At Home with God

As we drill into 7 different sins from parents in the Bible, I hope that these will serve as guard rails for us as we raise our children not to make us feel weighed down, but rather to free us to do what is right without caring what others think about our decisions because we are seeking to follow God’s leading in the way we raise our children. In this final blog in our series on the sins of parents in the Bible we turn to one of the greatest leaders in the Bible - King David.  David receives the high accolade from the Lord that he is a man after God’s own heart. When David desires to build a temple for the Lord, the Lord instead promises to build his house. David then ploughs his whole personal fortune into the building of the temple.  So important was King David in the history of Israel that the Messiah had to come from the line of king David. In spite of the sins of later kings in Judah, God delays sending them into exile all for the sake of his servant David. This blessing...

As we drill into 7 different sins from parents in the Bible, I hope that these will serve as guard rails for us as we raise our children not to make us feel weighed down, but rather to free us to do what is right without caring what others think about our decisions because we are seeking to follow God’s leading in the way we raise our children. God has entrusted our children to us. He describes as children as olive branches around our table (Psalm 128:3), as arrows in our hand (Psalm 127:4) and as a gift from God (Psalm 127:3). He has given us the charge to teach our children (Deuteronomy 6:7), to discipline them (Proverbs 19:18) and to raise them in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6). With this kind of burden it is a task that God has given us which we should take seriously. Indeed Jewish believers read the Shema daily which includes the commandment to teach your children throughout the day. The whole purpose of this is to raise children who will serve the Lord all the days of the...

  As we drill into 7 different sins from parents in the Bible, I hope that these will serve as guard rails for us as we raise our children not to make us feel weighed down, but rather to free us to do what is right without caring what others think about our decisions because we are seeking to follow God’s leading in the way we raise our children. Don’t exasperate Jacob is seen as one of the three great patriarchs of the Old Testament. The Lord allows himself to be described as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. While Abraham was only entrusted with one promised son and Issac had twins, Jacob had 12 sons to take care of, each of which became leaders of the tribes of Israel.  You would have thought that Jacob would be smashing the parenting thing – an example of the perfect father whom we should all look to and follow. Yet looking at his life I see two specific errors that he makes with his parenting that we are going to look at over the next two blogs.  But first a quick...

As we drill into 7 different sins from parents in the Bible, I hope that these will serve as guard rails for us as we raise our children not to make us feel weighed down, but rather to free us to do what is right without caring what others think about our decisions because we are seeking to follow God’s leading in the way we raise our children. The model king Hezekiah was a great king. He led the nation of Judah in very trying times and through all of this we read that he ‘did what was right in the sight of the Lord’ (2 Kings 18:3). Indeed, God’s opinion of Hezekiah is great. He inspired the writers of 2 Kings 18 to say about him, ‘Hezekiah trusted the Lord God of Israel. No other king of Judah was like Hezekiah, either before or after him. 6 He was completely faithful to the Lord and obeyed the laws the Lord had given to Moses for the people. 7 The Lord helped Hezekiah, so he was successful in everything he did. He even rebelled against the king of Assyria, refusing to be his servant....

  As we drill into 7 different sins from parents in the Bible, I hope that these will serve as guard rails for us as we raise our children not to make us feel weighed down, but rather to free us to do what is right without caring what others think about our decisions because we are seeking to follow God’s leading in the way we raise our children. Abraham is one of the most revered men of God in the whole of the Bible. He was faithful to God throughout his life, even willing to sacrifice his own, long-awaited son if that’s what the Lord required of him. You would think that his life would be a model of perfection for us as parents to follow and in many ways this is the case.  But in one way Abraham failed.  Before we dive into Abraham’s failure let’s just take a moment to pause and reflect on the grace of God. If you ever feel like you have fallen short of God’ standards as a parent (which parent hasn’t), it does not mean that you are a failure. Even if you know that your ...

  As we drill into 7 different sins from parents in the Bible, I hope that these will serve as guard rails for us as we raise our children not to make us feel weighed down, but rather to free us to do what is right without caring what others think about our decisions because we are seeking to follow God’s leading in the way we raise our children. Samuel was a great judge and leader in Israel. He served the Lord faithfully from when he was a boy, growing up in the temple. The story of him hearing the Lord as a boy is infamous among children’s leaders and others who want to see a generation raised up who know the Lord. As it says in 1 Samuel 3:19 ‘So Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.’ Towards the end of his public ministry Samuel was able to look back on all his years as a judge in Israel and state, I’ve served you from childhood to old age, who have I cheated or wronged. The people reply in 1 Samuel 12:4 “You have not cheated us or ...