The Grief of Finite Joy
God has put eternity into our hearts, and we long not just for joy but for joy unending. Every happy experience we have on earth will end. That prick of incompleteness, of a premature finale, is an indication of the capacity of our souls. It points to a new land.
Somehow my oldest child is a freshman in high school. As I’ve experienced those where-did-the-time-go emotions that come with such minor milestones, I’ve started to feel a deep, preemptive loss.
I have loved being a parent. It has been one of the best callings in my life. My sadness at (possibly) having less than four years left with my daughter at home is not mere nostalgia for familiar or picturesque days. In the midst of a happy season, I can see its end on the horizon.
I’m not alone in this, and these feelings are not reserved for parents. I’ve felt this same grief in the middle of a family vacation as the lightness of the first few days becomes weighted with regret as I feel the end approaching.
This grief creeps into small things too, like stretching out the end of a good book to avoid snapping the cover closed for the last time. Or savoring a delicious coffee so long that it turns cold and sour.
This is a narrow, specific kind of grief, but it can be stifling.
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Teach Them Diligently
Through worshipping together on Sunday mornings and worshipping throughout the week in the home, our children will have been in the presence of God so much that they know exactly how these counterfeit gods look and their response will be to flee from them. Parents, disciple your children. Make going to church a habit and worship regularly together, in your church and in your home. Teach your children diligently. It’s vital for your family and our culture. Now the time to take Deuteronomy 6 seriously.
I have a dear friend who works in the banking industry, and as he was training I was fascinated by a particular story that he shared with me. He was sitting in the training room and his manager began to lay twenty-dollar bills on the table. As he laid them down he looked up and asked, “Which one is a counterfeit?” My friend carefully examined the bills and chose one. He chose the wrong one. The manager picked the bills up and began to teach him how to spot the counterfeit bill. This happened everyday until he could spot the counterfeit within seconds. Likewise, we must train our children so well that they can spot the counterfeit gods that our society invites them to serve within seconds. These brazen invitations to serve counterfeit gods are the reason our children need to be trained just like my friend who works in the bank.
Teach Them Diligently
These are the words of God in Deuteronomy 6:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. –Deuteronomy 6:4-9
When we think about raising children, these words from God come quickly to mind. God commands believing parents to raise their children diligently.
“You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
This training is a lifestyle and you must teach it to your children.
We must answer the question, “Why?” Why do we need to be teaching this to our children? It is quite simple—because as believing parents, we are the primary means of discipleship in our family. God tells us to teach our children diligently and that is exactly what we must do. Besides, as you may have figured out, this command has many practical implications for your life and your children.
God is very clear in why he commands his people to train their children up in the way they should go; because when they go into the land that he has promised them, there will be counterfeit gods and they will be tempted to go and worship them! Well, we know that the only God that must be worshipped is the Lord and he is a jealous God for his people (Deut. 6:15). He demands we worship him and him alone (Exod. 20:1-6).
My mind immediately goes to Galatians as Paul warns those believers not to turn to a “different gospel” (Gal. 1:6). Well as frankly as I can put it, believers are finding their children turning to a different gospel and falling into the temptations from its counterfeit gods because we have not followed the command from Deuteronomy 6 to diligently teach our children.
More times than not I hear parents say, “I’m just going to let my child be a child. They don’t need to worry about things like homosexuality, abortion, transgenderism, etc until they’re out of college.”
This response is oblivious at best because everything that surrounds them in life pushes them to counterfeit gods and their “gospels.” Our children are pushed by the media to care more about the latest Tik-Tok trend than the devaluation of human life. Their schools teach them that it’s foolish to believe in any absolute truth and only their feelings should be trusted . I could go on and on about how our world is telling our kids to run far away from God and into a different gospel of false love and acceptance—where anything goes and God does not exist.
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A Spiritual Diagnostic
Written by J.A. Medders |
Thursday, June 15, 2023
The Christian life isn’t a perfect life—it’s a repenting life. There ought to be patterns of change, sacrifice, and recalibrated loves in your life. Maybe there’s an awareness of sins and attitudes that you were oblivious to before you believed in Christ. Maybe you sense a hitch in your heart and mind when someone is gossiping. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control ought to be growing on the vine of your life.The apostle Paul urged the Corinthians to examine themselves to see whether they were in the faith (2 Cor. 13:5). Part of gospel ministry, whether you’re a pastor or a women’s Bible study leader, is to help people dismiss their own preconceived and cobbled-together versions of Christ and receive the real gospel, the real Jesus.
We will frequently minister to people who are either convinced they’re Christians (when they aren’t) or terrified they aren’t Christians (when they are). And we are also called to test of our own discipleship and apprenticeship with Jesus, seeing if the alignment of our souls and lives is walking rightly with Jesus. Here are five questions that can serve as a spiritual diagnostic to help evaluate and examine the state of one’s soul in relation to the true and living God.
1. Do you think Jesus is relevant for your daily life?
Many people are content with a version of Jesus as a mere pious figure, a “Jesus” who isn’t concerned with our sins but wants to send positivity to the masses. But the real Jesus has something to say, to offer, and to bring to every area of our lives. His life, death, resurrection, and reign in the heavenly places are precisely what we need—he is exactly who we need. Jesus isn’t a fixed data point in history. He’s living, active, and inviting you into his merciful kingdom.
Ask yourself: Do I genuinely believe the living Jesus matters for my life, right here and now? Do I consider Jesus Christ the most relevant person in my life?
2. Do you live as though Jesus is relevant for your daily life?
It’s easy to say, “Yes, Jesus matters.” But does your life prove it? Lip service is one of the most dangerous practices in the world today. This is why Saint James tells us that we must be hearers and doers of the word (James 1:22).
Think about decisions you’ve made in terms of your job, marriage, kids, finances, entertainment, and friends. Was Jesus the factor in your choice?
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An Overlooked Aspect of the Story: PCA Influence on Acts 29 and Mars Hill
Written by R. Scott Clark |
Tuesday, January 11, 2022
If you have not listened to “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” you should. It helps us to understand the so-called New Calvinism or the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement. It also helps us to understand the intersection between a part of the PCA and Acts 29 and that might help us understand some of the debates occurring today within the PCA.Regular readers of the Heidelblog and listeners of the Heidelcast will know that considerable time has been spent here analyzing and interacting with the podcast series produced by Christianity Today and hosted by Mike Cosper (see the resources below).
In that interaction most of the time and attention has been spent on the nature and effects of Mark Driscoll’s Narcissism and abuse and on highlighting the differences between Reformed theology, piety, and practice and that of the so-called “New Calvinism” or the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement as represented by Driscoll and Mars Hill.
The most recent episode of the Presbycast (“Deconstructing 2021 and Big Eva with D G Hart”), however, hits on a very important aspect of the Acts 29/Mars Hill/Driscoll story that I overlooked: the role of the PCA, specifically the Church Planting Assessment Center (CPAC) in Atlanta, and Spanish River PCA in the formation of Acts 29 and Mars Hill.
In that regard it is interesting to note that this is the first thing one sees on the CPAC page:
Choosing and Retaining the right pastor is the key variable in planting a new mission.—Lyle Schaller
Was the Apostle Paul “the right pastor”? After all, the Corinthians were not much impressed with him. They were interested in “wisdom,” and “power,” and eloquence but Paul came to them with “foolishness,” “weakness,” and stumbling: “I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Cor 2:3–5; ESV). They were much more taken with the self-proclaimed “Super Apostles” than they were with an actual apostle and they continued to be unimpressed with simple gospel ministry for, as far as church history knows, the rest of their history.
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