There's a Better View

Our Christian children are not best revealed by how they behave—they are best revealed by who God says they are. Our struggle is to focus upon the latter, because we live by faith in what He says is true about them.

Without excusing poor, fleshly behavior, we must not allow it to sell the lie that our kids are how they look. When the surface of our children looks particularly stormy, we must know that under the waves something is amiss, and we need to go there. If our children’s flesh is on display in all of its ugly evidence (as it sometimes is with us), our goal is to rescue them. Revive them! Our best help to people is to build them up in Christ, to remind them of how He has made them, and to make sure they know He is in them—and still happy about that at all times. If their behavior is stinky, it’s usually because their thinking is too. You can help them by interrupting their thinking and refocusing their little heads upon the truth and gospel of Jesus.

That’s the power that makes them free to live by the Spirit. It might take a little while for them to shift their thinking to the Spirit, who makes them well and happy, but you will have assisted them to know how to live by Christ throughout their days. That’s the best there is. Plus, you will be better off for it, because you will be focused upon the truth. And that’s where the life and power of God is.