God intended us to be a body that has lots of gifts, lots of callings and lots of functions in it
– that makes us all work together (John 8:12).
1 John 1:5-7 – If you choose worldly wisdom, you are walking in darkness (even though you are a Christian and have fellowship with light or have the light of Jesus in you). If you take counsel from the Word of God to raise your kids, you will choose the Word above human wisdom. Where human wisdom makes sense, you will apply it, but where it is in contest with the Word of God, you will choose the Word (so you choose light, you choose the truth).
We either have to obey the Word or we’re going to practice a lie (disobeying God’s Word). The Word says, The blows that bruise, will cleanse the soul. Obeying God’s Word might be extremely uncomfortable for you – for instance, physically disciplining your children.
It is essential for children to understand that obedience to authority is more important than just getting away with whatever they want to do. Should parents choose to not discipline their children, reasoning that they will learn right or wrong through the consequences, children will only obey the consequence (and then only if the consequence actually physically restrains them).
The consequence doesn’t teach them either.
You’ve got to have boundaries, teaching your children that you have boundaries because the Word of God is what you do (The Word of God says…).
The least considered boundary in homes is what a child is permitted to eat and not eat.
Children can grow up with an option to eat well (where parents manage the sweets intake). The better your kids eat, the more you are going to have control over them. The worse they eat, the less control you’re going to have over them.
As a parent you got to draw the line somewhere. You got to have boundaries somewhere. You got to have values and disciplines somewhere. The Word of God is full of instructions on how to raise your children. If you constantly shift the boundaries, because your children have arguments with you, you’re teaching them that their argument and the intellectual conversation is good enough to move the boundary (then it never becomes about obedience).
You’ve got to be in the Word, you’ve got to have boundaries.
The more effective and efficient you get at setting a few rules and having your children stick to those few (unbreakable, unmovable) rules, you will find that there are other things that you can add to those rules.
What values do you want to teach your children? Values from the Word of God.
Parents are ‘the God’ in their children’s lives, because the parents are showing them how to walk before God until they get to an age where they are fully released to follow God on their own and make life choices on their own. It’s not about what’s right and wrong, it’s about, “God says”. This is the highest level of standard that you can have. According to the Word of God you have got to raise your children in the ways of God.
Our Father is the best Heavenly Father. He has our best interests at heart. What is it that He is going to draw as boundaries in our lives? He wants us to not have to experience what it is to live in the darkness. When I’m choosing my own way, I’m choosing darkness, because I’m not having fellowship with the light; I’m doing things that are my own will and I’m living in darkness (I’m practising a lie).
Our Heavenly Father has handed all authority of the management of his children and his household to the Son, Jesus – because he obeyed the Father while He was in a human body. Jesus is now the Father’s representative to manage the house – he has rules and boundaries. The whole Bible has been given for our correction, for our teaching, for our exhortation for our learning, for our reproof, for our rebuke and is beneficial for our future.
The whole Bible represents who God is.
The big commandment – Love.
John 17 – If you understand the love relationship that exists between Jesus and the Father, then your whole life becomes about obedience in honour of Him, not about disobedience and not about: How far can I push the boundaries. It becomes, how much of everything that I have (honour, obedience, my life, my gifts) can I give to Him? The boundaries are set by your honour and your obedience (no longer by rule of law).
A child that has the most freedom in the house (of any household) is the child who is not fighting his parents; who is living in the rules of his parents and asking his parents advice and living responsibly.
If one of the kids in the house is on purpose rebelling all of the time (breaking the rules), they need to get the discipline. If they don’t, then it affects everybody else and the house becomes lawless (no rules, no obedience).
For people saying they are fellowshipping in the light, but are practising a lie – correction will come. God is going to create a circumstance where their lifestyle becomes evident as fake – in the church. They end up leaving the church. God is saying, “I can’t afford you to poison the rest of my kids. Go and eat your inheritance with the pigs until you find out that that’s not the place to live, then you may be permitted back.”
To have the expectations of the greatness of our God in 2019 – you need order in your life.
Spiritual disorder is not living at the level of honour (always being in it for yourself). At some point the Heavenly Father is going to correct you with His Word. He is going to teach you, “This is My law – it’s the law of a living love relationship”.
The law of love in the New Testament is much higher than the law of sacrifice in the Old Testament. Faith comes from that kind of relationship; faith doesn’t come from sacrificing your tithes. If you have no faith to tithe, keep your money; you’re going to need it. If you tithe without faith, then it’s just a debt that you owe, but if you tithe with faith, then you’re opening up the covenant relationship for blessing to flow.
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