Every parent wants well-behaved kids, but is it possible that well-behaved children can become a deceptive mirage and measuring stick for well-meaning parents?
If the goal of godly parenting is just to raise well-behaved children, then focusing on the rules alone is enough.
Rules not only promise to produce good behavior, they also promise good morality in our kids too… and they’re often pretty good at keeping those promises.
This is why many parents rely on them so heavily.
However, if the goal of godly parenting is more than just raising good, moral citizens, but rather to:
- reach the heart, not just the head…
- balance both rules and relationship…
- raise Christ-like Christians rather than Christian jerks…
- and ultimately help our kids become more like Jesus and follow him for a lifetime…
This requires both truth and grace, rules and relationship, and capturing both the heads and the hearts of our children.
This is a promise that rules alone can never deliver on it’s own.
OUR PURPOSE—BIGGER THAN RULES
As grace-based, heart-driven parents, it is important for us to regularly clarify and reiterate our purpose—we are not striving to raise rule-followers, but Christ-followers.
This can only happen in the heart.
The ultimate goal of our parenting is to shape and direct the heart of our child, preparing them for God’s grace, both now and for life, through a personal relationship with Jesus.
Reaching your child’s heart requires balance. A godly parent must learn how to properly balance rules and relationship, truth and grace.
Truth alone cannot be exclusive.
What we believe (truth) must be the foundation for how we live and love (grace). Both are essential.
TRUTH & GRACE—A RECIPE THAT REACHES THE HEART
Our kids can’t just hear about our faith. They must see our faith in daily action.
- Truth is seen in our words. Grace is exemplified through our lives. (As one person wisely said, “If a person’s words and actions don’t agree, always believe their actions.”)
- Truth tells us what we should do. Grace helps us actually do it.
- Truth may make us a “Christian” family. Grace makes us a Christ-like family.
- Truth may make us right. Grace makes us real.
- Truth sets us free through Christ. Grace frees us to be Christ to others.
- Truth appeals to the head. Grace activates the heart.
All throughout Scripture, we see this pattern:
- “Speaking the truth in love.” (Ephesians 4:15)
- “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.” (James 1:22)
- “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us… full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)
- “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:35)
Jesus never said that people will know us by our truth, but by our love. Because truth without love is not an accurate representation of who Christ is or who he has called us to be.
Truth balanced with love holds the power to literally change the world… one heart at a time.
Can this balance of truth and grace, rules and relationship, be seen in your day-to-day parenting as you strive to shape the hearts of your children?
“More than your kids will become what you say, they will become who you are.” (Because as Howard Hendricks put it, “You teach what you know, but you reproduce what you are.”)
May God help each of us this week to be as loving as we are right, and as Christ-like as we are Christian.
And may this real faith be seen first and foremost within the walls of our homes.
Because this is not only how we reach the world; it’s how we reach the hearts (not just the heads) of our children.
