Monthly Archives: March 2013

Children's Ministry, Proven Path Ministries

Ignorance Does Not Keep Innocence

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Sometimes in Children’s Ministry or with our own kids its easy to skip the hard things of the Word. We want to play God in our kids lives and decide when we think they are ready to learn certain things in the Scriptures. Romans chapter one is one of those passages… and well so is Genesis chapter two, and well so is the majority of the Scriptures… I mean have you ever read Ezekiel or Hosea or Revelation? As my husband said, you can only teach David and Goliath and Daniel and the Lion’s Den so many times before you have to move on.

Our kids live in a world that is not willing to protect their innocence. Our God knows that. That is why He has recorded all that He has in His Word. The world does not protect our kids innocence and so God has provided us with the tools we need to keep them from being ignorant. Ignorance leads to wrong choices and wrong assumptions and it leads to hunger and thirst that is satisfied with unhealthy things. A starving person will become hungry enough that they will even eat food that comes out of the trash and is filled with rats and roaches.

 Therefore My people go into exile for their lack of knowledge;
And their honorable men are famished,
And their multitude is parched with thirst.

Isaiah 5:13

We also cannot train our children up in a way that has them picking and choosing what parts of the Scriptures are relevant to them and when. Who are we to make that call? Who are we to decide that God has not brought them to this passage in Scripture at this very time for such a time as this to prepare them for something they will face possibly the very next day?

A friend of mine shared with me about a time when she was going through the book of Genesis and she came upon a passage of Scripture she did not want to discuss just yet with her little girl… as she read skipping over this particular passage her daughter stopped her and pointed to the passage she skipped and let her know that she had missed that part.

My friend then had a choice. She could deny her child knowledge of the Word of God because it was uncomfortable for her to have to share it. Or she could go back, say she was sorry she skipped that part, and share the whole counsel of the Word of God with her child.

She chose to go back and read and discuss the passage of Scripture with her daughter.

No, discussing sex, and spilled semen, and rape, and incest, and degrading passions, and  homosexuality with our kids is not comfortable for us… but let me assure you that this world is perfectly comfortable with teaching them all about it. Kids at school are perfectly comfortable. Our government is perfectly comfortable. Television is more than comfortable. Music on the radio is more than comfortable.

The world is ready to shock and awe your child. The world is ready and willing to work with Satan and the sin nature in your child to lead them down a path of slavery and destruction.

As parents, as Christians, we must not let the world blindside our kids. Ignorance does not keep innocence.

My husband and I have decided that it is our responsibility to keep our kids one step ahead of the world. We protect their eyes and ears and minds by letting our kids know that we say yes and no according to what God tells us in Scripture. They must know the truth, so that when the enemy tries to sneak in a lie they can recognize it and will be able to turn away before they are sucked into it and held captive.

I do not know what lies are being whispered into my child’s ears as they go in this life. I do not know what sins of which they are predispositioned. I do not know what traps have been laid ahead of them. I do not know what evils they will encounter when. All I can do is prepare them for all of them and pray that when the evil one comes against them they have their armor on and that they stand firm.

and you will know the truth,

and the truth will make you free.

John 8:32

God tells us to teach the Word. He doesn’t tell us to pick and choose what of the Word we teach as according to what is comfortable. As for us and our house we start with a book and we teach the whole book. Come what may… we pray… and we teach with as much conviction and straight face and forwardness we can with all the grace and tenderness that we can. Preserving innocence through knowledge of what is evil and good according to God’s Word… not the world.

Right now our eleven year old is studying inductively through the book of Exodus in her personal study time having completed the book of Genesis. She is going through the entire Bible book by book. Our eleven and eight year old are currently studying through Romans at church, having just completed the entire book Revelation. Our eight year old also is studying through the names of God in her personal study time and will next begin the book of John and then she too will begin at Genesis.

Please know that your kids can handle truth. Give it to them. Lay a solid foundation on which truth can build. Don’t set a brick here and there all over the place. A foundation is laid by connecting brick to brick.  Precept upon precept. Line upon line.

Have I not written to you excellent things
Of counsels and knowledge,
To make you know the certainty of the words of truth
That you may correctly answer him who sent you?

Proverbs 22:20-22

 

Children's Ministry, Names of God Series, Proven Path Ministries

Names of God: Parakletos

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Last week we saw that Jesus is the Logos. This week we will see that He is our Parakletos.

My little children,

I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

And if anyone sins,

we have an Advocate with the Father,

Jesus Christ the righteous;

and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins;

and not for ours only,

but also for those of the whole world.

1 John 2:1-3

Parakletos is the Greek translation of the word Advocate. Jesus is our Advocate with the Father. The word Parakletos means summoned, called to one’s side, esp. called to one’s aid, one who pleads another’s cause before a judge, a pleader, counsel for defense, legal assistant, an advocate, one who pleads another’s cause with one, an intercessor.

Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham. Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.

Hebrews 2:14-18

Our Parakletos is able to come to our aid because He is able. He is able because He is the Logos that became flesh and dwelt among us. He is a worthy Advocate because He knows us and He understands us… He has literally walked in our shoes and lived in our skin. He came to this earth and lived with us and He died for us, and He was buried, and three days later He was raised to never die again. Today He lives still. His ministry continues as He sits at the right hand of the Father and serves as our Great High Priest before Him.

The former priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing, but Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.

Hebrews 7:23-27

 

He ever lives to make intercession on our behalf. When we call on His name He comes to our side and He stands with us. He is our go-between to the Father. We who believe, have today, in our Parakletos, the relationship with the Father that Job cried out for in the days of old…

 

“For He is not a man as I am that I may answer Him,

That we may go to court together.

“There is no umpire between us, 

Who may lay his hand upon us both.

“Let Him remove His rod from me,

And let not dread of Him terrify me.

“Then I would speak and not fear Him;

But I am not like that in myself.

Job 9:32-35

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“O earth, do not cover my blood,

And let there be no resting place for my cry.

“Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven,

And my advocate is on high.

“My friends are my scoffers;

My eye weeps to God.

“O that a man might plead with God

As a man with his neighbor!

Job 16:18-21

Job cried out to God for an Advocate. He cried out to God for an umpire to call the shots on the field. We have what Job cried out for… We have WHO Job longed for. Have you ever considered the magnitude of this reality. The reality that the Creator of the Universe made a way for you to have representation before His throne… a court appointed attorney… one that just is not going through the motions, but One that gave His life and is giving His eternity to eternally represent you as your personal legal representative before the highest court of all creation. Has the magnitude of this truth ever really resonated within you… or are you like the majority of modern American man who casually consider it your due right to have representation before the court even when you know beyond the shadow of a doubt you stand their guilty on all charges and yet you are hoping for a legal loop hole to jump through that will keep you from reaping the consequences of your crime on his earth?

Jesus has come as our Parakletos, but we must never forget that He does not negate, belittle, or malign the Law in order to set us free from our charges… He fulfilled the Law and yet He still chose to suffer the consequences of our sin on our behalf… this is why He says

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. 

I will ask the Father,

and He will give you another Helper,

that He may be with you forever; 

that is the Spirit of truth,

whom the world cannot receive,

because it does not see Him or know Him,

but you know Him because He abides with you

and will be in you.

John 14:15-17

If we have Jesus as our Parakletos, then we must understand what all He went through in order for us to be able to have Him as such… and in this we should willingly and earnestly desire to keep His commandments. If we love Him our obedience to His Word should follow. It should follow because He doesn’t leave us alone to follow it… He not only intecedes on our behalf before the Father, but He also sends us a Helper to not just live with us… but IN US.

The word Helper in the Greek here is Parakletos. Yes, the same word for Advocate from 1 John 2:1-3. You see Jesus pleads for us on high and the Holy Spirit pleads with us with in. The Holy Spirit is here within us pleading with us, aiding us, interceding for us. He has summoned to our side to lead us in the way that we should go, to strengthen us to walk in obedience to the commands of God, to correct us when we stray, and to guide us to our Advocate on High so that we might call on His name and be represented before the Father… and Jesus, our Parakletos, pleads with the Father not on behalf of our righteousness… but on behalf of His.

He is with us and in us that we might not sin as children of God… but if we do sin… He is there to intercede on our behalf and to be the propitiation for our sin… because our justification is not determined by our righteousness… but by His sacrifice  Our forgiveness is not based on our ability to ask for it, but by the very fact that it was God’s desire to grant it. He made the way for forgiveness long before we even realized we needed it.

And if He did not come and seek us out, and draw us to confession and repentance, we, left to ourselves, would die in our sin because we would never come out of our little hiding places. We would continue to point our fingers at others instead of ourselves. And we would miss the beautiful joy of grace…