that I also enjoyed my brand new baby, cleaned house, experienced the trials of a colicky baby and learned what it was like to be a new mother all over again.

I did it all in the moment depending on the methods I had seen my mother and grandmother use and on the lessons I had learned with the first baby I raised. Unlike with the first baby I did make a few decisions with the second. I chose to use cloth diapers. I chose to breastfeed. And there went the extent of any forethought into how I wanted to raise baby. In time I also knew that homeschooling would be in our future.

But that was it. I had no philosophy, no greater plan. I was simply raising baby in the moment. And in the moment we continued. In time I came to the conclusion that it’s best to monitor what children watch on TV and so I did. In time I learned that this worked and that didn’t. In time I was still parenting in the moment.

Much of parenting is done in the moment. We often ask our children why they did such and such and they usually respond with ‘I don’t know.’ I think if someone had asked me why I raised a child a certain way at a certain time I would pretty much give the same I don’t know answer.

Because I raised them based off what was happening in the moment. As I realized that they were getting older and probably shouldn’t be exposed to certain things I stopped letting them be exposed but there was no forethought involved, it was decided at the moment when I realized it. From that point on decisions were based off that way of raising them but it still wasn’t planned ahead.

Eventually, as more babies came, the parenting got harder…and easier. With experience came the automatic reactions. And still I parented in the moment with no forethought involved. They were my children. I wanted them happy. I expected certain behavior from them and overlooked others.

As I grew older, as more children came along, as I matured as a parent, I began to see that what could easily be done when there was only one was difficult when there were many. I began to see that the problems that never came up with one child were daily occurrences with two, or three, or four. I also began to see that changes had to be made when you had an older child that loved little toys and a baby that wanted to put everything in their mouth.

And still I parented in the moment. There was never any forethought to what the child or children would become.

It’s only been very recently that I’ve begun to see that there’s so much more to parenting than parenting in the moment. There are times I wish I could go back and do it all again with the knowledge that parenting shouldn’t just happen in the moment. That isn’t an option and I wouldn’t choose it if I could but sometimes the thought is there. Sometimes I think of things I should have taught them, things I should have encouraged, things I shouldn’t have allowed that I did.

As I became a parent, and for many years afterward, I did what I had seen my mother and grandmother do. But what I don’t remember them ever doing in their child raising was thinking ahead and parenting based on a bigger picture.

That is the point I’m at now. I have begun to see that parenting is about raising children in the moment but it’s also about a bigger picture. There’s so much more to it than I ever believed in those early years of being a mother.

When that precious life first began to form inside me, or when it was handed to me quite unexpectedly, what I never realized was that I had been entrusted with so much more than just the baby that I could see and think of.

While my mind thought innocent new baby…I missed the bigger picture. While I parented a curious infant through reaching for and grabbing things…I missed the bigger picture. While I looked at my fit throwing toddler and wanted to pull my hair out while keeping in mind that their feelings had become more than they could bear…I missed the bigger picture.

That precious life that grew within me wasn’t just the tiny innocent baby I imagined…it was a soul entrusted into my care. The baby handed to me across the threshold wasn’t just a tiny bundle of innocence…she was a soul handed to me to care for and teach. The baby that kept yanking things off shelves and pulling peoples hair wasn’t merely curious…it was a soul that needed gentle teaching as the evil rooted in us with Adam began to manifest itself. The toddler that lay at my feet screaming and kicking because something hadn’t gone their way wasn’t just releasing emotions that had become too much for them to handle…it was a soul that was spewing the selfishness of their little hearts that needed correction.

Sad as it may be…I think it took losing my baby for me to see all of that. It took thinking on, praying over, and pondering the purpose for a baby that was gone nearly as soon as we knew of it for me to understand that they aren’t just babies…they are souls.

It also took some of the blog posts that I have written to help me see just what is at stake as we raise these little souls that have been handed into our care. We must by the very nature of raising children, parent in the moment. There is no other way. We can’t foresee exactly what any child will do on a given day. We don’t know which child will be prone to throwing fits and which one will lie. We can’t know how our actions today may affect our child’s tomorrows. And so we must parent in the moment and yet I’m also beginning to see that we must also parent with a head and a heart looking toward the eternity of little souls that have been handed into our care.

We can’t know if our children will ever belong to Christ. We can’t know if He will save them or leave them to the evilness of their hearts. But we can know what evil looks like. We can know what the fruits of the Spirit are. We can know that there’s more to raising a child than just raising them in the moment.

We want so much for our children to be happy. We want so much for them to have everything they need and a good part of what they want. But is that really the only thing parenting is about? We know it isn’t and yet some parents raise children as if it is. They give in to little Johnny’s immediate demand because if they don’t he will become so upset that he has trouble breathing, or he has an anxiety attack, or he falls off his chair, or… No, what he’s doing is throwing a fit based on the sin of his heart.

Don’t get me wrong…I’m as guilty as the next person of having given in to those sin filled temper tantrums. Somewhere in the early days of my parenting I heard that a child throws a fit because their emotions become more than they can bear and that we shouldn’t punish them for it because they need to be allowed to express those feelings. And I fell for it.

As a result I had toddlers screaming and kicking at my feet as I worked around the house, I had them crying in anger in the store because they couldn’t have what they wanted. I parented in the moment based on something an expert had said and I fell for it 100%.

What I didn’t know, didn’t think of, was that the strong emotions that toddler was expressing and I was allowing was a fit based on their selfish desires. They were demanding to have their way and when they didn’t get it they were expressing their outrage through screaming, kicking, yelling, and whatever other manner of behavior they exhibited in the moment. And as I felt my way through that moment with frustration and desperation I never realized that inside that child I loved so much was more than just their feelings for this moment. I never stopped to think that inside them was the heart and soul of who and what they would become for their entire life.

There’s a TV show that my children like to watch based on life in the 1800’s. In it there are many different families but there’s one family where the children are allowed to do pretty much anything they want and everyone else is expected to coddle these children, including other children. They are given to, given over to, allowed to have their way in almost everything and they are children that no one likes to be around.

I’ve known children that have been raised that way in real life. I once babysat for a woman that rarely told her daughter no. This child was demanding and hateful to her mother. When she wanted something she wanted it now and she would punish anyone around if she didn’t get it.

I highly doubt that the mother in the TV show, raising little tyrants, gave any thought to the fact that she wasn’t just raising the kids she loved so much but that she was raising souls that would one day become adults, but more than that they would one day have an eternity to face. Know I know that was television, I know it wasn’t real. The children and the parents in that show were acting and reacting based on a script that was written for the purpose of entertaining the audience but I also know there are parents and children out there just like the ones in that show.

The little girl I used to babysit is one of them. I know of others even as I write this post. I’ll be the first person to admit that I’m far from the perfect parent. I’m more likely to list the things I’ve done wrong in raising children than the things I did right. But the more I think on it, the more I realize that I’m not just raising children, I’m raising souls, the more I begin to see that every decision I make with my children is part of a larger picture.

I wasn’t raised to say ma’am or sir, rarely say it now. My great grandpa refused to teach his children to say it because he said it was something that slaves did and his children weren’t slaves. And so his children weren’t taught to say ma’am or sir. When their children were grown they didn’t teach it to their children. When those children grew up and started families they didn’t teach their children, their children didn’t teach it to their children, and now we are six generations of children in and ma’am and sir are foreign words in our family.

What was missed as my great grandpa made the decision to not teach his children to say ma’am and sir was that it wasn’t about slavery, it was about respect. As a woman I think much higher of a man that addresses me as ma’am than I do of one that doesn’t.

While saying ma’am or sir doesn’t affect the soul of the child it is a part of a larger picture. A picture I failed to paint with my children while they were small enough to do it. A child that isn’t taught to say ma’am or sir won’t say it as an adult. I’m proof of that. So are my cousins. So are my uncles.

It’s a small part of a bigger picture, a picture that must be painted while the child is small. It requires more than just parenting in the moment. It requires knowing that you want that small toddler just learning to talk to speak in a certain way and teach them to do it then so that when they are older they will still do it.

So much of my parenting was done in the moment with no thought of there even being a bigger picture. I have a friend that is raising her daughters to be the kind of wife the Bible speaks of. To reach that goal the girls are taught to obey daddy, they’re taught skills around the house, they’re taught to cook and sew. This friend saw a bigger picture that she wanted to reach with her daughters and set out to train them to be what she wanted them to be when they were adults.

When my oldest was little my goal was to make sure she could depend on herself. I had had a close family member that was raised with mom believing she wasn’t capable of doing anything and therefore mom, and anyone mom explained the situation to, treated this family member as unable to do things that other children her age did. I saw how that affected the girl not only as a child but also as she grew into an adult. I didn’t want my daughter to be that way.

And so I had a bigger plan. I wanted her to be able to function on her own. So from the time she was little I pushed her to do things for herself even when she might have thought she wasn’t able to. In that way I did have a bigger picture in mind and I did parent toward that goal. I now see the results of raising her in just such a way. She can do anything I can do. She is fully capable of taking over the house and her siblings should I be unable to do so.

When the younger children came along I still had that goal in mind but by then I had heard that a girl should be able to do everything her mother can by the time she’s 14 and so I added that goal to the list. And with the oldest I did my best to see to it that she reached that goal. She did.

There was a bigger picture in mind and she was raised to meet that bigger picture. But with the younger children even though the picture was there too many times it was easier to leave it to the oldest that could do things without my help than it was to work closely with the younger ones to see to it that they could reach those goals. The results of that show in the younger children.

Raising children to meet those goals isn’t a soul issue, it isn’t a salvation issue, but it is a part of the bigger picture of who the child will become and that is a part of the eternity of their soul.

As I write this I’m reminded of the Christian movement of taking dominion of the earth. Of people that have children with the purpose of raising them up to be ‘Christians’ that will influence the world with their beliefs. I’m not at all suggesting anything like that. I’m simply saying that what we teach our babies becomes a part of who they are as toddlers. What we teach our toddlers becomes a part of what they are as children. And what we teach them as children becomes a big part of who they are as adults.

And who they are as adults affects whether or not they believe unto salvation. The Lord will save them or not according to His purposes but I can’t help thinking that somewhere in there comes all the other factors in our life that effect what we believe. Children that are raised to believe in Christ can, and most likely will, still follow the desires of their hearts. Even if the Lord saves them there’s a good chance they will follow their hearts for a time. I did.

I can’t help thinking that somewhere in the Lord saving a child, a person, comes the childhood that they had which prepared them for their adult lives, prepared them for the belief that they would one day have in Christ.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:14-17

Those verses alone tell us that there is more to raising children than just going with the moment or making parenting choices based on our own thoughts and feelings. ..from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus…it’s a bigger picture. These children we love so much, that we want so much to raise in a way that keeps them happy is about more than just what we do right now. We are raising not just children but souls.

Souls that will have an eternity to spend in either heaven or hell.

The Lord is the only one with the knowledge and the ability to save our children but somehow…someway…the way we raise them must play a part. Each child is placed into the home that the Lord chooses for them. Each child is given parents that will raise it a certain way. There are people that will be in that child’s life that will play a role in who the child will become…siblings, grandparents, friends…parents.

There are many verses in Scripture on raising children. At different times in my life I have viewed those verses in different ways. But now I see them in a bigger picture. I see them with the idea of not only raising my beloved child but as raising a soul. I see that there is a much greater consequence or reward for each person than just what we experience on earth.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4

Why? Why would we be told to raise them in this manner if it wasn’t of great importance? The foundation is being laid while they are children for who they will be as adults. For at least some of them the foundation is being laid in childhood for the Lord to save them at their appointed time.

Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. Proverbs 23:13

When I read that verse I can’t help thinking of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. I can’t help remembering how they were warned to not eat from the tree of knowledge. I can’t help think that when God told them if they did they would die that He wasn’t talking about spiritual death. I can’t help thinking that when it says ‘he will not die’ it isn’t speaking of earthly life. I don’t know that for sure I’m just voicing my thoughts here. There are two very different kinds of death…one is to die in body, to die in this life, on this earth, the other is to die in spirit. Scripture tells us that we have life in Christ.

Discipline your son, for there is hope; do not set your heart on putting him to death. Proverbs 19:18

Here again death is spoken of. It’s very possible the death being referred to is an earthly death. We get an idea of what happened to children in Deuteronomy 21:18-21

If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

Those verses speak of a literal earthly death. The other verses may also but even if they do…spiritual death is the ultimate punishment for the wickedness of man’s hearts. It is the ultimate punishment for our selfish desires. Verse after verse tells of the wrath, the punishment, of God poured out on the wicked. In the verses above I have a hard time believing that any ‘son’ that did not ‘obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother’ that was brought to ‘the elders of his city’ where they ‘shall stone him to death with stones’ would be one of God’s chosen people. The next part of that verse pretty much tells us what kind of person this ‘son’ was and what eternity his soul would face…So you shall purge the evil from your midst…

That son that was put to death is described as evil. Why? What was his crime?

a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them… This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard…

His crime isn’t considered evil in our society. His crime isn’t considered a crime at all. It is often seen as nothing beyond normal behavior today but in Biblical times it was labeled as evil and punished by death. If that son was evil do you think he spent eternity in heaven?

Aside from the part about being a drunkard how many children in today’s society would fit that description? How many children in today’s society would be committing ‘crimes’ punishable by death every day?

While we as parents often parent our children in the moment, based on our own desires for how our children should act people in Biblical times had to raise children within a much stricter world than we do. There are laws that we should teach our children to obey in order to keep them from winding up in jail or living in a way that is harmful to others but there are very few things they can do in our society that will be punished with death.

How much more diligent would we be to ensure our children obeyed us if we knew they would be put to death if the law realized that they don’t obey their parents? How much more diligent would we be to remove all hints of rebelliousness in them if we knew they would die if anyone else saw them act in that way?

And yet…does the Bible not tell us that our children still face death for those ‘crimes’?

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. ² For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, ⁴ treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God… so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. ⁹ But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all... 2 Timothy 3:1-9

Those verses don’t specifically speak of death but they do speak of folly, they do say that they are disqualified regarding the faith. There are plenty of other verses that tell us that those not in the faith, that those not saved by Christ, will face eternal wrath.

Do we think our children are exempt from that wrath simply because we love them? So we think that parenting in the moment with no thought for what they will become will save them from even earthly troubles? Do we think that giving in to their tantrums and demands will benefit them in the long run?

Even if we removed the very real, very scary, thought of where they may spend eternity. Even if we remind ourselves that there is nothing that we can do that will keep them from Christ if they are one of his…do we not realize that our decisions today will affect the rest of their lives?

I have an uncle that was raised rarely being told no. He was raised being allowed to do as he pleased with little to no guidance and from what I’ve been told he was a monster of a child as a boy. As a young teen he got into so much trouble with the law that he was court ordered to go to a boys school for problem boys. As an adult he has been in and out of jail, he has beat his wives, he has sought after his own pleasures with little thought for anyone else. He took his mother to court, physically fought and disowned his brother… And that’s just what I know of.

Did being raised with almost no discipline do him any good? Just on this earth…did it help or hurt him?

Through a good part of my life I know that my grandparents didn’t approve of his actions. I know that they worried over the way he treated his family. I know that he gave them grief long after he no longer lived at home.

Did my grandparents think of the bigger picture as they were raising him? Did they think of how their tyrant of a young son would become a tyrant of a man?

Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart. Proverbs 29:17

As far as I know my grandparents never had rest with my uncle. He wasn’t a delight to their hearts as he grew older.

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him. Proverbs 22:15

Folly is spoken of again here. It was in the verses from 2 Timothy also. 

so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. ⁹ But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all...

In those verses folly was linked with opposing the truth, being corrupted in mind, disqualified regarding the faith. And that was after a long list of undesirable behaviors.

Even a child makes himself known by his acts, by whether his conduct is pure and upright. Proverbs 20:11

Why is it that we can so easily see behavioral issues with other people’s children but we have a hard time seeing them in our own? Why is it that things we wouldn’t put up with in other people’s children will we overlook and ignore in our own children? It’s much easier to say I’d discipline that child for doing that but much harder to do it with our own. Even with close family members, even with children we love, it’s much easier to see the behavior issues than it is to see it in our own.

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.  Proverbs 22:6

This verse clearly says that there’s more to raising a child than just what is happening in the moment. In order to ‘train up a child in the way he should go’ we must first figure out exactly what that ‘way’ is. We must have an idea of where it is we want them to ‘go’ so that we can figure out how to train them to get there.

These children that we love so much are more than just the little people that hold our hearts. They are people that have both an earthly and a spiritual future.

I am only recently realizing much of this. I have been a parent for two decades and I am only now figuring out a good part of that. I can’t make suggestions on how to raise souls instead of children. I can’t even figure out how to go from raising children in the moment to raising them with the thought of ‘the way he should go’ in mind. I can see that that is how we need to raise them but I can’t see how to get there.

But I am now fully realizing that there’s so much more to being a parent than loving our children and giving them the things they need. How much more would our children benefit from their parents if we kept in mind that we aren’t raising babies, toddlers, children, but that we are raising adults…husbands…wives…moms….dads? How much more would they benefit if we raised them with a mind toward what they would become instead of just making things easier for ourselves?

How much would they benefit if we simply raised them to not acquire any of these traits…

For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, ⁴ treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure…

How much more would they benefit if we raised them with the thought of their souls in mind?