In an age where moral relativism seems to be growing, it’s important to follow through with a Biblical approach to parenting. One aspect of that is to correct your children when they are disobedient to you. Tune into this episode to hear why not doing so could contribute to them falling into the snares of worldly thinking when they are older.

Main Points in This Episode:

1. Beware of wayward parenting philosophies.
2. Take off the rose-tinted glasses.
3. Uncorrected kids tend to have greater challenges with entitlement attitudes, elitism, and kids walking away from the faith.
4. Love your kids to Jesus but still speak truth to them.

Scripture From This Episode:

Proverbs 3:5-6 – “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

Matthew 10:16 – “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”

1 Corinthians 14:20 – “Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.”

Romans 7:7 – “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.”

Scroll down to see other resources

Check out Angie’s Postpartum Course!

If The Spirit Prompts You to Financially Support

Full Transcript:

Note: This is an automated transcript and misspells or grammar errors may be present.

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom.

And I’m Isaac from Resolute Man.

We’ve been married for 21 years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible.

We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting and a following. Hey, welcome back to the podcast. So glad you’re here.

Hey, guys.

Wow. Another lively discussion. We just love doing this. And today we’re talking about uncorrected kids grow, pray to moral relativism.

There is a bunch of problems there. There is and was always like problems. Problems. I mean, like so you guys, you know that we get messages. We love getting messages, comments, questions. They help us to know how to keep this podcast relevant. And we don’t want to waste your time. We want to be encouraging, exhorting, reminding you of what the word says, being the the cheerleaders that fan your flame. Because parenting is not easy. We get it. And recently we’ve had an uptake in people actually asking similar questions or coming to us sharing conflicts, issues that they’re having regarding all kinds of things. And it’s interesting because the narrative is so similar across the board. And so as we were talking about this, we were like, wow, first of all, there is some issues with a lot of parents just struggling with knowing how to raise kids in a in a day and age where there’s so many parenting philosophies that are about not correcting your children or never saying no and things like that. So going to talk about that today.

It’s super important because, you know, there is no new revelation when it comes to biblical truth.

Right.

And so you want to be careful when something sounds like somebody has a new angle on the word of God that nobody’s ever heard before. That would be like sirens going off. And so it’s really important just to be aware of that. And we need to rely on the Lord. Of course, you can learn from us and others, but you need to lean on the Lord. You need it. Most importantly, look to the Bible for what is true and what God is saying in Proverbs 3536 says Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding in all your ways. Acknowledge him and he will make straight your path. So in those moments when you’re like, you know what’s true about this particular issue or What should I do in my parenting regarding this? What should I change?

Maybe, maybe you’re even like reading a book, right? That’s bringing up different parenting philosophies or different things like this verse pertains to that too, because if you lean into the Lord, He will make straight your path, right? But if we’re leaning into things that are not the Lord man’s words too much, our paths can become crooked.

And so when people start with the words I feel or I feel good about this or that or the other thing, just realize feelings are real. God gave us feelings. But when it talks about prescription on how to do something with something as important as parenting or marriage, or what the Bible says about those things or other things is really important to remember this verse. The first part again trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. And a lot of times when people are using, I feel regarding something I feel this way or that way sometimes that could be leaning on your own understanding. So just be aware of that where somebody else that’s trying to train your teach you, it might be them leaning on their own.

You know, where I’ve heard that the most is when people say I feel like Jesus would and then fill in the blank, right? X, Y, Z, or I don’t feel like God a God so loving would ever say that or would ever expect us to do that. And like, those are the situations where you really have to not lean on your own understanding, but literally lean on the Word of God, because that’s where the truth is. It’s going to help you to be able to discern those lies, really. And the truth is, is that we’re all tempted, aren’t we? Like, we’re all tempted well, by the enemy. We’re all we all are also tempted by our flesh, right? That self preserving instinct that’s been in us and in humanity since Genesis three, that self preserving instinct to hide, to blame, shift, to, to not take ownership. But then there’s also this temptation of the world and what’s popular, what’s acceptable, what is going to be a lot of people are people pleasers. And so what’s going to maybe not rock the boat so much? And really all of the things that I just described don’t matter. What matters is what God’s word has said. If we are a Bible believing Christians and we are wanting to live biblically, this is our guide. This is our tool right here, the word of God only. And so while books can be encouraging and I’m not throwing them out with the baby with the bathwater, right. The truth is, is that we have to filter them through the word of God and what we know, which means we need to spend more time reading the Bible so that we can discern when things are not actually truth or God’s in alignment with God’s word.

Amen. We’re going. Dive in more in a second. But I just want to thank you for being part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. And every time you share or give us a review on iTunes helps algorithms. By the way, five star reviews, super helpful. All the written reviews are amazing. We read every single one. We often share them on social media when you share on social and tag us so we know it. We appreciate that and it just really helps the movement further along. We put out so much free content all the time. Yeah. And every week for almost 200 weeks. Now next next week’s episode will be the 200th episode I believe we have a special one coming free on that. But it’s just it’s been a joy to do it. It’s not easy to come up with new content, but the spirit leads us and prompts us through some people that are listening to what to talk about, and we just thank you for that. We’re completely committed. It feels like in the whole timeline of the ministry, it actually probably is near the beginning. Still, in comparison to how long we plan to do this, this is what we’re supposed to do. This is incredibly important. And so ways we fund it are through the courses, the books, coffee subscription coming soon. Obviously, the app community, which over 700 people, which is amazing, there’s a very small monthly price and that pays for the expenses and then also helps the ministry and our family. So anyways, it’s really fun to do this journey and we appreciate it.

So let’s dive in. Let’s talk for a second. So some of the problems that people are commenting and messaging us about, yeah, that we’re going to just want to talk about a solution. We want to have some, some encouragement for you guys. But these are some of the problems that we see, right? Kids walking away from the faith that has definitely been on our radar from the beginning of this ministry. That was one of the reasons why we started courageous parenting, because it does not need to be that way, just doesn’t need to be that way. It’s kind of like when people in the world say, Oh, teenagers are so awful. Does it need to be that way? No, no, it does not need to be that way. We have not expressed, you know, or and you could even say the same thing about toddlers. Right. The terrible twos, different things. We’ve we’ve done podcasts on this in depth, right? Like the terrible things that are said out there today that as parents we need to stop saying, but kids are walking away from the faith. The next thing that we we we see is nominalism. Right? And so we this is a huge issue as you’re raising your kids. I bet you that you would say, I pray my kids are not nominal Christians.

Am I right? If you’re listening to courageous parenting, I bet that that’s a thought that has gone through your head. I pray my kids are not nominal, but they are sold out for Jesus and they want to live for him, right? That they’re not fake Christians. They’re not just or people who say they believe, but then live a totally different way. Right. That would be nominal Christianity, people who are not walking in the way that God’s commanded them to. So here’s another one. What about entitlement attitudes? This is a huge issue alone. Maybe we’ll do a podcast on that in the future. But but this how does that even happen? Right? How do kids become entitled? Largely. I mean, there are many symptoms. These are symptoms of many things that could have occurred to a child to make them potentially choose not to want to stay a Christian or become nominal in their thinking. Right. But then there are many things that could have potentially led to a child becoming entitled or even an elitist. Right. I would say that some doctrines even cultivate elitism, if you will, in children regarding Christianity, which is not.

The opposite of the purpose of life, which is to make God known. You can’t think you’re better than other people and live out the Great Commission.

No, no, you can’t. So this is this is an issue, right? We need to realize these are potential like pitfalls that my kids if I like, if I’m if I don’t follow through on the parenting that God has called me to biblically, these are some of the the ramifications or consequences that will be in my children’s hearts, potentially could be any of these. Right. And there are many more. Another one would be kids that have beliefs based upon their feelings. We were just talking about this, right? Like kids that grow up going, no, I experience God this way. And so what it says in the Bible is not really for me. I tend to think that God is like this, you know? Have you ever heard that from someone before? That that’s definitely a lie. That is a pitfall, right? So kids growing up basing their belief on their feelings or experiences with God, their truth versus the truth. This is a huge problem. This is where the moral relativism is. Right. And then here’s a big one. Like in the end, what do you experience that your kids don’t agree with you? Right, that kids don’t agree with their parents on anything and they won’t be influenced by them, actually. And so the all these. Problems that we see in the world, you see in the world that are getting perpetuated. I think really the enemy is preying on children today. I think you would agree with that.

And so our first point is wayward parenting philosophies. They often infiltrate the church. Yes. And very we hear this all the time. Very few churches actually are teaching biblical parenting. And you can come to your own conclusions on why that might be. But it is so important talk about equipping the next generation for being lovers of Jesus and proclaiming the good news to people and whatever God calls them to do for a vocation or in their life, that is crucially important. It’s almost like if we’re only focusing on now and the adults in church, then we’re missing the whole long term perspective.

You know, it’s interesting. I was thinking about this. I was thinking about the larger church, because I’ve worked in churches in the past and I’ve seen a lot and I’ve seen a lot of good attempts. Right. Absolutely. Where, like, they’ll have like a moms group or a mops group and they’ll have different speakers come and teach on different things. But then are the men there? No. And then is it getting communicated back to the heads of households? And is it a consistent like parenting as a team kind of thing happening? No, I don’t think that that’s realistic. The truth is, is that when you look at churches, I think a lot of pastors and elders even probably spend more of their time putting out fires in the church that are issues with the adults, whether it’s divorce, adultery, addiction, all kinds of things. Right.

Which is super.

Which is really, really important. But but they’re in the midst they’re literally firefighters. And then no one is actually rising up within these churches and teaching biblical parenting so that there aren’t future fires. Do you see what I’m saying? And so this is like a problem across the board. It’s almost like you have churches who won’t talk on two things politics and parenting. It’s crazy. Like churches will host marriage conferences, but they’re not actually equipping their parents with biblical parenting so that people are not running the race alone. It is hard to parent biblically. We need to be like running the race with like minded brothers and sisters in Christ linked arms going, I got your back, sister, you’re doing a good job. And guys like rubbing up against other guys and going, Hey, how did family devotions go this week? Or How’s that family meeting going? Or you know, are those conversations even happening? I highly doubt it. And so.

We sometimes the wayward philosophies come in.

Right?

And they’re coming in through influences with people and social sharing to each other. And everybody’s just on totally different pages. And we don’t necessarily have a solution for that. It’s just as a parent, as a father, as a mother, it’s important to be aware of that, that we need to be discerning because and discerning because we’re washed in biblical truth on a regular basis, and we’re listening to the Holy Spirit and.

Close to God. You know, I’ll share one little thing that maybe, maybe I have I’m sure I have room to grow in this because I don’t know if this is always like the best way. But for me, I’m I’m very I’m a skeptical person. Like, if someone says something about a specific parenting philosophy, I don’t just adopt it right away. I’m skeptical at first, and I kind of like judge it and I go, Hey, wait a second. Is this in alignment with God’s word, number one? Number two, what is the fruit of people that I see doing this? And do I want that fruit?

That one’s key, because sometimes people are pontificating philosophies when their kids are very, very little. And there’s there’s no proof that that has worked right. Or there isn’t fruit at all. And they’re saying this is the way to go or you can’t see it. They don’t ever show they’re not transparent enough, even online, to even show what the.

Reality of what’s going on in.

Their families. But they’re teaching certain things.

There is a Bible verse that we want to share with you guys in Matthew, chapter ten, verse 16. These are Jesus’s words. So not not mine, not my opinion. These are Jesus’s words. It says, Behold, I’m sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. So be wise as serpent and innocent as doves. And then it continues. Beware of men, for they’ll deliver you over to the courts and flog you in their synagogues and and continues on. But you guys, this is the reality of what we are literally living in. There are a bunch of wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Sometimes there’s both.

And. And then there’s wolves. Yeah, there’s, like, wolves in sheep’s clothing. And then there’s wolves. Do you see how those two things are different? And I think that, like, if we’re on social media, I’m just going to use that as an example right now because that’s an easier one to like. See the night and day. Here’s an. Example, there’s like wolves. You see something that is the humanly sinful being pushed on children such as drag queen. Library times. Right. You got wolves? Those are wolves.

Yeah. Society’s changed to where wolves are comfortable now being out in the open.

Right. And it’s very obvious. So actually, this is like praise God in some ways, because we can go, Wolf, go the other way. Right? But then the sheep’s in or the wolves in sheep’s clothing are movements or Instagram handles that are doing ads that come in your feed where they look like they’re a like minded mom. Let’s say they have three or four kids, or maybe they have five kids and they they homeschool or they are, they say, in their their bio that they are they love being a mom. They’re they’re posting about motherhood and enjoying motherhood. That sounds like something that would be like minded. Right. But then if you look into them, you find out that they’re actually not Christian at all, but that they are actually they believe in a totally different. Bike, not even in the Bible. Right. And this is happening everywhere. And they’re like preaching parenting philosophies. And there are tons of Christians that are following them. And they’re not even Christian and they’re they have Christians following them for parenting advice. In my opinion, that would be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Right. And so, you know, it’s important that we take time to really be introspective and discern and realize that God’s calling us to be wise as serpents but innocent as doves. Was that mean? I think that it means that wisdom. How do we get wisdom? Proverbs tells us over and over again that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Mm hmm. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding. And so we. How do we fear the Lord the best? By seeking him understanding that he is all powerful and that he deserves our rightful reverence and our following. Actually, we shouldn’t be following them. We should be following God.

I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already. Is the date night one sheet. It is a beautiful document you can download that Will has some key questions on it for your date night. Just get in alignment about what’s most important for your family. No matter what time of year, it’s always important to recalibrate. You can get that by going to Craig’s parenting dot com and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything at courageous parenting dot com. And I also just want to share real quick about the parenting mentor program. So many families are being transformed by going through this. It’s the six week self paced program with live engagement from us and even direct interaction. So if you want to join us, here’s a little bit more about it. You can find out more at courageous parenting dot com.

Stephen I realized that we were getting too comfortable with the world’s vision of how to raise our children.

But Angie and Isaac have done in creating this is literally phenomenal.

This program provided awesome scripture based teachings and just some really great practical applications. This class has just really rocked my world.

It has given me a vision for not just the different things that we might focus on as parents who are trying to raise our kids biblically, like how our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things of the heart.

We now have a game plan to how we want to raise our children. We have so many answers to the questions that have been in our mind.

It’s not just these hypothetical situations or it’s not just this. Here’s what I think you should do. It’s let me show you where in scripture this is.

Do your legacy a favor and yourself a favor and just do it.

One of the best things that we’ve done this year, one of the best investments we’ve made this year, and I could not recommend it more.

We’re no longer fearing dark days ahead, but we’re so excited to raise lights to be leaders for the next generation.

And one of the things that happens is now you have this really compelling argument for direction and then you have biblical truth or what I’ve already always believed the Bible said about something, and now you have confusion and confused minds don’t take action. So if you are in a state of confusion about your parenting, about your marriage, about biblical living, you get confused as fast as possible. And we 100% believe in the church is out there. And you should talk to your pastor or a leader at your church if you need to or look at the Bible says and or both. And and just really make sure you’re not confused. You’ve got to get out of confusion as fast as possible because your kids are here. And we need certainty in our approach to how we are going to approach things and parent and so forth. Because I think the epidemic and the reason for this episode is so many people messaging us, also seeing what’s happening out there in what people are teaching and so forth and going, Wow, there’s so many parents that are stopping teaching, stopping the training of their kids and correcting of their kids in the disciplining of their kids.

They’re even stopping saying, no, that’s what’s crazy is they’re like, Oh, that’ll that. It’s, it’s actually comical to me because you guys might not know this about our family and you can do a little, little, little insert here. Our family really loves Little House on the Prairie. And usually when I’m like, sick and pregnant or I’m postpartum or somebody’s sick, we’ll go through this season where our family will watch a lot of Little House on Prairie. Did you know that in one of the seasons later on where Laura’s older, there’s an episode where Alonzo’s brother drops off his two sons for Almanzo and Laura to babysit, and his wife does not believe in telling her children no. And these kids, like it is comical to watch this episode because even back then it’s like literally they’re literally making a mockery of parents that would not say no to their children back then. Like how? Let’s use common sense, a child does not know what’s best for them, what they would choose to eat. Ice cream every single meal. Right? Not their broccoli and chicken. So anyway, it’s just.

Bound up in the heart of children.

Yes.

So funny. So. Jesus says, Children come to me and rebukes the disciples for not bringing importance to them. Right? Both are true. They’re incredibly important. God’s children. And at the same time, they need leadership and they need to be guided and led. And part of that is sometimes we say no and sometimes we say no in different ways, and sometimes we need to help our kids learn lessons. I was just thinking about this. The principal when is driving home the other day, the principal of sowing and reaping. That is a biblical principle and spiritual, all seeing it in our own lives that we reap what we sow sowing. I’m familiar because recently we sowed a yard and we did it the old fashioned way where you throw out seed and that’s actually with your hands and it’s actually called sowing. And I will say that we’ve reaped on an average way good but average. It’s not this beautiful, luscious yard.

Not every seed.

Took, but there is a yard. And so we did bear fruit. But it’s great. But you know, I’m new at sowing. You might feel that way as a parent. I’m new.

At new discipling, new.

Things, but with our kids sowing and reaping, if they don’t learn, sowing and reaping in our home where they are somewhat sheltered, where they are protected, their structure and security and we’re providing for them and all these things God made parents, the people that would help their kids experience sowing and reaping, because when they’re out on their own, they’re going to experience that in a much deeper and bigger way. But they’ve got to experience the weather home so that they understand where boundaries are, where they understand what’s appropriate and what’s good and what’s not good.

And part of that experience when your kids are living in your home, I think, is that there’s an opportunity for a narrative, a conversation, an ongoing conversation that’s happening between parents and children to help them process and actually have a deeper understanding to grow, both in understanding and in intelligence, but also in like, can I just say street smarts? Like, we don’t want our kids to be tossed to and fro, like the waves of the sea when it comes to parenting philosophies or marriage philosophies or worldly philosophies of any kind. Right? When they launch from our from our homes. And part of the way that you get your kids to be so solid, I think, before they leave, is to have lots of conversations when they’re little, when they are willing to listen. But part of the problem with these wayward parenting philosophies is that they literally don’t point out the sin. So this is like a fundamental problem. I’m not talking about your home always being all about like the sin police. If you’ve got sin police going on, that is not a happy home to be a part of. Can I just say that I have to? That’s like a huge, rare, rare. We need to have a there’s a teeter totter, right? Of of of love and discipline that is happening. And you can’t be so focused constantly on sin and so nig. Sometimes I get like, I get so intense because I’ll be thinking and focused on like one project and I’m so driven to like, get this project done. And I have to remember that there’s little hearts in the process that I need to be tender with.

Oh, I’ve learned that too. When? Same kind of thing, when I’m trying to get something done and somebody is working with me, but they’re not doing it right. I have to slow down and get patience.

You have to. And so when I’m saying like you need to point out the sin, I’m also saying like there has to be a balance of like really pouring into the relationship as well. It can’t just all be this way. But what I am saying is that there’s literally a many different philosophies that are movements really for eradicating the word sin from the vocabulary and not even acknowledging that sin exists. And this is, simply put, not biblical, it’s not biblical. And if you raise your kids in an environment where you’re not ever talking about sin, they don’t know what sin is. They don’t understand that they are being tempted to sin. They don’t understand, like the temptation of the flesh, the temptation of the world, and the temptation from the devil. If they don’t understand those things, they’re not equipped. They’re going to fall for it hook, line and sinker. You can eradicate as much temptation as possible, but there’s still something called human flesh. There’s still an enemy and there’s still the world. Right. And so we have to understand that those things are actually against God. And we need to teach our kids that and and equip them. You guys, we can equip them like this should be an exciting podcast for you to be listening to right now because literally, like, imagine if a child grows up in a home and they never fully understand the gospel, but they’re raised in a Christian home and they don’t understand that they have a need for a savior, but they are raised thinking, Oh, I’m a Christian because my family goes to church. How many kids grow up in that kind of a scenario where they think, Oh, I’m a Christian because my family is a Christian and we go to church on Sundays. That is like I literally think about this and I. Go. This is the heart of how kids fall to Nominalism. We have to teach the gospel truth to our children, which is freedom. Actually, it is freedom. Why, as a parent, we would never want our kids to be in any kind of bondage, especially bondage to sin. Right.

So what happens with kids who never believe they make mistakes, they have hard times with friendships. It’s hard to be friend with somebody.

That thinks they’re never.

Right, never wrong, or don’t need to apologize because they didn’t really do anything they rationalize in their behavior. Well, there’s parents out there. We hear stories who are rationalizing for their kids.

Thank you. Yeah.

And you bring sometimes kids have squabbles or challenges with each other and parents talk about it. And then one parent goes, My kid’s perfect and you just need to get it together. That kind of attitude is validating the kid’s manipulation, sin, whatever it is, it’s going.

To create an entitlement attitude, a potential nominalism, arrogance, pride, so many things this could literally, as a parent, we have to recognize that we also, like Isaac was just talking about this, we will reap what we sow. And that is there is an element of that with our children regarding what attitudes we are cultivating in our kids, what our attitudes were cultivating by way of not parenting biblically, but parenting worldly, or even protecting our children from the truth, which is that they are struggling with sin, like, okay, have you ever offended somebody? And they’ve come to you and said, I’ve been offended by X, Y, Z, and you for some reason just don’t say I’m sorry and you start justifying. I think all humans have done that. Can I first just encourage you that if this is something you struggle with? I think all humans struggle with this at some point in their life, if not on a regular basis, and it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we have humility and we’re able to go, I’m really sorry that you took it that way, or I’m really sorry that I said that, or I’m really sorry that I hurt you or I’m I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have. Will you forgive me? But there is something that happens when you say those words. I am sorry. And you say them genuinely. And that literally it frees you up like you can walk and go, Oh, I feel better, right? And that is because we’re not allowing sin to take hold in our hearts by way of arrogance or pride. And we can’t allow that to happen to our children. We have to raise our kids up with humility. And part of that is that they would see when they do sin, that’s what actually helps them like the fact that they understand, oh, I sinned here. Oh, I send their oh, yeah, I really need Jesus. Like that leaves them in a place where they go, I’m.

Sorry, that’s fertile soil when you’re teaching them this for the gospel. And in first Corinthians 1420 says, Brothers do not be children in your thinking. B infants in evil. But in your thinking, be mature, super important.

It’s interesting because in this specific passage of scripture, Jesus. Well, this is first Corinthians, chapter 14, verse 20, in case you missed that, he’s saying We need to recognize and evaluate where we are first. We can’t be mature or be infants in our thinking if we don’t evaluate first and take an audit of where we actually are. So in this moment right now, I’m going to ask you a hard question. Are you an infant in evil? Or is your thinking mature now? Evaluate your child and in and as you are parenting them have proper expectations for where they are and recognize like this is something that as parents we need to take responsibility for in protecting our children’s minds so that they do stay infants in evil and teach them how to guard their minds and their hearts so that when they’re older they are protecting themselves so that they can remain infants in evil but mature in their thinking. This is a concept that I think a lot of people need, like hands on, guidance on and a lot of ways. But really it’s very simple. It’s listen to the Spirit, pray and ask God, how do I protect my kids? What would be appropriate in this situation? Have your eyes wide open. We’ve been talking about parenting and reality versus having rose tinted glasses on, recognizing the truth about who your child is like. It should not hurt us to go. You know what? Yeah, I could see that. My kid might say that because my son is a sinner. Right. Like, how freeing is that from one friend to another in a situation like Isaac described for you to go, I’m so sorry that my child hurt your child’s feelings or said that or Thank you for telling me.

I recognize my child isn’t perfect and this is something that we need to work on. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I guarantee you I’ll be having talks with them about this and we’ll keep our eyes open for it in the future because this is definitely not something we want to continue on in their character. Like that is humility. As a parent, that parent is going to be reaping so much better fruit than than a parent that just has rose tinted glasses on, makes excuses for their kid and allows them because they don’t want to deal with conflict. Yeah, right. And so we need to recognize when we have rose tinted glasses on, take them off. When you look at our child the way God does, which is both a blessing, but also someone who is human in a fallen world has been has folly bound up in the heart of a child. Right. We have realistic expectations and we go, are they saved? Should I be expecting the same things out of them as a mature Christian? Probably not. Have I disciple them? Do they even know what the Bible says? Like we should actually have these questions going on in our head about each of our children, because our children are in different places with spiritual maturity and we need to have realistic expectations. We cannot do that. We cannot parent in reality unless we take rose tinted glasses off.

Completely in 623 for the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ. Jesus, our Lord, we know this, but this is so, so important just to think about as we’re talking about this. We want to grow our kids up in Christ. Right? And so they need to be aware of these things.

So so pointing them to Jesus as the person who helps them and washes away their sin and saves them from that bad habit, literally can break them free from bondage is from I’m just going to say it curses that people speaking over their life there is evil in this world lies that they’ve been believing from the enemy or from other people that are in their head, that they haven’t taken their thoughts captive into the obedience of Christ and what His Word says about who they are like. There are so many aspects that can lead to the problems that we were talking about at the beginning of this. But it starts with parents rising up and recognizing that God has called them to correct their kids and not ignore the problems to speak truth in love, like in a way where their kids know that their parents love them unconditionally and truthfully. Like, can any one love your child more than you do know? Like when you have a baby, you love that baby more than anybody in the world. How much more does God love all of us? His children. Right. And kids innately should kind of they should sense that from their parents, but they should also be told that by their parents over and over again. Do you know I just love you? Why do you love me? Because you’re my son. Because you’re my daughter. We need to remind them that we love them just because we love them. But then we also speak truth and we get to speak truth because we love them. It’s a really beautiful.

Thing right here actually in Romans seven, seven. Very interesting. It says, what then, shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means yet. If it had not been for the law, I would not have known SEN for I would not have known that as it is to cover it. If the law did not say it had not said you shall not covet. So and it goes on to talk about I think Romans is a really good book in the Bible.

On the discipling your kids for sure, or even taking them through the Romans Road as really powerful for kids. But, you know, the last point that we just want to briefly talk to you guys about is the importance of not underestimating the power of influences, which we’ve done podcast on this in the past. We’ve also done encouraging podcasts that are similar that I think there’s one that’s called Don’t Run the Parenting Race Alone. I highly recommend you go look that podcast up because we’re not going to dive super deep into this, but we definitely think that this is a necessary part of this conversation because you need to be evaluating the you do you just you have to evaluate the people who have influence on your kids, period. I’m just going to say it. There’s no easy way to say it. You have to use wisdom. You have to use judgment and discernment as to how much influence you allow different types of people to have in your kids lives. Because some people unknowingly can actually lead your kids astray in their thinking as they build a loving relationship with them. That’s just the truth, right? And so you need to have relationships with people who you can run the race with. And if you’re in a situation where maybe there’s been an offense of some kind from one kid to another, and you’ve tried reaching out to that parent and that parent has not been responsive in the way that is like a biblical approach to parenting and to even you coming to them and confronting them with this issue.

You guys, that is a yellow flag, maybe even a red flag, depending on what the issue was that you confronted them on. And I would definitely like press in to that relationship first and in a biblical way and be like, Hey, the kind of relationship that I want is one where I can come to you when there is an issue and you’re not going to defend your child. And I want to do that, too. So I want to give you permission to speak into my life and vice versa. If we can’t have that, then our relationship is just going to have to be different. Like, I’m not kidding. You may have to have that kind of a conversation. I’ve had to have those conversations. I’ve had those good conversations and I’ve had those hard conversations before. But I’ll tell you this 23 years, 22 and 20, almost 23 years into parenting or 22 years, I don’t have regrets in doing that.

Do you ever sacrifice your kids well being spiritual, well being.

For relationship.

Relationships? You should never have to.

Right.

That’s the point. Which is as long as your approach is good and loving.

And biblical.

And biblical, yeah, there should be a response. Otherwise that relationship might not be a fruitful one anyways.

And there may just end up being more and more offenses and this could perpetuate into a bigger problem down the.

Road. And so it’s really important to be aware of who’s influencing you, who’s influencing your marriage, who’s influencing your spouse. So important to think about that because we get influenced anybody that thinks they’re so strong that they won’t be influenced by the people that spend time with, is it? I’m not going to I’m not going to say they’re fools, but I’m going to say it’s foolish. It is a foolish thought.

It’s a boastful thought, a prideful thought and pride comes before the fall, right?

So get influenced. In fact, you’ll even notice this. People that spend a lot of time together, they start talking similarly. It’s true. They start owning similar things. It’s we whether we can, we are going to fess up to it or not. We are influenced by the people we spend time with, and even more so your children. Even more so because they’re so impressionable. They’re young and so you.

Want if you put your stamp of approval on someone for your children, I mean, that’s really what we’re all doing, right? Like, if you think about your communities and you think about the people that you allow to talk to your kids and have deep conversations with your kids or or be in role model for your kids, you’re giving them a stamp of approval. And so, yeah, you do need to judge that. Should you be putting the stamp of approval on the youth pastor? Should you be putting the stamp of approval on the teacher, on the coach, on the friend next door, on the on the grandpa, on the on the uncle. Like, guys literally think of any particular relationship. They all need to be audited. And from the perspective of, like, fruit of loving your children. Well. So I can honestly say that, like at the end of the day. People who don’t correct their kids and then you’re correcting your kids. That is a that you’re going to have problems in the future. And there’s no easy way to say that.

Parents who are passive in their relationships and not talking about the hard things and not taking appropriate action, you’re going to have kids that raise up and are can easily get snared by moral relativism. Whatever I feel to be true is true. What I think is true is true. I think God would be this way. It doesn’t matter what the Bible says.

Or I remember it this way. Even though that’s not the true narrative of what.

Happened, they literally need to see strong, confident parents that are assertively making decisions based on biblical truth and making the tough choices. Sometimes it’s.

Called leadership.

It’s called leadership. And in this world there is a lack of good leadership. And so you have to be that good example for them. We cannot rely on really any other leaders to be that example. Now, hopefully the pastor of your church is that example and there are other people. But just to make sure you’ve got to be that leader.

That’s right. So you guys like as we’re wrapping this podcast up, this is a heavy conversation, like super heavy Isaac Right. And and we get it, guys. We are still parenting, so we are this is like a constant thing that we have been doing for a very long time and we still do this.

We’re in the trenches with you.

We are totally.

One year old and we have all the ages.

Right? And so then there’s like the OC. So how to older siblings influence younger siblings like you? You have to set your mind to try to honor the Lord in all of your relationships. But you do need to have your priorities straight, right? Like God calls us to love our neighbor as ourself. That doesn’t mean that we do that at the sacrifice of our family. That’s living in our house like our husband is. Aunt is a wife’s neighbor. Our kids are our first neighbors. Right. And this concept of loving other people, I think sometimes gets I think that people are more willing to give their best to other people and then their families get the rest based upon their contributions or their focus or where their energies go. I know that there have been times where I’ve had people in my life where I just love them so much and I am enjoying fellowship with them. And then if they go through something hard, then I’m like, I’m totally there for you and 100%. But then my family will suffer in in the long run if I keep going at that pace. So we have to keep our priorities straight and recognize that our first neighbors that are on our priority are our immediate family, our jurisdictions that God has given us. Because the truth is, is that friends will come and go. Actually, that just does happen in life sometimes. And we want to love people while while they’re in our life, but never at the expense of the the biblical faith fruit that we’re trying to cultivate in our kids.

Amen. Hey, thanks for joining us.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom dot com for free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program. Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week we release a video with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible self-paced program where we cover everything from obedience training to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private online group, Live Webcasts, and the courageous parenting text message line where Angie and I can send you weekly encouragement straight to your phone.

If you’re interested in joining our next online parenting mentor program, secure your spot now at CourageousParenting.com