Today I direct you to a post my friend guest-blogged today. She explains the whys and hows of teaching her daughter biblical repentance and forgiveness, particularly by modeling it. Good, solid explanation with great Scripture, quotes, and examples to learn from! Thx, V!!
and there is a Part 1 to start with! I’m Sorry, Part 1
“The ultimate expression of friendship is to risk rejection and speak the truth in love.” - Phil Tuttle (8/16/11 @Maranatha)
“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself” (Galatians 6:1-3)
For a few weeks now I have been meditating on how whenever God brings sin to light, the goal is restoration. God makes us aware of our sin not to condemn, but to redeem. He makes us aware in love, so we will repent and return to a right relationship with Him and others. Restoration is always the goal.
I’ve been conscious of this in parenting, but not always as much in marriage. Hopefully Jason will see a more grace-filled me as I renounce my critical ways! I do not want to point out sin, let alone faults or weaknesses, for any reason other than to build up, to restore, in love and grace.
“’Come, let us return to the Lord;
for He has torn us, that He may heal us;
He has struck us down, and He will bind us up.
After two days He will revive us;
on the third day He will raise us up,
that we may live before Him.’”
Hosea 6:1-2
The ladies of our ABF formed an “E26″ group to sharpen one another (ala Proverbs 27:17). We meet once a month to work through the book Behold Your God, studying God’s attributes to better know and love Him and to in turn better apply those truths about him to the situations in our lives, helping each other do the same. Tonight’s attribute is wisdom – God is All-Wise. It has been humbling and awe-inspiring to study God’s wisdom vs. man’s lack thereof and to make it all the more my aim to:
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths. (Prov. 3)
Every time we go our own way instead of God’s, we are displaying contempt for His wisdom and are competing for the title of All-Wise. (“I think I know better.”) We prefer our own imaginations over His proven discretion and judgment, as if God were not wise enough to govern us and prescribe what we should do. “While we acknowledge Him wise in our opinion, we speak Him foolish by our practice, when, instead if being guided by Him, we will guide ourselves” (Charnock, Existence and Attributes of God).
My basic conclusion from my brief study?
God is all-wise. My response:
I have a great resource to point you to today! Just this morning I discovered that The Master’s Seminary offers a digital download of the seminary’s Marriage & Family Counseling class material for $24.95. It looks to be a powerpoint presentation with audio – Dr. John Street teaching through the material. Dr. Street is an esteemed professor at The Master’s College & Seminary, known by us as a jovial Christ-exalting man with whom Jason worked at TMC and who co-pastored our fellowship group at Grace Community Church. Check out the sample clips!
Jason took the Marriage & Family Counseling course at TMS and thoroughly appreciated it. I took a Marriage & Family Counseling course at The Master’s College as part of my undergrad degree and worked through a similar syllabus – and loved it. This is life-changing stuff, peeps. You apply it in your own marriage and then can guide others through it as well. In fact, we used a version of our class notes just last night, doing premarital counseling with a couple we are pretty excited to see get married in a couple months!!!