Christian Living, Christ, Gospel, Discipleship
Have you ever wondered what the mind of a child thinks when he considers the vastness of space? How can something so vast be comprehended by a creature so small? On this episode of the Si-Co Pod, father and son take time to talk it over. Enjoy!
If we are to embark on a series concerning vocation, we ought to make sure we are cooking with the same kind of grease. We must a have a clear goal which implies having the right words. Words mean things. When we say work, what do we mean? When we speak of vocation, what exactly are we referring to? What about calling? What do we do with a calling? Before I get to ahead of myself, let’s focus on work for now.
Work is good. Hard work is good. God works and displays his work daily. Each and every second of everyday is evidence God works. He holds all things by the power of his word. Every molecule obeys his command. God is creator. In six days he did make all things by the power of his word. On the seventh day he rested from his labor. That is not to say all things stopped or ceased to function but that God ceased from his work of creating and looked over all that he created and saw that it was good.
On the sixth day, God made man in his image. In his image has many implications we will not get into here, but we can determine one communicable attribute present. It was that as God works, man will work. Adam was given a commission from God to be fruitful and multiply. To fill the earth with God’s image. This is work. It is good work. This commission and command is all encompassing. All of Adam’s life was to do as the Lord had commanded. It was work and it was good.
Adam being the first man was the primary representation of mankind before holy God. You could say he was the first prophet, priest, and king. These are no small occupations. He, as the representative of God or his vice regent, also had the obligation of representing God before the rest of creation. This included later the woman who God formed from the rib of Adam after there was no one else suited for Adam as a help meet.
Adam was the first prophet of God who did speak his commands to his betrothed, the first priest who stood as mediator between God and the rest of creation, and the first king who was to take dominion over all the earth by order of God himself. And this work, this mighty task, was good.
All this to say work is good. It was not a result of the fall of man in Genesis three. Work was cursed in the punishment of God towards Adam but work was already present. The job just got a lot more difficult. Work is good. It’s difficult but good. A proper theology of work means a proper approach to work. God works. We work for his glory.
It bothers me when Christians appear to see the vocations of pastors as the only holy noble work to pursue. I wonder why this is so prevalent in our churches today? Why is it that so many believe the lie of holy vocation is only in ministry?
I will grant the vocations of pastor, missionary, or evangelist are important noble positions. In fact, I would like Spurgeon say the position of pastor is higher than that of a king. However, that does not negate the importance of kingship. Christ is the King of kings as well as the Over-shepherd of shepherds. Don’t get it twisted. Kings are important. Shepherds or pastors are also important. This is what makes me want to insist upon the importance of the wide range of vocations. All work can be done for Christ. From the lowly to the lofty, all can give him glory.
I would that we all could see the importance of whatever work our hands finds to do. Nothing is too lowly or haughty that it cannot magnify the Lord in many ways. Working as unto the Lord is a basic command to all who are in Christ. In that simple understanding, so much can be done in faith. In faith you can be on time. In faith you can do good work. In faith you can meet deadlines. In faith you can budget. In faith you can take dominion.
In the posts to come I hope to lay out the importance of working unto Christ. Your vocation can be God’s work. Whatever your vocation, it can be a vocation of glory!
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Once there was a young king who asked for only one thing from his God. He asked for wisdom. One day it happed that two mothers were sleeping with their babes after nursing and behold in the night one mother found her child smothered and dead beneath her breast. She arose from her bed going to the other mother to switch the children. She lay her dead child beneath the other mother as she slept and took the sleeping child to lay with her till dawn’s break.
When the mother of the child stolen awoke, she found what she thought was her child beneath her dead. But upon further investigation she realized the child was not her own. Of course this created a great argument in the house and the matter was brought before the new young king.
The king, sitting judgement, had to decide what was best to settle this matter. On one hand he had a mother who’s child was really dead and on the other hand he had a mother who’s child was still alive. Both mothers claimed the living child; both the true mother and the deceiver. After much argument, the young king decided what was best for the child. He called for a sword to be brought to him. He informed the mothers he would cut the child in half so both would get at least something from this situation.
Upon hearing the judgment from the king, the deceiver agreed this was the best course of action for misery loves company. But the mother of the living child said no, let the other woman have the child if it means he would live. It was by this confession did the king reveal the true mother of the living child for that mother would rather her child go to the lying mother than face the king’s judgement of death. The king granted the mother her child and all of the kingdom was in awe of the king’s wisdom. The whole kingdom feared the king for the wisdom of God that was in him.
This familiar story is in fact the story of King Solomon and the two harlots from 1 Kings 3:16-28. Wisdom is a wonderful thing all Christians should strive for.
Praise God. It appears the Lord has heard the prayers and cries of so many across the nation asking Him to strike down the 1973 Supreme Court ruling which essentially assumed the right of a pregnant woman to have an abortion under the U.S. Constitution. In a 6-3 decision by the Supreme Court today, June 24th, 2022, resulting from Mississippi case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Roe v. Wade has been overturned. Today marks the day for the true rights of women. For all of the little baby girls in the womb who will now be given the right to life; this is a great day. This is also great for all the little boys who will one day grow to be men that protect their wives, children, and their country. Those who are made and bare the image of God are today given hope of life. May God be praised from the mountain tops.
It is now up to the states across our nation to finally outlaw abortion for good. This victory has turned the battle ensuring life for so many little ones for the time being but there is still work to do. There is still prayers that need to be said, letters to be written, and protection to be ensured. May God grant further wisdom to the leaders of each individual state as they come together to further protect the rights of the American people in and out of the womb. May God grant more blessing upon us though we have sinned for almost 50 years by sacrificing our little ones to the alter of self. Perhaps this is a beginning of a true national repentance towards God. I pray it is so.
In 1 Samuel 12, Samuel the prophet of God says something so striking to the people of Israel after they had demanded a king for themselves like the nations around them.
“19 Then all the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, so that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil by asking for ourselves a king.”
20 Samuel said to the people, “Do not fear. You have committed all this evil, yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart.
21 “You must not turn aside, for then you would go after futile things which can not profit or deliver, because they are futile.
22 “For the Lord will not abandon His people on account of His great name, because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for Himself.
23 “Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you; but I will instruct you in the good and right way.
24 “Only fear the Lord and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you.
25 “But if you still do wickedly, both you and your king will be swept away.”1
Even after this great sin of rejecting God and asking for a king, Samuel tells the people to not fear but to steadfastly follow God with all their heart. If they were to turn aside, their efforts would be futile and if they continued to sin, both the people and their king would be swept away.
We must consider the great thing the Lord has done for us today and not turn aside chasing after other gods of our own liking. This includes looking towards government as some sort of savior that it can never be. But we must follow God with all our hearts even though we have sinned greatly as a nation for so long. God alone delivers and adds blessing to those who love him and follow his commands. Let us seek his face in forgiveness and praise God today for this historical blessing we see! SDG!
Tired I lay down at night, Hoping for darkness to fill my sight. Upon the pillow I close my eyes, A little whisper to my surprise; Awakens me from a stupor still, My daughter’s eyes with waters fill. Wanting an answer for her little soul. "Daddy, when I die where will I go?" "There, there," I simply say; "let's wipe those tears away. There is hope for your little soul, You can know just where you'll go. For there is a Father far better than I, By his love sent his Son to die. Upon a cross he bore our sin, So we can get to God again. Just call on him to save you now, Come close and I'll show you how. For if you believe he rose again, After dying for your sin, With your mouth just call his name, And your stirring heart he will claim. From your sin you must flee, And look towards His work on Calvary. In Jesus simply place your faith, And know one day you'll will see his face. He welcomes you this very night." With this I kiss her head and tuck her tight. One last whisper in her ear, "I love you daughter, do not fear. You can know just where you will go, To the Savior who loves your little soul."
When Anikin Skywalker finally went full dark-side, his first targets were the up and coming Jedi younglings. The order “66” was in full effect causing mass chaos across the galaxy. He walks into the classroom where the young Padawans were training and is met by one babe Jedi asking, “What are we going to do Master Anakin?” The youngling was met with the famous sound of the awakening lightsaber from the Sith’s now Darth Vader.
We think of this scene with a mouth opened gasp. Anakin was making sure his reign of terror would not have usurpers now or near future. He would vanquish his foes completely and devastate all opposition no matter how young. He destroyed the hope of future Jedi.
I cannot remember exactly which movie this scene was from, perhaps Episode 3, but that doesn’t matter. That’s not the point here. The point is our younglings are under attack but the dark lord of this world has much more sinister plans in mind than the just sudden slaughter Anakin dealt. Satan would have your child inculcated with the lies he is father of, believe them, and go to do likewise. He wants your kids to be as he is; a devil.
Children can understand a lot more than we give them credit. If they can navigate an online world, build online worlds within video games, then they can take some good ole fashioned godly inculcation. It’s not whether but which when it comes to the shaping of the next generation. Will we as parents teach our own children the things of God which are the way things really are in the world, or will we allow the world to brainwash them into a fairytale land where they are the star of their own show pining for all the adoration the world can throw at them? The secular world is having children at an extremely low rate which means that secular world is better at recruiting our children than we are at training them in the fear and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). We are simply giving them soldiers we ought to keep in training for the kingdom of God.
I believe we are mandated by God to train our children all the live long day. As we rise up, as we lay down, and as we walk along the way of life (Deut. 6:7). We must be attentive to what they are learning, hearing, reading, watching, and following. We as parents need to be proactive in our teaching and not just simply reactionary. We cannot be appalled at what they are learning in school or from peers when we ourselves are not being the primary voice of instruction to them. This takes work and sacrifice. You do not have to send your child to the secular school down the road. There are other options and it is high time we start considering them. Despite what the world may be telling us concerning our children, we have to be the voice of instruction to them because we are ultimately responsible before God for them. This must be at the forefront of our minds (Deut 6:8-9).
Do not believe the lies of the world. We have the authority to raise our children how God instructs us to raise them. We are mandated by our Creator to train our children in such a way that will disrupt the cultural norms by calling the world to repentance toward God. Allowing our children to be discipled by the world will ultimately mean they will become just like the world because a disciple is not greater than its master (Luke 6:40; Matt. 10:24; Jn. 13:16, 15:20). As I write this, Disney has basically declared a war on the minds of our children by sharing their desire to jam sexually deviant characters and ideologies into their movies. They would have your child be their disciple and not Christ’s. The battle is not just outside the home, its streaming right into our living rooms.
Jesus said to suffer the little children to come to me for such is the kingdom of God (Matt. 19:14). We are to not only allow our children to come to Christ, but encourage it. If we are to disciple the nations and teach them all the Lord has commanded, we must being at home (Matt. 28:18-20). We as parents are responsible to keep, protect, teach, discipline, and disciple our children. Do not let the world take the younglings.
Proverbs 21:23 says, “Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles” (KJV). This is a general truth which we should heed. It could be that this proverb is much deeper than we may realize if we give ourselves a moment to ponder it. If we keep our mouths shut, we will avoid a heap of trouble in this life to be certain, and if we keep out mouths from speaking falsely, keep it from gossip, keep it from slander, keep it from vows we do not intend to keep, and if we keep it from blasphemy; we will keep our souls from trouble with God.
But the question arises from this is: whom are we concerned the trouble comes from? Do we fear God? If yes, then we will keep our mouths from the list of things just mentioned, but if we fear man, we will keep our mouths from speaking the truths of God. Therefore, the attempt to avoid trouble is with man. In other words, if we want to stay away from adversity or trouble with friends, family, work, and unbelievers in general then we will keep our mouths from speaking the things of God to them. Yet, the problem now is we are in trouble with God because he would have his truth proclaimed (Romans 10:17).
The short answer is to speak. But the tongue is a vile little thing that can bring death just as swift as it can bring life (James 3). We must have wisdom in our approach but we must at least have an approach. There must be a foundation from which we speak in order to rightly aim at who we are speaking to. Upon what authority do we tell the people we come in contact with about Jesus? Upon the authority of Jesus himself. He is the sender and his aim is at the nations of the world. Consider this from Matthew 28:18-20 (KJV):
18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Jesus said go and speak because he has all authority in heaven and in earth. He is ruling and sending his heralds to the nations to let them know he is ruling. He wants the nations know they have a king they answer to and must bow the knee. If we are in Christ then we are the heralds. We speak, we open our mouths to tell the things of God to the world God created. If we do not speak, we will avoid issues with those around us, but we are disobeying Jesus. Christian, open your mouth and speak! SDG!
Who doesn’t want another life hack? Not everything comes easy in life which makes us appreciate anything that makes life a little bit easier. Let me introduce a simple one that has helped me in the realm of personal Bible study.
The idea is to add additional reading to your Bible reading time. This could be a concise commentary to help you understand what you just read from the scriptures or a small book that outlines the book you are currently reading in the Scriptures. I once did a deep read of the book of Joshua aided by another book written by Rhett Dodson entitled Every Promise of Your Word published by The Banner of Truth Trust. It opened up the book to me like never before.
Perhaps you are wanting to getting a little more theological knowledge under your belt, but the thought of taking on a thousand page systematic theology book seems a little much. I suggest J. I. Packers little systematic entitled A Concise Theology. In this work, Packer gives each core doctrine one chapter consisting of two to four pages. An easy addition to your daily Bible reading.
Make the most of your Bible study by taking the extra time to add some helpful reading post Bible reading. Not only will you gain personal depth from the word of God, but you get to peek inside the minds of many others who have spent time in the word as well. SDG!
The Bible we use during our devotions has changed over the years. I once used my ESV Reformation Study Bible by Ligonier Ministries and often times my Cambridge Wide-Margin Bible, but I have found a children’s bible that caters to the imagination of the children while not compromising fidelity to the text of scripture. There are embellishments but not in the sense the story line or key doctrines become distorted or neglected. Banner of Truth supplies this Bible called, The Child’s Story Bible by Catherine Vos. I encourage you to get this Bible if you still have younger children as I do. I encourage this because of the clarity and story. It is a twenty thousand foot level read, but allows the child to see the whole Bible and the message of Jesus Christ. If you cannot get The Child’s Story Bible, any Bible will do.
Keep the Bible study/devotion time simple. If it is not simple, you will not remain consistent. I have fallen into this trap before by wanting it to be grandiose while forgetting I have little ones who have an attention span of about ten minutes. I now try to keep it to around ten to fifteen minuets depending on the material, but they do extend if the kids are asking questions. Keep the moving parts minimal. We usually do a prayer, Bible reading, short explanation, Bible verse, catechism, song, and lastly ending prayer. That may seem like a lot, but really it is simple and effective.
If you keep it simple, the kids will look forward to it, remind you of it, and be proud to tell you of what you talked about on the last devotion. It is a good cycle of compounding returns. Also, keep in mind the goal is to not have a goal exactly. You should rather have a consistent simple outline like that above that will be a mainstay in your family’s rhythm of life. The action should be as familiar as brushing teeth or having lunch each day. Of course the goal is to see your kids come to Christ and follow him in discipleship, but this system will ensure they remain acquainted with the things of God while trusting God will take care of the afore mentioned goals.
We begin our devotions with a simple prayer of asking God to help us understand what we are about to learn. This orients the beginning of the devotion godward. We need the help of the Holy Spirit to illuminate the scriptures to us. We also pray for forgiveness and end the prayer in thankfulness in order to encourage our children to include these in their daily action of prayer. So the big three to begin is to ask for help, forgiveness, and to be thankful to God for all he has done.
Next, we move to Bible reading. I usually take a chapter from The Children’s Story Bible and preface it with what we learned from the last time. Currently we are going through the book cover to cover. We are in chapter nineteen which is divided into two parts. I will read just one part of that chapter and that will be all I read for that time. Each chapter is short and simple. I have had my oldest son read the chapters when we used the regular Bible. I have yet, to get him to read these chapters. But a good practice would be to allow the kids to be involved where they can so to take active part in the family devotion time.
After reading the chapter, I will explain briefly what we read. I make this as simple as repeating a few key points noticed while reading. As a side note, I do not prepare for the devotion before hand. I speak extemporaneously each and every time, but I will say this is an overflow from my own Bible reading which I encourage all Christians to engage.
Once we have explained the text in a short two or three main points, I then move to a simple Bible verse memorization. We used John 3:16 many times before. For this very famous verse, I have created a fun song my kids can learn, sing and repeat back. I venture to say my children could find themselves reciting this song when older just as they would have to recite the alphabet song to remember if the letter “O” comes before or after the letter “L”. Its catchy and sticks. I don’t always do songs with the verses, but I try. We will repeat this a couple times, I may ask one kid to recite it to me by themselves and then that portion is finished.
The memory verse is followed by what I would think could be the most daunting for parents. We move to a time of catechism. Catechism is simply a question and answer method of teaching. I now use Spurgeon’s Catechism: Revised and Updated by Roger McReynolds. I will take one question in the book at a time. First I will ask it, see what the kids say, and then answer it with the answer from the book. I will also draw their attention to the Bible verses from which the answer is derived. In this volume from Spurgeon, each question is given its own page which makes for an easy way of going though the book. This section of the devotional time seems to spark the most questions. The time of explaining the Bible reading does some, but this time seems more free for the kids to express their lingering questions. Try to make room for the questions and do not be afraid to tell your kids you do not know the answer to something. You’ll find the catechism will benefit the whole family.
After the question and answer time, we sing a song. We usually sing the Doxology. We have sang other songs, but this one is short and sweet. The kids love it.
Lastly, just as we opened in prayer, we close in prayer. We thank God for his word and message. We ask him to help us apply what we learned and to remind us of it through the day. At this time we also may take prayer requests and pray for specific needs the family are facing together. I often will ask one of the kids to close us in prayer.
That’s it! It is not that hard, and it will give huge spiritual dividends as time goes on. Sure it could be difficult when you have little ones, but just like anything that is worth doing it comes with difficulty. I have a feeling your children will be grateful not only that you took the time to tell them about the things of God, but also that you took the time with them. I have found the most precious of gifts to give your children is time spent with them and this allows you to do just that. It is a wonderful thing to see them grow in the understanding of the Lord. We as parents have an obligation to raise our Children in the fear and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). We do this so when they are old they will not depart from the things of God (Proverbs 22:6). Keep the faith and teach them as you wake up, walk along the way, and when you lay down (Deuteronomy 6:7); for in this they will learn the fear of the Lord which is wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding (Proverbs 9:10).
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