This a must-listen for every parent as there is passivity in a certain area that is hurting even the most well-intentioned parents at times. The repercussions are huge way down the road especially. Overlooking sin in your children for the pursuit of tranquility only creates fake peace in your home. It’s twofold of calling our children up into greater maturity by giving them new responsibilities and addressing the sin in their life in real-time. In the toddler years especially we need to not overlook the behavior problems, but instead, believe that we can guide them.

Main Points From This Episode:

• The desire to create a fun upbringing should never discourage you from correcting your children and giving them greater responsibilities. Part of them reflecting positively on growing up in your family are that you did those two things well.
• A silent belief of “let kids be kids” is hurting the futures of so many children. Don’t accept low standards for your children even in the toddler years. You are there to guide them in the right ways!
• It’s vital to pursue friendships where we can speak hard truths into each other’s lives. If that’s not the case we tend to conform to the group’s mediocrity without realizing it.

Scripture From This Episode:

Galatians 6:7-9 – “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

Romans 12:3 – “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.”

2 Timothy 4:2 – “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.”

Proverbs 11:2 – “When pride comes, then comes disgrace,
    but with humility comes wisdom.”

Proverbs 29:15 – “A rod and a reprimand impart wisdom,
    but a child left undisciplined disgraces its mother.”

If The Spirit Prompts You to Financially Support (We are a for-profit, for social good organization.)

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 the following. Hey, welcome to the podcast, everyone.

Hi, guys.

So glad you’re here. We’re talking about a real epidemic happening.

An epidemic in.

Parenting. That’s right. So I think it’s important as we tune in to these episodes, you just guys, you all realize that we’re following the Holy Spirit’s promptings and requests from you out there of challenges that are happening. And we don’t come from a place of having it all figured out or any kind of perfection. Actually, we’re imperfect people and our kids are too. And but we’re running the race and and doing our best to teach you on a weekly basis. What we’ve learned with the Bible says and what all the training we’ve gone through says on these things. And so I just wanted to say that because this is a particularly touchy subject potentially.

Yeah, it is a touchy subject. I think that parenting is personal, right? Yeah, We all take it very personal because we care so much. And I think that as we’re diving into this topic, I want you to remember that even if you’re struggling in one area, I don’t want you to think that Isaac and I would in any way go, Oh, you don’t care. No, that’s not it at all. It’s that you’re human. And and so we hope you’re encouraged by today because we’re going to really be diving into biblical parenting. This is hardcore. This is an epidemic. I think that parents from all generations struggle with the things that we’re going to talk about today on one level or not. So we’re going to go over five points today. The first one is actually kind of myths or lies that the world teaches that I think even Christian parents fall into thinking or desiring for their kids. I’ll just share one of those with you right now. It’s Let kids Be kids. Let me ask you this question. Is this a worldly concept or is this backed up biblically? Think about that for just a minute. The second thing that we’re going to be talking about.

Is the balance between visionary and being sober minded. So finding that right balance and that’ll make sense when we go through it.

The third thing we’re going to talk about is overlooking sin in the pursuit of tranquility, which is really fake peace in the home. And this is one of the biggest issues I think, that parents struggle with today and reaps some serious, serious consequences.

And the big deal is the lack of training that actually exists even in well-intentioned homes often.

Yeah. And then the last thing we’re going to talk about is like minded community and how this actually impacts your growth and your children’s growth and who they become in the future, which is really big.

So what is the epidemic?

The epidemic. So here’s the deal. When we’re trying to come up with our title, it was hard because everything that we really want to pour into is wrapped around this conversation of children. Children will rise to the level of responsibility that you give them. So not raising lazy kids, understanding that every child because they’re human, because every human has this intrinsic desire to be needed and to contribute. And when we don’t as parents teach our kids and train our children, and just being productive and contributing to the family or contributing just as a person or.

Correcting, they miss bad behavior.

Right? They will potentially get depressed and act out or they will act out to get attention because they haven’t they don’t feel good about themselves.

So really, the epidemic is allowing kids to stay in their misbehavior, to allow them to stay in their lack of contributing to the family when they can’t even verbalize it. They don’t even know themselves, but they could be contributing and that would make them feel more satisfied, more of a part of the family, part of the team. And when people rise up, they contribute better. And so just think about this, you know, how are your children doing when you go out to a restaurant? How are you doing when you go to friend’s house at church? And especially if you keep the kids with you as an example.

Or do you try to avoid taking them in public because you’re just the thought of doing that is exhausting to you because you haven’t trained them well at home. And so maybe you avoid taking them in public or or taking them places because it is so much work now.

It’s easy to look around us sometimes and go, Well, I’m doing a good job because, you know, my kids are kind of like everybody’s kids. They’re kids. And what we’re saying is, don’t look around you for as a comparison for how you’re doing.

Like, don’t let that define don’t define expectations.

We can expect more. We can do things in our homes that actually produces better fruit, even when kids are very small and when they’re very small, that is training for how they’re going to be in their middle school and teenage years.

I even think about like the scripture that Paul is exhorting people where he talks about growing from spiritual milk to spiritual meat, and that is a spiritual teaching that he’s giving regarding knowledge and understanding of the word. But but there is also this element of like not keeping our kids babies, not coddling them to where they don’t grow into the next season of their life and actually grow in capacity and grow in maturity and grow in their abilities and their responsibilities and their privileges and all of those things. Let me ask you a quick question. What what do you see in your child’s face when they accomplish something that you’ve asked them to do? I’m sure that you see what I’ve seen. I’ve seen it in my 18 month old. I’ve seen it in my three year old, I’ve seen it in my five year old, my seven year old. And it’s that complete joy and delight that they have that they were able to do something new for the first time. It encourages their confidence. They feel big. Don’t don’t you remember back when you were a kid how you wanted your parents to view you as big? Mm hmm. I remember wanting thinking to myself. I just. I wish people saw me the way I see myself. I’m big.

So when your kids are misbehaving and it’s a consistent thing, it could be small things, too, but there’s consistent things that bother you a little bit. But then you’re like, Oh, he’s only. Three. Whatever the age is, right when I ask you, Well, what if that could be different? What if you change something and your approach that actually stopped that bad behavior and and instead made a productive behavior that actually helps the family? And I just think that there is so much opportunity in the moment. We think, oh, kids will be kids. That’s how kids are. We’re separating ourselves from being able to influence any change. And parents have massive influence. You have so much influence. And if we want some kind of change in the culture of our family behavior or family joy and our family peace and our family, then there’s something that parents need to do to change. If parents don’t change anything, if they don’t believe they can change anything, then you’re just going to you don’t even just get the same behavior just gets worse. Right? Especially as people get older, unless they’re taught and trained and empowered to rise up to do things that contribute. So it is so important. I just want to say thank you so much for being part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. You can find everything at B courageous Ministry dot org. We now have everything in one place that will get you out to courageous parenting, where the podcast notes and so forth. That’ll get you out to the coffee that will get you out to free workshop.

Blog posts on courageous, on the books, our.

Stores, everything. Now you can go to be courageous ministry dot org. The dot org is important. Please bookmark it on your computer or on your phone so you can just easily get there and get the free stuff like these. All the podcast information and listen to our podcast and so forth. Also, there is a time, you know, it’s interesting, we’re getting a lot of complaints on iTunes about people not being able to play our episodes, but we did a poll and about half the people said they can and half the people said they can’t. So I don’t know if it’s a technology thing and up update the the app the podcast app from Apple or if it’s something else. But what I do know is our website always works.

You can always listen and watch.

We get zero complaints about the podcast episodes working at courageous parenting. So just remember that’s we’re always going to have those places you can listen. So if you ever hit a roadblock out there, go to.

And you can listen, but you can also watch you guys. A lot of people forget. I mean, we we shifted from one place to another. We have our videos on Rumble. And so you can definitely watch there. But it’s literally the video is embedded at Craig’s parenting dot com as well.

So, yeah.

I just want to encourage you because a lot of you like to watch while you’re listening as well, which is kind of fun.

And hey, a lot of things launched in recently in the coffee be courageous ministry dot org to make everything easier. We are reinvesting constantly working really hard to further the impact of 10 million legacies. So your gifts really do make a difference. Thank you for all those that do that. Financially sharing makes a big difference. Reviews makes a big difference. We really feel like we’re alone. We have this army of biblical Christians running the race with us, especially, although those of you in the app that has been so fun. We just added two new groups because you requested it, the homesteading group and the app, and also the book club group in the app. And so of course we have all the staples of the rest of the things.

It’s also exciting too, if you guys aren’t aware of the be courageous social media platform that we launched last November, we have a pregnancy and postpartum and birth group as well, which I started actually reading Redeeming Childbirth and doing a discussion slash Bible study and equipping moms, and they’re in that super exciting. I’ve been doing that weekly and those will stay in that group indefinitely in the app as well. And so that’s that’s special because for years we’ve been getting people asking for an audio of the book and we’re just that’s not something that we are in a position to spend a lot of time doing right now. So this is even better in my mind.

I put tons of value in there, powerful community, no advertising, and it’s 899 a month for the app. And you think, Oh, I don’t pay for apps? Well, actually, no. People do pay for apps all the time now for things they actually want that aren’t woke. And it’s and there’s a need for that because.

We pay for.

Something is free like a metta. Metta in Hebrew means death. If something is free to use, it means you are the product and advertisers are advertising to you. So nothing’s actually free. It’s just that we’ve decided to go the model of not throwing a bunch of advertisers in there at you in the app. And so we have hard costs on that thing. So anyways, let’s dive in. So an epidemic in parenting, which is really not believing we can influence the behavior of our children even when they’re young.

And it’s also not being proactive in raising our kids up. Can I say that there’s this concept of like in it’s biblical to train up your child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. When we were creating this podcast. Outline. Something really hit me hard when I was reading a specific scripture and it dawned on me, If we don’t do our job as parents, the church suffers. And this is why. Because our kids are also going to grow up and be active brothers and sisters in this family of God. They are going to be part of the body of Christ. And if we don’t raise them up, but instead we raise them down to a lower standard and we don’t train them and teach them, in all things discernment, encouraging others, exhorting others, using their gifts, being wanting to desire to serve. Can I just talk about like that concept of serving, for example? Leadership is service and we should have a servant leadership attitude. But servant hood, if we’re raising kids in selfishness instead of selflessness, they’re going to grow up and potentially, if they are Christians, go to a church and have a mentality of what can the church give me? And they’ll be taking, taking, taking, not giving, and proactively participating in a way that edifying the whole body as it’s meant to. And so if we don’t do our job as parents, the church suffers. Do you see that there’s a direct correlation to that? And so if we want things to change in the church, if we you know, I get comments after comments, messages after messages of people asking for how do I find like minded community, How do I find a church like all these problems that they see in the churches that they’re visiting or part of and they’re frustrated and you’re probably listening going, Hey, man, I have that problem. Do you have a solution? Yeah, do your part by parenting well, so that the church in the next generation is actually more biblical.

Amen. So Galatians six, starting in verse seven, I’ll probably read a little extra. I’m going to pull an Angie says, Do not be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever one sows that will he also reap. So the spiritual love, sowing and reaping for the one who sows to his own flesh, will from the flesh reap corruption. But the one who sows to the spirit will, from the spirit, reap eternal life and let us not grow weary of doing good. For due season we’ll reap if we do not give up. A lot of times we just do. Galatians 690. Let us not grow weary of doing good for and do season will reap if we do not give up. Well, what’s right before Galatians six nine sowing and reaping which what is sowing and reaping it means when you’re doing something and reaping something back like.

You mean it’s consequence.

And so now we’re diving into this first point, which is the myth of let kids be kids, especially when they’re little and they’re being normal. Yes, they’re a little misbehaving. Yes. They’re not responsive to the parents.

Sometimes kids do.

That. Yes. They oh, they can’t sit still during church and they can’t do these things.

And also say that I think parents fall prey to this lie that let kids be kids turns into, oh, all teenagers disrespect their parents or oh, all teenagers rebelled or oh, all teenagers won’t listen to their parents. So they need to have other people that they’ll listen to that are going to say the other thing. These are all lies and they go under the same myth of let kids be.

It’s so easy to believe in these things because, you know, you look around at the majority and you see these things. So it’s hard to believe sometimes that we actually can have a different outcome. But God actually tells us we can have a different outcome. And right here we can do things as parents, we can we can so differently and reap differently in our families. And that starts at a young age. It’s never too late if you have older kids, but it’s really important to do it as soon as you can.

I think that there is some other worldly thoughts as well that parents, Christian parents need to be aware of. And we’ve talked about some of these in previous podcasts where it’s like five myths that you definitely don’t want to believe, right? And one was Let Boys Be Boys or whatever, which is similar, right? Boys will be boys.

I’m sorry, I’m speaking on this for a long time.

Yeah. So we’ve been speaking on this for a long time. But here’s another one. A lot of parents, they want their kids to have fun memories of their childhood. I want that. Yeah, I’m sure you want that.

Absolutely.

Purpose to go do fun things with our family, to create family memories and experiences that are going to build relationships. We’re hyper set for that. But is that desire the driving, controlling lens that you look through everything with your kids in so much so that you’re afraid that if you correct their sin, they’re going to be remembering, Oh, Mom and Dad were always pointing out my sin and always correcting me and and I had such a bad childhood. And so you think that they’re going to remember just that so you don’t do it and you only want to have fun all the time. And so you you avoid and evade things that are going to be potentially conflict provoking.

You know, an interesting thought for you. Just think about. Your own early education and think about your favorite coach or your favorite teacher, the one that comes to mind that instantly in your memory. I got the most out of their class, I got the most out of their season playing sports. And what you’re not going to remember is the Oh, you can do whatever you want. You can turn your homework in whenever you want. Oh, you were late. No big deal. You’re not going to remember those teachers.

Those teachers. True.

You’re going to remember the ones that had expectations that actually taught you something. They expect you to rise up and expected things from you and did it because you knew they cared about you. And that is exactly how we’re to be. So, yes, kids should have a fun upbringing, but they are not going to look at it as a great upbringing like we want. If it’s devoid of expectation, responsibility and being a contributor in the team.

Yeah, I mean, I just want to remind you to like when you think back to some of the things that maybe you learned or you’re most thankful for, that you learned when you were growing up, They’re they’re generally like the things that you were taught, something hard, a skill of some kind. And those are fun memories, actually. Right now let me just share something personal. This is a personal open experience moment right now while we’re shooting this podcast. I don’t know if you can hear that in the background, but that’s our tractor. And our 16 year old son is using the tractor and he’s because he really wants to get the compost pile going before we have freezing cold weather. So he was doing school in the early morning and he’s going to be doing school in the afternoon. And right now, during the best part of the day, he’s working hard and you should see him. Like I just kind of peeked over my shoulder because I saw him and he had that like he has this open face of like, I’m doing it.

Oh, this is so fun.

Do you think that my son might, who volunteered to do a compost pile using the tractor, is having fun right now. Yeah, but it’s work. And that’s going to be a memory. Like, if you were to talk to our oldest son who’s married and out of the house, some of his fondest memories growing up were him on the tractor in our vineyard.

When.

He was eight, when he was eight. So let me just share something with you. When we say children rise to the level of responsibility that you give them, those two boys are perfect examples of what that can look like on a very practical level as far as giving them responsibility. And of course, when I say this now, I’m not saying that every kid who’s eight years old can handle the responsibility of a tractor. Do not misunderstand, understand me, because I really think that it’s a rare oddity when a child is responsible enough to do that. You need to teach them all the safety measures. Okay. I’m just obviously we wouldn’t do something that would potentially put our kids in danger. But but the reality is that he rose to that responsibility. And let me tell you, it grew his confidence and he was ready for so much more as a young kid because of it.

Yeah.

And so I just I have to put that out there. Another thing that a lot of parents fall to is this concept of being best friends with their kids. And I know that you guys probably have heard other parenting people who are talking about parenting discouraging you from parenting that way. But can I just say that if you love your child enough to actually teach them things that that they then can do on their own and you’re equipping them, okay, Your kids are going to grow up confident and they’re going to be so thankful and you’re going to have this relationship where they they want your wisdom and they see you as one of their best friends. And so there is an element of where you do eventually become like best friends when they’re older. But when they’re kids, you need to really step into your role as the parent.

And I think they really still respect you and admire you when they’re older because you did have expectations, you did teach them things. You did expect a high responsibility from them. 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 have 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 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.

Steve and 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 the lights to be leaders for the next generation.

So it’s important not to just settle with this. Let’s kids be kids, but instead look at how we can expect more from our kids in return, how that contributes to their character and it contributes to their esteem, Right. And how they look at themselves and how they participate in the family. And our second point is.

Our second point is to have balance between being a visionary and being sober minded about who each of our kids are, their capabilities, their their, their abilities, their maturity level. We get a lot of people asking us, like, at what age do you teach your kids to do X, Y, Z, or at what age are your kids ready to learn? And that’s about.

This. And that really depends on the maturity, right? It’s not an age thing, and so we can never answer it specifically. You need to be the student of your own children. And let’s just face it, usually what we see is people are delayed. Parents are more delayed than their kids. What I mean, is there more delayed in seeing their capabilities than the capabilities that actually do exist in their kids are already they’re far before their parents even see it.

And that’s true. I mean, and even maybe you do see it, maybe you’re a parent that tries to have the rose tinted glasses off. But the truth is, is we’re all human and we all have blind spots. Right. And that’s why we need each other, which we’ll talk about like my community later. But we need each other and we need to have a heart of being willing to hear from our husband or from our wife. Right. If you’re the husband and and you’re not necessarily seeing reality within your child as far as the sin that they’re struggling with or whatever, or maybe not raising them up to the next level. And what I mean by that is not letting our our babies stay babies, but let them become kids. Let them then become big kids, let them become teenagers, let them become teenagers, let them become young adults. Let them become adults. Let them grow is the point. And not just let them grow, but help them to actually grow with their with the with the actual timeline of life. I think a lot of parents hold their kids back.

Here’s something that’s really important to understand, and this is true in leadership, too. I used to work with Angie with me for a little bit, but with lots of college students. And one of the things I learned back then is even before having kids is that you don’t wait to see capability in somebody because what they’re demonstrating isn’t they’re not even going to know how to show capability in something. And so, especially with children, is you teach them things and you show them how they can do more and they usually rise up to that. And so a lot of times we have to act in initiate before we see it, right? So it’s really important. Now, we never want to put our kids in danger or have them doing things that, you know, too early. And that’s for you to decide and discern. But what we’re saying, our observation is in general, parents wait too long to.

Have them do things. Kids are ready for more and they actually crave it and they need it. And when they don’t have it, they act like babies when they’re three, four, five, six and seven years old. Because the only way that they communicate or are listen to is they’ve developed this rhythm of whining or treating people in a way that gets what they want selfishly. Right. And so we need to realize that, like babies are babies for very short period of time, and then they move into toddlerhood and they start getting trained and then they move into being a little kid.

Actually, we have a, what, 16 month old right now? Yes. And so, Zander, we expect him to be obedient. I go, Zander, no. And then he pauses for a second. He can barely talk. He says like two words, and he pauses for a second. And then sometimes he comes back to me and sometimes he defies me and it continues to go. And then I have. A get up and have to talk to him about it. And it’s really important. Like, you know, do you expect your toddler to.

Understand.

To obey you and understand you? They fully understand way before they’re talking. And I think that that delay in parents understanding this and taking action on it or understanding it, but they don’t take action on it, that is is contributing to a very difficult season in what some people would call terrible twos, which we would We’ve never experienced that at a specific age because we’ve experienced, you know.

Kids being difficult.

That’s difficult for sure.

But but that’s when because they’re human and they sin just like we do. And in those circumstances we engage. We don’t just go, Oh, yep, all kids do that and walk away and ignore it, thinking that they’re they’re eventually going to outgrow the whining temper tantrum. No, I’m sorry that that actually doesn’t happen if you continue letting it be that it’s just going to look a little different when they’re four or five, six, seven, 12, 18, but they’re still going to have their emotional breakdowns. It’s just going to get more embarrassing and louder and it’s going to become more of a habit for them because they haven’t been corrected. And there’s this element of like, we need to understand, we teach this in the parenting mentor programs more in depth, you guys. But children are not babies are not born with this innate ability to have self control or emotional self control. They aren’t. They have to be taught and that teaching anything to a toddler, to a baby, to like teaching baby sign language, it takes time, it takes patience, it takes repetition, it takes consistency. Anything that you’re going to teach anyone is going to take all of those those ingredients patience, consistency, time. And and I just have to say that that can be refining on the parents character because a lot of times we have our agenda, we have our to do list, we have our things that we want to do.

Maybe we’re tired even, right? And so getting up for the 30th time in the last 2 hours to get the kid away from the cupboard or away from the bathroom, toilet seat or whatever it is that you’re training them to not be by. You’re just like, I’m tired. I wish I had an assistant that could do it for me. And you just let it go. Well, no, no, no, you can’t. Like, this is the sanctifying part of parenting, is that we have to not be lazy. We have to be consistent. We have to actually get up and be productive. And and when we do our job well, guess what happens? We reap what we sow in our children’s behavior and in their obedience. But also they also learn from our example. So if we’re lazy parents, we should expect our kids to be lazy kids. If we are a proactive, productive parents in the home and we model that for our kids, our kids are going to desire to be that. And so we need to give them opportunities to be that themselves. And then they’re going to grow in confidence and they’re going to be contributing and they’re going to have that big grin on their face. That’s like I put my diaper in the garbage. You know, the look I’m talking about, Hey.

You got a scripture for us. But before we go into that, I just want to teach you about capacity training real quick because this is really important. So you ask, well, when can my child handle X? And then I would say, I don’t know. I don’t know your child. I don’t know what they’ve experienced. Have they gone through things with you to where now they can handle more? Maybe they actually can’t because they haven’t gone through things. And what I mean by that is, you know, kids will complain about spilled milk that’ll frustrate them or you get something like that and you’re losing your patience and your mind because it’s just spilled milk. It’s no big deal. That’s where their capacity is at and we have to get them over that. And capacity training is, you know, have you ever had this experience where you’re like, wow, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to. This is going to be really hard. This thing I have in this next month to overcome this challenge we’re experiencing.

To learn.

Something, we have to learn something new While this is really hard and then you fast forward six months down the road and you go, I can’t believe I even thought that was difficult because I’m handling much bigger challenges in things now or.

Opportunities and.

Everybody feels that way and feels that way in business and in kids, but they’re just at a different capacity for what they have experienced in life. Because when you go through a challenge and you’re at a certain capacity and you persevere through it and you come out the other side and you see the fruit or the outcomes of it, you are now capable of handling more. And the more we go through this capacity cycle, the more we can handle in life. And I think probably in our family, our kids are going through developing capacity.

Like all the time.

Quickly, all the time, because we’re engaging and we’re helping them overcome it and we’re not letting them just go in this mediocre behavior on an ongoing basis. Right. And we’re addressing it. And so now they’re and then we’re giving them more. Or more responsibility, and it’s building upon itself to where they’re consistently feeling like bigger contributors to society, that they’re important, that they’re valuable, that they have things to offer because it builds upon itself. So you think Austin driving a tractor at eight? Well, it was Austin unique kid, you know, more mature at a younger age in a lot of ways than lots of lots, you know. And I just you know, that was beautiful. But before that, there was other things he was doing that was building that capacity where there was chopping wood or, you know, going with dad to work and different things and conversations.

And he was helping me with kids when they were little because I was on bed rest. So he I remember to rise up. I remember when he was six years old taking Luke out of his crib for me because I had thrown my back out vomiting because I was pregnant with Ethan and I was on bed rest for a while with that pregnancy. But I remember like going, Wow, he can actually do that and and safely. And it was just and he was so proud of himself when he got him out of the crib or, you know, when Kelsey was changing diapers at eight years old. And and you may be listening to this going, they shouldn’t be doing that. Well, I’m sorry. They actually loved it. Do you remember playing house with Cabbage Patch dolls and little dolls that looked alive and and playing with dolls for hours and dressing them up and changing their diapers as a mommy and like and pretending house and playing house. I remember playing house for hours and hours and hours in the summer months. And I’m sure you do, too. Well, guess what? My kids just had live dolls that they loved even more. And it’s been beautiful because my kids actually delight in children. And that’s something that, like we need to understand that while the world says that’s a burden, let kids be kids, like they’re even having a better experience. I remember even thinking when our oldest was born, I wanted to get her a play kitchen and I thought, This is perfect. She can play in her play kitchen and I can have my kitchen to myself and I can cook a dinner without having to to make this take forever.

Well, short.

Sighted. It was short sighted. And she also didn’t know how to play because she was our first born. So then I ended up spending hours playing kitchen, teaching her how to play kitchen. And she didn’t want to be playing kitchen. She wanted to be in the real kitchen, making the real things, because that’s actually way more fun than this imaginative, not real dough. If I can make real roles, why would I want to play with air, right? Like, and so then I was like, okay, you can just be in the kitchen with me. And I made a drawer for her in the kitchen. She had her own drawer for baking things. This is like toddler age, you guys. She loves to cook, she loves to bake and did the same thing with my other kids. And I realized, like, some of what we think in society is the way that we’re supposed to parent like actually is backwards for training kids up and for them actually delighting like, okay, do you know how much more delight she had when her dad would come home? And she was like, Try one of my cookies, daddy? And she’s like, Do you like it? And she was just sitting there, like, watching him eat it. Well, she can’t she would try to do that with like an air cookie or a plastic cookie, but he’d have to like, fake it. Mm. Yeah. That’s tasty. Taste like cardboard, you know, like No. But if he’s like, you really? Can I have another one? Oh, that’s so good. And he’s wiping his, you know.

These were my heavy years.

No, when we had kids that were baking all the time. But I’m just bringing this to you as an example. You could think of many, many more examples. But we need to understand that we as Christian parents need to parent counter culturally. And I’m not saying that play kitchens are bad, I’m just saying don’t do that in replace of letting your kids in the kitchen and helping you bring them in. Yes, it’s going to take time. Yeah, it’s going to take a lot longer. It’s going to take a lot longer to teach your six year old how to load and unload the dishwasher, but they’re contributing to the family and that’s going to build their confidence. And they need to learn a life skill.

And their capacity is growing.

And their capacity grows so that they can then hand-wash dishes in a few years without breaking them. Like this is a big this is a big deal for parenting. I even think of like those times you guys, when you have another baby and there might be a little regression in a child’s behavior. Have you experienced that in a transition time? I know we’ve experienced that in a transition time where maybe you had potty trained the two year old or the three year old, and then all of a sudden they start wetting the bed again or or they start wanting diapers because they see the baby wearing diapers. Well, I experienced this recently about six months ago with church. I our our toddler, our youngest was starting to be a little bit more wiggly. He didn’t want to sit on my lap as much. So we started put I started putting out my blanket with a few toys for him to just look at there in church. Well, that was very tempting for our three almost four year old to come over and sit on the floor and want to play. And I was I’ll be frank, I was tired, so I just let him do it a few times, not realizing. And then it dawned on me the third time I’ve broken the cycle. He was good at sitting on the sofa with his Bible for about a year and listening. To Daddy with the sermon and participating in the worship and and doing the whole thing.

And then all of a sudden now he wants the snacks and he wants to sit on the link with the toys. I screwed it up. We regressed. And so I had to, like, get that constitution in me of, Nope, I’m going to have to have a conversation because he’s older now and he used to do it when he was younger. So I know he can. And I had to encourage him and go, Hey, bud, Like Xander looks up to you and and you should want to learn from God. And when you’re playing toys, you’re distracted and you’re distracting other people from hearing the word because you’re making little noises. And and this is important because you’re also an example to the babies in the room. And and you want to hear from Jesus, right? You love him. Yeah, that’s the most important thing. But also you don’t want to distract other people when you’re distracted. It is a distraction for mommy and for other kids because they’re watching you and they’re jealous that they’re not sitting on the blanket playing toys and that their parents are making them sound. So there’s all these conversations that I had with him that were very productive, that made sense to him, and he agreed with them. And since then, he’s been sitting on the sofa with his Bible. We’re back at it again. No, no biggie. And I now I only have one baby.

In the floor. And you see, this doesn’t end in families. You see in the culture and the way church is set up. This whole thing doesn’t end of the Let Kids Be Kids continues. It’s in the youth programs, right? It’s like, let’s make everything super entertaining all the way up until they’re 18. Always entertaining, always doing things in an entertaining way. I’m like, Well, why are young people not going to churches once they launch from home? Well, because it’s not fun and games anymore. You’re sitting and listening to a sermon which should be edifying and amazing.

They should want to learn.

They should want that. But that’s not the training. That’s not what they’ve been brought up.

Yeah, it’s interesting because what they’ve been brought up in is the way they participate in Sunday school is that they’re playing games and that maybe they’re part of a worship team and they’re so there’s this element of like they’re participating more than what like big churches actually experience. But what they actually need to be taught is like, okay, so if we’re part of the body of Christ, we participate not just during the church meeting but all throughout the week. And there needs to be like a proactive way. When you’re part of the body of Christ, you contribute. What’s your gift? How do you are you going to are you going to help somebody move? Are you going to bring a meal to somebody who’s sick? Are you going to be on the worship team? Are you going to greet are you going to serve communion? Are you going to clean up the chairs? Are you going to set up the chairs? Are you? There’s so many things. Are you going to hold the baby for the mom in the back so that she can take notes? Are you going to whatever it is, there are so many ways that you can serve. And that’s one of the things that I love about our our home church is and people ask a lot of questions. I’m just going to go off a little bit is that everybody participates. It’s fun to see the kids leading worship and and it’s fun to see the kids helping with shared meal and and setting up chairs and putting out worship binders and different things. You need to be in a place where your kids can actually do that because that helps them to rise to the next level. It prepares them to be a part of the body of Christ. And if you’re not if you’re not a part of a church where your kids can serve in any kind of way, I’m going to challenge you that you need to think through if that is the place for you.

Normalcy, stunts, maturity. Just think about that. Normalcy stunts, maturity, the kind of maturity that we really want that produces godly fruit and normalcy is all around us. And so whatever is normal, you should really question what the normal way of things in today’s world and just look at it is that the very best? And have these marriage conversations go what is the best? It doesn’t just because everybody’s doing something a certain way, just because everybody tolerates sin and their kids in a certain way doesn’t mean it’s what we should be doing. What does God want from our families? He wants our families to glorify God, to draw people to him, to when we go out, they go, wow, kids are a blessing. Maybe they’re not a burden. Like I think, wow, look at how well-behaved they are. Not for our ego, but to point them to Christ that, wow, there’s something spiritual happening in that family. I want to know more about it. And so I think that is really beautiful. And it does take bucking the system. It does take going against the grain. Status quo isn’t what is working out there. So I just want you guys to be encouraged in that and it’s going to feel a little lonely sometimes, but that’s just the way it is. So the third point is overlooking sin in the pursuit of tranquility is not good. That is fake peace in the home. And so we don’t want to overlook sin either because we’re too busy. We don’t feel like addressing it. We don’t know how. Or we just accept it because that’s what a lot of people around us do.

So Proverbs 11 two says, when pride comes, then comes disgrace. But with the humble is wisdom. I’m going to read to you another proverb that goes with this. I’m just going to reread it a second, though. Proverbs 11 two. Listen to this. When pride comes, then comes disgrace. We don’t want to be prideful because we don’t want to be experienced disgrace. But Proverbs 2915 has a different exhortation that is also similar. And they go together. It says The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. Shame is also disgrace. A child left to himself. Brings shame to his mother. To his parents. It brings shame to his parents.

That’s not like leave him alone in a room that’s leaving things un talked about. That’s allowing them to do the wrong things like whining and not addressing.

It, not correcting sin, avoiding conflict of dealing with sin simply because we think to ourselves, Oh man, they’re just going to have a temper tantrum the minute I go over there and I hold them accountable. And that’s going to take extra time. I don’t have time for this. I have X, Y, Z going on, or maybe you’re in public or maybe you have someone over and you’re like, I don’t want to deal with this right now because that could be embarrassing. I’m just going to brush that under the carpet and hope my friends don’t see it or it’s so common. It happens all the time. I’m comfortable with it. And so you just kind of don’t do anything. And you think that, like, your motivation is tranquility, like not having a bigger outburst, but in reality it’s fake peace because there’s no true righteous peace in a home apart from truth and reconciliation with Christ. And when a child is in sin, just like when we’re in sin, there is separation from Christ. And we need reconciliation. That starts by having repentance, and then it goes into remorse, fullness and reconciliation. We should want our children to be reconciled to God. We need to cultivate in them this like. And part of how we do this is by having a humble heart ourselves and being willing to take rebuke or teaching or exhortation from brothers and sisters in Christ when even when it comes to our parenting, which is super hard. Right. We’re going to talk about more about that in a second. But the point is, is if we’re overlooking the sin in our child’s life, most likely we’re not even wanting that from other people, too. We want to overlooked as well.

One of the things we I’ve been talking about lately is getting good at loving other people well and disagreeing with them, whether it’s believers or non-believers. And it just struck me as we’re talking about this, that in homes where kids are not corrected and they’re not taught and they’re not the capacity isn’t built with them, those kids are likely going to launch. And yeah, they might be Christians, they might be not hopefully they’re Christians, but they’re not going to be someone that’s good at loving other people. Well, but standing their ground and disagreeing with them. And I think a fall of society, at least what we’re seeing in America, largely, is Christians and churches and pastors, not all. There’s some really good ones out there, but just not getting involved and not disagreeing.

They believe that tolerance is love. Think about that for a second. They believe that tolerating other people’s sin is love, and they actually do it under a false, blasphemous teaching. And they say that Jesus was tolerant or they expect Christians to be tolerant to not judge. Right. We hear that all the time. And and that Jesus did that well. But actually Jesus said go and sinned no more. We’ve talked about this in previous podcasts. He healed people and he’d say, Repent. Right. And so the truth is, is he what Jesus was doing is he was healing people, but he was healing more than their physical ailments. He was setting them free from a bondage of sin because but they all had a responsibility to not continue in the sin that they were in. And we have to teach that on the most basic level with our children from the time that they’re little as they’re growing up. This is a huge epidemic.

If they see us doing it well with them over and over and over again, what is it training him for? Not only godliness, righteous living, repenting to God, wanting to live Christ like life, but also the ability to have confidence, to talk to people and have tough discussions, to actually be in fellowship and be iron sharpens iron. And so many times today, especially in the parenting category, it’s like, I can’t go there with so-and-so and I can’t go there with so-and-so because.

They’re too fragile.

It’s too fragile. They’re going to get defensive, they’re going to take it wrong. And we’re just sitting here like.

You love you, actually. Yeah. And we see that you’re headed down a road that’s going to be so bad.

If you see something in our children.

Please come to us.

And I hope that you’re the same way. And usually that happens when you have relationships with people and you’re running the race together. But it’s important. Second, Timothy four two says Preach the word, be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke and exhort. This is talking about Christians to Christians here with complete patience and teaching. Let’s not forget what is complete patience. It’s patience that’s lacking. No impatience. It’s simply patience, complete patience. So exhort somebody which is correcting in a loving way.

Maybe that patience is also like not overdoing it and not bringing ten problems that you see in their child or or going to your child with ten problems you see in them. Yeah, but instead, just just let’s just talk about one or maybe let’s just talk about two, depending on their spiritual maturity and then holding the rest back that’s having patience and kind of testing the waters to see how they do, if they’re going to implement, if they’re going to correct their their lifestyle. Right.

So if you’re somebody that’s like I do have a hard time getting constructive criticism from other people, especially if it doesn’t look like their family is doing better than my family, Sometimes we have these weird comparison traps within willingness to accept guidance. I understand that. But it says the next part for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching years, they will accumulate from themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober minded and during suffering, do the work of an evangelist fulfill your ministry. All of us have a ministry. If you have friends, if you have influence with people.

Who have children.

Children, you have a ministry, your marriage is a ministry. All of these things are ministry. We all have ministries. They’re all equally important to God. Doesn’t matter the size of them. We don’t compare each other’s ministries to each other. We just do the best with the ministry God has given us right now. And, you know, it’s super important. So we don’t want to be that. There’s a lot of parenting philosophies out there that would disagree with things. We’re saying they would disagree with a lot of things. Do you know, we lose listeners to the podcast on ongoing basis. It just so happens praise the Lord that we gain more listeners than we lose. But it’s the same with social media, right? It’s like, Oh, there’s one thing that somebody disagrees with, and then they turn it, turn it off. And I just think that we all don’t have to agree on everything, but we do need to not have itching ears. And if somebody is coming out with, oh yeah, for the first time in history, I have learned something new about what the Bible says from the Greek and the Hebrew. And this hasn’t been pontificated before, but now I have it in my book and this is the way to parent.

You might want to be a little weary, but you know, you guys, this is the thing, is that sharpening Isaac was talking about being iron, sharpening iron to one another. This concept of being in like minded community is our last point. And it’s so, so crucial regarding who your kids become. You know, we talk about influences all the. Time. We know that you hear us constantly saying, What are you modeling for your kids? Well, when it comes to building friendships and choosing wise friends, you’re modeling that for your kids. You’re modeling if you’re using discernment. And I have to tell you, you know, there have been times where we’ve been friends with people for seven years, six years, 12 years, 16 years, and we’ve seen fruit or things have happened where they’ve made different choices, where we’ve gone, you know what? That’s not safe for our family. So we’re going to kind of back away from that friendship. And those were some of the wisest decisions that we ever made. Because the truth is, is you have to you you can’t expect your kids to make wise decisions on friendships like and when I say friendships, I’m not saying we weren’t like acquaintances or we weren’t trying to be loving to those people because we would be and we are. But what I’m saying is, is that you don’t necessarily have them in your inner circle that are going to be influencing your kids, Right? You’re going to kind of pull back a little bit when you see foolishness because you don’t want to become foolish and you don’t want your kids to become foolish.

And I can say as someone who’s been parenting a long time that years and years pass and we bump into those families and unfortunately, their their children have fallen away from and they’re on wayward paths. And it’s very sad. But I also go, well, praise God that we used our gut and we made the hard decision. And I’m sharing that story with you because I think that one of the things that people underestimate and that one of the things that people oftentimes do is they will choose friends like Isaac was saying before, that make them feel better about their kids bad behavior because their kids also have bad behavior. And so they feel justified because they’re like, oh, well, my kids act that way, but their kids do, too, and their kids do too. So I guess we just need to have this expectation that kids this age act this way. That’s a very dangerous place to be in because you’re you are going to reap what you sow. That is a spiritual law that no one can escape. And the truth is, is that if you’re just surrounded by people who commiserate together but don’t challenge each other’s growth capacity, don’t challenge each other on biblical truths to grow stronger, then you’re actually not in deep fellowship with people that love you.

Loving you isn’t just sitting and listening to you commiserate about your problems. Loving you is going to point you to Jesus. And the truth found in his Word, loving you is going to be wanting you to speak into their life as well, if it’s appropriate. If you if they’ve if you guys are in that kind of relationship and you have fruit in your life and you’re giving that advice, they should want that from you. Yeah. And if the closest people in your life don’t want you to speak truth about maybe the blind spots that they have in their parenting, then I would venture to say you actually don’t have biblical friendship, not on that level. You might have biblical friendship in some ways, like where you would say, Oh, we’re like minded. We believe the same thing. We believe Jesus died on the cross and rose again from the dead. We believe in many things doctrinally the same. But if it comes down to it, where you’re not able to challenge one another in the things that matter most, if you’re not able to encourage each other towards spurring one another on to more good works, then there’s an element of biblical friendship that is not existing in your relationship. You’re not necessarily allowing the gift of exhortation to even exist in your relationships, and that’s a dangerous place to be.

It is. And if you want to cultivate that in your current relationships, simply lead by example. Have a heart to heart and go, You know what? I really appreciate our relationship and I want it to continue to go deeper. And as iron sharpens iron as the Bible talks about. And so if you see anything that about my marriage or about my parenting that could be improved from my kids or anything like that, of course I’d want you to give it to me in love and tenderly. But you know, I actually want to hear it. And I just think that’s important as we’re in relationship to do that. And I think that in churches it’s important to build those friendships with people where you’re running there, where you’re committed and you’re running the race like that, because none of us can do it alone. We can’t do it alone. We need to run the race with people that sharpen us. All of us have blind spots. We need to not be prideful. And someone mentioned something, and just because they didn’t mention it tenderly enough or they didn’t mention it perfect the perfect way we would want to hear something like that, which you probably can’t even describe that we get upset.

Yeah, and we don’t want it. We’re defensive or defensive, and all we do is start thinking about the other person that’s giving us the information is false, like it was an attack or something. And I think we have to get so much better at this at really receiving. And so I would. I encourage you to welcome it proactively, actually, and that will lead by example. And they may reciprocate. They may not, but at least they’ll think about it. They’ll pray about it, and you’ll start to find out who are the people you really can run the race with. Because you know what? If there’s pride in the hearts lived out of parents, then the good chance their kids are not going to continue in fruitfulness as they get older. And if you keep running the race together, but you’re being walking in humility, sharp, being sharpened by others and sharpening others and doing that, then you’re going to start to see a difference and it’s going to be challenging. So I really encourage you to build those friendships.

You know, one last proverb on this topic. When we were talking about this, I was reminded of Proverbs 27 five through ten. It says Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend profuse, are the kisses of an enemy. And you know, one of the things that we need to understand is that when someone comes to us and shares, Hey, I see X, Y, Z, and I’m praying for you, and this is actually a hard thing that we should actually be wanting that because that is love. And if we are defensive against it or we push away from hearing that, then what? Or what kind of relationship is there? Right. And I think that when friendships are found, that’s that’s the mark of if a friendship is truly founded on the truth versus on, oh, we like the same things or we’re in the same season of life. So we’re friends, right? Like having your relationship founded on truth is that you’re going to notice those things. You’re going to run the race together and you’re going to be committed to each other. Meaning, I’m going to love you through this. I’m going to be here. I’m not going anywhere, but I’m going to bring this to you and I’ll be praying for you.

And if you want accountability, yeah, sure. But also like having that relationship where you can go to someone and confess your sins to another person or confess, I am really struggling in this thing. Do you have any advice for me? Do you have any encouragement that is that’s actually inviting exhortation, inviting instruction, inviting the sharpening into your life. And if you don’t have that with people in your church, specifically in your church, if you don’t have that with people in your church, then you need to really think through, Am I in the right place? I’ve said that twice now as to different times of you really need to think if you’re in the right place. And the reason why I say that is because, again, we model for our children what this looks like. And if we want them to desire and to pursue having like minded fellowship when they’re adults, we have to model it for them when they’re young. If we want them to parent in this way, our grandkids, we have to parent them this way when they’re in our homes.

Amen. So I would just encourage you guys to stop the epidemic. It starts with you. It starts with you leading by example introspectively, looking at how are we doing with this and being an influence with the people around you.

That’s right. Being willing to say, I love you enough that I’m going to share this with you and you guys. This is not something that has to continue into your legacy. You can stop this epidemic. It can literally be changed by the power of Christ when you’ve committed to him. And so share that with your kids. You know, if you’ve been parenting and you’re like, oh, man, this has been this has been a touchy subject. If you’re saying listening and this has been a touchy subject, you’re like, I’ve screwed up, you guys, We’ve screwed up. Yeah, but we’ve also been able to experience God redeeming our screw ups, our mistakes, because we’ve been in a posture where we’re like, okay, I’m going to learn from that. We did something wrong. We’re going to turn it around and not continue that trend, right? Because that was not good. And that’s how we learn. That’s the growth capacity that Isaac was talking about. So when you’re in this role, maybe you’ve learned by having the wrong friends or maybe the the friends have they they themselves, maybe when you bring up a sin that you struggle with, they try to make you feel better about it because they themselves also struggle with it. I really would consider if that’s a wise person to be going to with things, because what you want is someone who’s like, You know what? I struggle with the same thing.

Let’s change this. Yes, that’s actually the kind of community that you want to be a part of or I’ve been there and I can give you hope because we did change it and good for you. Like, do you see how there’s two different ways that you can approach this? So commiserating, bad, sharpening one another good and biblical. And we just want to encourage you guys that with your kids remember, they will rise to the level of responsibility you give them. Don’t coddle them. Don’t keep them in the season of life that they have surpassed because they are human and they have this innate desire that God put in them to want to grow, to want to be needed to be. Able to contribute. And when you do that, they are going to win less. They’re going to grow up in ways that you’re going to be like astonished and you’re going to go, Wow, how come I didn’t realize this before? And they’re going to look back on their childhood and be like, Mom and dad taught me this.

That was an incredible, fun childhood.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom. 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

It’s more important than ever to be able to hear the Holy Spirits’ promptings to parent well in these changing times. Buckle your seat belt for a fast-paced episode with practical insights on going beyond our finite minds to make improved decisions for our family during uncertain times.

Main Points From This Episode:

• God is only good and wants you to make good decisions, so ask Him when it’s hard to see what to do.
• If you are walking strong with the Lord, trust those gut feelings
• You don’t always have to know why you are making your decision, you are the parent and God will guide you.
• The speed of change in the world makes hearing from God even more important as a provider and protector.
• Trusting others is hard, but we have to be careful not to be too guarded in our relationships.

Scripture From This Episode:

Ephesians 6:17-18 – “and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,”

1 John 4:1 – “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

1 Corinthians 2:12-13 – “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.”

Habakkuk 1:1-5 – “The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw. O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted. ‘Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.'”

If The Spirit Prompts You to Financially Support (We are a for-profit, for social good organization.)

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 following. Welcome to the podcast, everyone. Hey, guys, so glad you’re here. We have a very important topic when it comes to parenting that involves the Holy Spirit.

That’s right. I mean, have you ever had just a bad feeling maybe when you when you upon meeting someone or you have a bad feeling about saying yes to your child, going to a specific event, or you just have like these gut, a lot of times people call them gut instinct type of situations. And if you do, today’s podcast is going to speak to you because we’re going to actually encourage you on the biblical perspective of what those feelings, if you will, or insights or gut reactions are.

And I think it’s a tough one because sometimes we’re feeling that pressure a little bit from our kids, especially if they get older and they want to go do things or something like that. And when we don’t have a why we feel the way we do. It’s hard to stay the course with it, isn’t it? Yeah, but we need to sometimes.

And I would also say that there’s even this level of parental peer pressure, as I like to call it, where sometimes you feel pressure by other parents. Yeah. To say yes to certain things or to say no to certain things that you know are actually going to be really fruitful for your kids. And so we’re going to dive into that in just a moment. But we just wanted to say thank you, you guys. We have there’s been a lot happening in the ministry lately, right? We launched coffee. We launched a new website. Be courageous ministry dot org dot org is super important. And coffee you can also find there or it be courageous coffee dot com but there’s been so much going on and you guys have been so killer like amazing so supportive. We’re blown away right we’re.

Blown away that just a quick on the coffee launch if you’re part of that thank you so much. If not, it’s okay We appreciate you just listening to the podcast and praying for us and everything that’s going on. Yeah, but it’s it’s not just about coffee, but the reason it was this most important reason it was a success is because customers are loving the coffee. It’s been an upgrade to their experience. There’s so many positive reviews and it’s just been incredible. That’s really important to us as we’re part of the parallel economy that we are putting out products that are excellent, right? And that’s really important to us so that it means it was a success and people are loving the coffee. So we appreciate that. And every SIP supports the 10 million Legacies movement because we’re for profit and doing that. Go listen to the video A be courageous ministry dot org if you haven’t already. It’s about 3 minutes. It is super important to understand why we’re doing things a little differently than you might see other ministries doing things. And if it causes you to pause and go, why in the world they do in coffee, especially if you don’t drink coffee, you’re like, Why would they do coffee? Maybe you need to go listen to that. And I think you’ll not only understand, but you’ll be like, regardless of whether you like coffee or not, you’re going to be like, Go, let’s go, let’s do this together.

Yeah, it’s pretty cool. And for those of you who know our son, Austin is our podcast editor, he has been doing that since four years now, actually for four years. He helps us with all of our video expertise type of things and be courageous. Coffee is actually employed. Our daughter Megan, who graduated high school. And so this is this is an exciting thing that has helped them to be able to do certain things. I know that Megan is saving to do her DULA certificate. Some of you guys are curious, like, what’s next for Megan? Maybe we’ll do a podcast with her. One thing that she is doing is she’s going to start doing dual certification in a couple of months here, and so that’s super exciting. So she’s saving for that. And, you know, there’s all kinds of extra things that we’re hopeful to be able to do with our kids down the road as we’re teaching them entrepreneurship. And I think that for us, like our heart is that we would be leaving a legacy of our kids, not as they grow up and they become citizens and productive citizens in society. I’m sure that you would agree with us that they would be contributing to society. Things that are worth that are bring worth to the community. And this is just one way we do that. And we couldn’t do that without you. So thanks.

Well, hey, let’s dive into it, trusting the Holy Spirit’s promptings. And when is it the Holy Spirit and when is it just ourselves? And when do we trust it? Not in these kinds of things are important to know. You know, I was reading to the family this morning in a family meeting in the morning, Habakkuk and such a good relevant book for right now. He goes on in the first part, it’s a prophecy and he’s just talking about, you know, why do you make me see iniquity and why do you idly look at wrong? So this is a complaint to God, essentially. And I think sometimes we can have that camp. We were like, There’s so many awful things happening in the world and you know, what’s God doing? And of course we know when we go back to our word, we’re like, Well, God is all powerful, a loving, incredible. We trust him. Right. But sometimes we can have those moments that I.

Can relate to have a cook in this, because I have actually cried out to God that that same exact first two verses many times. Because I know I have the gift of spiritual discernment. There have been many times where I’ve even asked God to take that away because it’s not. You don’t like seeing sin, right?

And then negative and then it says verse one four. So the law is paralyzed and justice never goes forth. And for the wicked surround the righteous. So justice goes forth. Perverted, Right. So just a little complaint there. Sometimes you can look at the news and you can think what is going on. And so was Habakkuk. But then the Lord answered, The Lord answered, I’m going to give you the very first part of the answer. You can read the rest In verse five, it says, Look among the nations and see, wonder and be astounded for I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told so. We’re finite in our minds and what we can see and understand. We can understand spiritual things because this Holy Spirit is in us and we have the Bible and more we lean into that, the more we can get out of our finite ness and understand the infinite God and what He’s doing. But He reveals but what he’s saying right here is, even as Christians, we don’t fully comprehend all that God’s doing. And so we trust God is doing an amazing good work that we couldn’t even comprehend.

So good. It’s so good. It’s encouraging. I think that a lot of parents probably need this today because I know that for me it’s easy. Especially, you know, I’m married to a man that loves being informed about geopolitical things that are happening around the world. And so he’ll he’s always sharing every morning. I feel like there’s something that he shares either with us at the table or we talk about at night before we go to bed. And it’s interesting to both of us, but I see that as a I don’t know if it’s just how I’m wired or because I’m a woman. It definitely weighs heavier on my heart than it does to Isaac, you know, And so this is a very encouraging word. And I think that there there is. And the Bible also says those who advise me see and those who have ears may hear. And I think that there is an element for sure today that if you have the Holy Spirit in you, you’re going to see what’s happening in the world even differently than other people are seeing it happen. Do you know what I mean? And that can lead parents to want to like, Oh, bring all my chicks. I don’t know if you guys watch my insta stories, but last hour, chicken just hatched chicks in the middle of the night last night and they were still in eggs.

And there was a little crack and a little beak was sticking out of one of the eggs last night when we went down to check on them and Drew pulled it out from underneath the chicken to show it to me so I could do an insta story. And the hen took her little beak and pecked at him and like, tucked it back under her right away. Isn’t that how we as moms feel with our our babies, our our kids, especially when they’re littler? We just want to, like, tuck them back under where it’s warm and safe and protected, don’t we? And yes, if you listen to last week’s podcast that was really summing up, what the podcast was about, is that we as parents need to understand it’s our jurisdiction to rise up and to protect and shield from harm and aim to preserve our children’s sexual innocence. That was what last week’s podcast was on. This is not just about like sexual innocence. This is about trusting the Holy Spirit that is within us and the promptings that He gives us as parents when we do need to bring things back, when we do need to say no to certain events, or we need to literally say no, you can’t hang out with that child anymore or what have you. And those are hard things to do as a parent.

They are they.

Are saying no is hard.

It is. And sometimes it needs to be the full sentence. But it is hard because we don’t want to hurt relationships with other people and we don’t always know why we’re saying no even. And it’s important also not to make things up if the Spirit’s prompting us and just make up some other reasons. So so I think maybe we need to get good as Christians to Christians saying, you know what? Know this time. And, you know, I just feel like this the spirit is telling me that, you know, we’re going to do something else instead of going to this or something like that. And, you know, I think that we need to be spirit when we’re together with other Christians. It’s okay to talk in spiritual language. You know, we were just talking to our kids about this the other night. It’s like when we do hospitality, there should be spiritual components to hospitality, and that’s really important, right? So our first point for you guys is trust the gut feeling. 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. Download that well has some key questions on it for your date night to 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 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.

Steve and 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, and 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.

So we have a scripture for you guys in First Corinthians. And I really want to read a little bit more than what we were going to be teaching.

That’s usually the case.

I just love the word so relevant. So flip with me. If you can’t First Corinthians chapter two, we’re highlighting verse 12 and 13, but I really want to start at six says, Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom. I hope you’re spiritually mature, and if not, I hope you’re pursuing spiritual maturity because it says yet among the mature we do impart wisdom. Although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away, this is a good reminder. It goes along with Habakkuk, it goes right along with that. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understand this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. But as it is written, what No, I have seen, nor ear has heard, nor the heart of man imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him. If you love him, God has some amazing things planned for you and for your family. You have to trust that these things that God has revealed to us, this is verse ten, these things that God has revealed to us through the Spirit for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God, verse 11, for who knows a person’s thought except the spirit of that person, which is in him question mark. So also, no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now, we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God that we might understand the things freely given us by God, and we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. That was verse 13 so powerful.

Sometimes we can have a more academic side to our faith, which is fine. Learning and knowledge is super awesome, but we also want that relational side with God too. Both are really important and you might be asking, some of your listening are like, Yeah, I hear from God all the time. Some of you like, Yeah, I’ve had some of those really awesome moments where I hear from God and some of you like, Hey folks, I love God and I don’t necessarily hear from God. I’m not talking about audible hearing, but it’s it’s.

Like, do you understand when you’re reading.

The words, speaking through our minds about something prompting us and something feeling a heart reaction to something, a gut feeling. And, you know, these things are prompted by God, but you might be feeling No, those are usually my promptings and I don’t really feel prompted by God. And so I think everybody’s on a journey with the Lord, and I would just encourage all of us to, wherever we’re at, is to lean in to God even more. And the reason is because these times we’re in parenting is harder.

It requires spiritual discernment.

Marriage is harder, providing is harder. All of these things. We’re not to have fear. We’re to have joy in our hearts and to walk strong and to share the gospel with people. But persecution is increased even in America, right? So what? So it is more important than ever as a parent that we’re leaning into God, that we’re hearing from God, because the problems you’re going to experience are not always problems we can solve with our head knowledge, because they’re they’re more vast, they’re more often and they’re more complex. These situational things with friendships and places our kids go for activities or school or influences in their lives and these kinds of things. Which decision do we make? We want them, well, socialized, but at the same time we want to protect them. We want to gradually help them understand and equip them for the world so we can’t just shield it from them all the time. But at the same time we don’t want them to go wayward. All these thoughts that can go in our head, but. You know what? There is no single person. Isaac and Angie are going to tell you every answer. You know, it is the spirit of God. We have an infinite God that can see way far ahead in all your situations, can see everything. And so the point is, we need to lean in to God. We need to be in the word and talking to God more and more sincerely than ever before so that we can hear the Holy Spirit’s promptings that may already be there. But you’re just totally unaware.

And I think, too, there’s an element of crowdedness that can happen at times. I’m just going to share real transparently with you. One of the things that I learned many years ago regarding the gift of spiritual discernment, because I have had it since I was very young and obviously because of growth and spiritual maturity, it’s definitely grown like that gift has grown. And I believe that God has. He trusts me more with more things in that sense. And we have to we have we are tested often not tempted by God. The devil tempts, but God does test us sometimes to see if he can trust us. And we should be all as believers, praying diligently for God to bestow all of His spiritual gifts. Is he going to give them to one person? Well, the Bible says he disperse them among the whole for the edification of the whole. So I have a personal belief based upon that scripture that he doesn’t give one person all of the spiritual gifts so that we rely on one another. But the gift of spiritual discernment is one of those that God chose to give to me. And yeah, I have prayed like Habakkuk, Lord, would you give this away? Because it can be burdensome at times, it can be heavy at times when you sense there’s no way to describe it with words. How how you sense something just off in a person or, you know, a lot of times it’s interesting because one of the ways that has been difficult for me is when like a man can’t make eye contact.

That’s oftentimes it’s something that I can just discern that there’s some kind of sin or something going on. And when I can tell when people are lying very easily. And that’s difficult, right? Because you you don’t want to just be like, oh, I know you’re lying. You don’t want to just say, oh, are you struggling with sexual assent? Like, you can’t just do that. Right? But I do believe now that I’ve been married for 23 years and have had nine children over and over again. Sadly, the the sins or the issues have become apparent years later. They were exposed. And I just look back and I thank God and I praise him because I know that God has actually protected my family because I had that that bad feeling. And I kind of put up boundaries and I did, if you will, as a mom again, to many young children, I did kind of tuck them in and preserve them and go, nope, we’re not going to be spending time with this person. Nope. And I’d bring things back, and I can’t tell you how many times I wish I would have encouraged other young moms to walk in the kind of confidence that we’re supposed to have in the Holy Spirit, walk in the confidence of who we are in Christ. That in those moments when you have a bad feeling, if you will, to to listen to that and to to bring your chicks.

Back, it’s so important. And as in marriage, it’s important to trust your spouse. If they have a feeling about something and even if they can’t explain it to not belittle them, make fun of it, and instead to trust it. To realize that God might be speaking to your spouse in a way that actually prevents something harmful, being exposed to your kids or happening to your kids and these kinds of things. We don’t want to be the worrier. That’s not what we’re talking about. But to to trust that there’s a prompting there I think is really important.

You know, it’s interesting. So what I was going to share with you, I think one of the most important things that goes along with this whole concept of like, you know, really being in the word right, trusting the gut, feeling, walking strongly relationally with God is the most important thing regarding this, because I’ll just confess, those times when it’s spiritual discernment is when I’m walking with God, when I’m not walking strong with him, meaning I’m not saturated in the Word and the Holy Spirit is not activated in my life. Maybe I’m going through a dry season because I have had those in my Christian walk. Those are the times where that spiritual gift actually manifests itself more as me having a critical spirit or being overly judgmental. Tol And I say that because I think that it’s important that we responsibly steward the gifts that God has given us and we’re honest about. Have I been in the Word today? Am I just worrying and anxious? Am I having a critical spirit because I’m in my flesh more, or have I been really in the word and I’m experiencing the joy of the Lord and all of a sudden I meet someone and I have a bad experience for a second. And I think that, you know, the next two verses in that scripture I was sharing are actually really important and speak to this. It’s it’s first Corinthians chapter two, still verse 14. It says, The natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God. Yeah. Don’t we see that happening everywhere in society today? The person that’s natural does not accept the things from the Spirit of God, for they are folly to Him and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

So that’s huge. It is huge. And sometimes there’s people that say they’re Christians and you even experience this with them. And it’s never our job to judge somebody’s salvation, only God knows. But we are to discern, look at fruit in and to have different levels of trust for people based on their understanding of spiritual things.

Right. And verse 14, this is super important because you know that that lie that’s out there from the I believe that it’s started with a progressive movement that has seeped into the church, this this lie that all Christians are so judgmental and that’s not Christian, that that lie. Right. Because we’ve gone over this. It’s in it’s actually in first Corinthians where it says, aren’t you to judge inside the church? Who are you to judge outside the church? We went over that in the very last podcast. You can go listen to that. But verse 15 here, right? First Corinthians chapter two says, The spiritual person judges all things.

Mm hmm.

That verse alone, like standing alone, the spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. Why would he be judged by no one? Because he judges all things and he uses spiritual discernment, like it was talking about in verse 14. Right? The spiritual person judges things. Therefore he’s walking more up rightly because he’s listening to that, and then there’s less to be judged in him.

And sometimes really.

Amazing.

Something that can really block Walking strong in relationship with God and hearing from the Holy Spirit is on repented sin. So is there sin in your life as a parent that is preventing you from hearing from God? If you’re frustrated because you feel like you’re just not, you’re in that dry spell that Angie maybe talked about. That could be a reason. It could be over busyness to just not getting that quiet time. And hey, Angie certainly understands having babies and having a hard time finding time. But you know what? If it’s really important to you.

You make.

Time. You always find a way. And so finding a way to get some of that time and sometimes spouses, husbands certainly need to help with that around their provision activities and things like that. So it’s super, super important. We need to we need to trust our gut feeling, but we need to be walking strong with the Lord. And in fact, I would go against that first point and I would say you might question your gut feeling if you’re not walking strong with the Lord because it might just be anxiety, worry and unfair judgment.

That’s true. And it’s interesting, the very last verse in this chapter says, for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. I say that because Romans 12 tells us that we can have our minds renewed by the washing of the word, by being in the word, which is the Bible, and that our minds are actually renewed as we read the Bible. And this is literally telling us that we have the mind of Christ. Guys, that’s so powerful. If you are having your mind renewed and you’re not walking in the flesh, but you’re walking in the spirit as Scripture tells us to, as it literally commands us to, we can have the mind of Christ. That means that we can trust the spiritual gift because it’s not of us, it’s of God. And so when we sense something and we hear the promptings, like like when I when I say hear the promptings, I’m not talking about like an audible voice like Isaac says. I’m literally like, are you able to recall scripture that would convict you or shine a judgment, a spiritual discernment, warning, warning sign in your head because of the scripture that you’ve read.

Like, for example, let’s say you’re at a soccer game and you hear someone who claims to be a Christian. Maybe it’s the coach of your team, maybe it’s just another parent that said, Oh yeah, we go to this church and you’re starting to like build up a friendship, and then you hear them during the soccer game, start cursing or saying things like that are that are using the Lord’s name in vain. You would judge that actually, because the spirit says and scripture that I just read says that you will judge all things actually, and what judgment would come in your mind would be, Oh, that person’s cussing. And scripture tells me not to cuss or to take part in crude, just jesting or crude joking, coarse jesting, right? So the scriptures are going to be recalled in your mind, and it’s the Scripture actually in your mind having the mind of Christ, because you have his words in your mind and on your heart that you get this icky feeling being around the person that’s cussing. Do you see do you see how that spiritual discernment, that’s actually what you want to encourage in your children?

Here’s a scripture right here in first, John, for one that I would even teach to your children. Super important, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many, false prophets have gone out into the world, and I think I’m just going to read more. It’s so important by this, you know, the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come into the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God, is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children. You are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. So the Holy Spirit in you is greater than the Antichrist. They are from the world. Therefore they speak from the world and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. So if people do not reason with sound doctrine and spiritual truths, then you start to understand.

Yeah, I love that scripture. I’m so surprised that you went beyond what we had discussed.

Well, you know, I look at the analytics and on the business side of the ministry, and once it goes over that 35 minute mark, the number of listeners decreases exponentially.

Oh, but you guys, I love that we’re digging into so much of the word because we really want to just point you more to him, not to.

Hey.

Man. So, you know, there is this need of understanding that, yes, we as humans are finite, like Isaac said at the very beginning, but God is a supernatural God and his spirit is supernatural and it can reside in us. It should be residing in us if we’re believers. Yeah. And to trust. It’s not that we’re trusting our gut. Actually. Can I just say that that’s not biblical, That meaning that that terminology is not in the Bible. So that would that terminology, that vocabulary would not be found in the Bible. Trust your gut. What is biblical is walk with Jesus and have confidence and trust that Jesus in you is going to lead you in a way that you can trust. Yeah, You know, Do you see what I’m saying? And so it’s God in you that we trust it’s not you, right? That that would be more biblical walk. Not in the flesh. Walk in the spirit. More of Jesus, less of us.

Hey, our next point is the speed of change. Things are accelerating. Change is happening faster. And here’s just a real practical reason. We want to be trusting the Holy Spirit’s promptings and be able to hear the Holy Spirit’s promptings, especially if you’re the husband. This is important for husbands and wives equally, of course. But I do want to speak to the husbands for a second. If you’re a provider in your family, you need to be listening to the Holy Spirit’s promptings because financial situations, how money comes to your family could be disrupted, could be upended, could be changing. There might be a need for a different source of income and these kinds of things. But it is way better if we understand those things before we have to understand these things. We can take action before our family is compromised financially and these kinds of things. So we have to be listening to the Holy Spirit, asking God for wisdom, walking strong in the Lord so we can hear, so we can pivot and make changes, adjustments in anticipation of a feeling we have of something that might happen. In fact, that is why we, for the ministry sake, did coffee, for example.

It is not needed at this very moment, but it is helpful right now and it will be required in the future. We just have this feeling, this conviction about it and other things that we need to do. So that is really important for provision. How about for protection? Are you listening to the spirit? This goes for both, obviously to protect your family, to protect your children, to to make sure we’re doing the best we can in protection. How about loving, well, loving our families? Well, well, if we’re listening to the Holy Spirit, it gives us the courage to have a tough. Conversation. It gives us the confidence in the the maybe the the extra oomph we needed to follow through and to have that conversation that in our flash we feel like might be too dangerous to have of somebody. But then the spirit prompts us, know this is real love. Do it in a loving way. But you need to talk about this because if it’s not spoken, you’re kind of through a mission allowing wrong things to happen with people you love. So we need to be in love by listening to the Holy Spirit super important.

I love that. Isaac I think that there’s also this element of understanding that the world is changing rapidly as well, like you were just talking about that. But because of that, we need to be willing to shift in our parenting. We need to be willing to make. To make such big changes that we’re literally having to sit at the table with our kids and go, We used to do this, but we’re no longer doing this. And this is why. And I cannot.

Stress.

To you enough how important the Y is if you’re able to bring it back to the Lord and how you want to live your life and how you want them to be raised and how you want them to be and how the influences and all the things you are literally impacting generations because you’re teaching your children leadership. And this this concept needs to be taught. Let me give you an example. When I was a little girl, I used to go over to my great grandma’s house during the summers because, of course, we were out of school. I was raised going public school and I was at a school in the summer and my great grandmother would take care of us. She was in her late seventies and eighties and early nineties as I was growing up. She died when she was 93 and she was raised during the Great Depression. And so she when she would take care of us, it was very different than how I was being raised in a lot of ways. But she took care of us most summers while my mom and dad were working. And I remember at one point when I was a teenager having this really sour attitude about the things that she was trying to have me do. She was having me contribute, but she was she was doing a Titus two jobs. She wanted me to be doing dishes, folding laundry, gardening, all of the cooking, all of these, like domestic things. And I was in my heart rebellious against doing those things because I didn’t have the right perspective. I wasn’t taught the right perspective. I wasn’t taught.

This is actually a Titus two thing Gramma is called to do, to teach you to know how to do these things, because you’ll need to know how to do them when you’re older. And I remember being like mad because my brother was learning things that I thought were cooler, like how to chop wood and different things like that. And and I remember complaining to my mom about this. I was probably 11 or 12 and thinking, she just doesn’t love me. And I’m sharing this brief story with you guys because sometimes kids have that perspective when you change things up, when you’re when you change things up and you start becoming more intentional because you’re like, okay, the world is changing. We need to start gardening now. We need to start chopping wood. We need to do all these changes. And maybe your kids are used to playing video games for 4 hours a day and they’re used to playing sports and and activity after activity in the world revolving around them. And it being a child centric home and you’re like, Whoa, we need to hold up the horses because we can’t do both. And the world is changing and we need to become more independent and self-sufficient and we need to grow our own food. And that means the whole family has to work. And maybe you’re getting some attitudes. I get that because I was that kid and I’m telling you, telling your child the why, why biblically and giving them perspective. And I am preparing you for your world that you’re launching into. You have to tell them the why.

Amen. Amen. And trusting people is hard as our last point. Yeah, it is. We just wanted to kind of level with you. It’s true. It is hard to trust people. And you know what?

It’s hard.

It’s getting a little harder. Actually. It feels like at least this is my own personal thing, is it’s. It’s feeling hard and I wrestle with that. And but I also know we need to trust people unless they give us a reason not to trust them. Like we need to put a good foot forward, but we need to be discerning and we need to build a circle of influence that is productive, loving and safe for our families, for our children and so forth. And let’s not be too guarded in our relationships because of past hurts and things like that. And but let’s be discerning at the same time. There’s a balance, isn’t there? And I think that Ephesians, the harm or God has so much to do with this whole thing. I’m just going to read it if you guys don’t mind. Finally, be strong in the Lord and the strength of His might put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, but we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having done all to stand firm, stand there for having fastened on the belt of truth, and have you put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the Gospel of peace in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.

To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplications for all the saints, and also for me that words may be given to me and opening my mouth. Boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel. There’s Paul right at the end of that. A lot of times that gets cut off when we kind of quote the armor of God. But the end of that, Paul’s like asking. And also for me, don’t forget about me that words may be given to me and opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel. So if you want to stand firm, if you want to be bold, if you want to understand the timing, to do that, and trusting the spirit and hearing from the spirit, we need to be walking strong with the Lord. We need to have the Sword of the Spirit open, which is the Bible.

And I think it’s interesting when you were reading this and you finished with what Paul is praying and asking God, he’s beseeching him, He’s saying, Lord, would you help me to be bold? I think that what that lays a strong impression upon my heart is that we don’t just put on the armor of God so that we’re protected, so that we don’t suffer harm, so that we don’t so we can deviate our schedule and our plan away from things that are going to be harmful. That’s not the purpose of the armor of God. The purpose of the armor of God is so that we can confidently be boldly standing firm like Paul saying, that’s actually what he’s saying, like help me to have these things so that I can help me to be bold. And that should be our prayer for us, for our children, for our parents. Yeah, the grandparents. You need to be praying for great grandparents if they’re alive, like pray for their influence that they they would know Jesus on such a firm, strong foundation level that they’re speaking truth to your kids and praying for them. I think also that there are times when it comes to trusting other people. Isaac This last point, when we’re talking about the armor of God, the thing that is so hard is that, one, when you’re passionate about the Great Commission and you’re passionate about evangelism and we’re talking about like protecting our kids from harm, and we’re talking about having spiritual discernment in the people that we trust and we’re bringing all these things in.

There’s also this part of us as Christians, we are called to the Great Commission. We’re called to make disciples. We’re called to open up our lives, to be hospitable. We’ve talked about this so many times, and we don’t want to isolate from the world. We don’t want to shut the world out, because letting people in is how they know who Jesus is and how transformation that’s God can use our families to bring transformation into people’s lives. Right. But there is this element of like, you don’t ever do that to the level of sacrificing your family. And I see that happening at ministry levels. I see that happening in so many people’s homes because they put other people and and the thought of being used by God and them coming to Christ, they put that before doing diligent work in their furniture, which is their family. And there is a way that you can do both well, but you have to use discernment. You have to be willing to say no at times and to have boundaries in within being in ministry. And so it’s going to look different for every family. It’s not cookie cutter, but you cannot sacrifice your first ministry, otherwise you’re disqualified from the race, right? Yeah. So I just want to bring that up. Like there’s this element of like as we’re going through this, yes, we want to be people who are expendable, but protect your kids.

Amen. 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.

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This takes a far more diligent effort than parents of previous generations. There is an all-out assault against this in the culture and media right now and it’s likely to get worse. We shouldn’t fear anything but we must respond with wisdom. This episode will help you think through this and give insights into actions to take.

Main Points From This Episode:

• Definitions: (1) Innocence: Freedom from legal guilt or sin through being unacquainted with evil: blameless, naivety, lack of knowledge, ignorance, pure and upright. (2) Protect: Keep safe from harm or injury; aim to preserve; shield from exposure.
• It’s the parent’s job to protect their children. 
• Recognize your duty to protect your children and fully implement despite what others are doing.
• Progressiveness grows slowly in Christians in response to pervasive cultural shifts over time. Don’t become progressive.
• Be Biblically minded in your choices. This will mean you are counter-cultural, even at times in Christian circles.
• Keep your children from suffering harm as much as you are able. This includes media, influences, and friends…
• Equip your children to be able to make good choices when faced with exposure to things.

Scripture From This Episode:

Nehemiah 1-4 – (Refer to the Bible)

1 Corinthians 5:9-13 – “I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.”

Romans 12:2 – “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.’

If The Spirit Prompts You to Financially Support (We are a for-profit, for social good organization.)

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 the following. Welcome to the podcast, everyone. Hey, guys, so glad you’re here. Today. We’re talking about.

Protecting your child’s sexual innocence.

Such an important topic, a deep topic. And I think what could be more important than this right now? I mean, there’s many important things, but this is one of them, right?

I think that there’s a sensitivity to this topic. I know that Isaac and I get a lot of questions, a lot of emails, a lot of messages from people who they find their kids in precarious situations regarding influences in their life or different things, or they’re concerned that they will in the future. And so they want to be proactive in their parenting and we want to support you in that 100%. I think today’s podcast is going to be equipping. I think that it will be one that most likely, if you’ve been listening to the podcast for a long time, that means that you are like minded on many different topics, most likely, and so you’ll probably be cheering and going right on. Amen. I agree with this and I hope that this is a podcast that you feel comfortable sharing. I know that Isaac and I feel super thankful every time you guys share. Give us ratings, leave comments either on iTunes or anywhere that podcasts are listened to. It’s super helpful to the ministry. But you guys, we’re doing this because we really care deeply about equipping parents. We care deeply about the souls of the parents and the children that are alive today on Earth. And, you know, this is a big, big deal because progressiveness and these woke ideologies has been seeping into the church. And really the church is on attack. And that is even showing up as a not so safe place for kids in many ways as well.

Yeah, it’s a different world in a lot of ways. We have to parent more vigilantly. We have to be aware of things. We can’t just be go along to get along. And I think everybody agrees with that. But we’re going to give some practical insights here. You know, what the enemy wants is sin normalized. And so it’s really important that we understand the battle we’re in and we see this happening all over the place. So if the trend continues, which, you know, it could get derailed, but we also know that things get worse during end times. And here we are and things are getting worse. We don’t know the timing of things. Nobody does, but we definitely see this progression happening. I think it’s fascinating times, but it’s just because something’s fascinating because we’re living out biblical history, it doesn’t mean we’re relaxed about anything. We need to be paying attention because what very well, if the trends continue, it will be so normalized that boys kiss boys and girls kiss girls and these kinds of things that even large portions of Christians will just go along. And you might even be seeing some of that right now. I know. I just want to share this one story. We were recently looking for Playmobil.

Oh, yeah. Which I’m very sad to say that we are pretty sure that Playmobil has gone woke. And so you guys know that we’re not like super legalistic when it comes to, to these things. But the truth is, is that we do try our best to vote with our dollar. We did a whole podcast on it. I also did a podcast where I interviewed the president of a company that was called Second Vote that rates like over 1800 companies. So you can go listen to those podcasts if that’s interesting to you. And what I meant by like we’re not legalistic in it is that like we don’t sweat about this, we’re not obsessing about this and like, how dare you vote? You buy something from that company Like, no, no, no, no. Like the judgment is not ours to make. We just personally feel conviction to do our best, right? And so sometimes there’s something that you can’t get anywhere else but a certain place. And I think that God has grace for that. We talk about that in that podcast. But the point being, Playmobil won’t woke because on this little date that we had with our four year old to go find him a new Playmobil toy set because this.

Is what he wanted to date. That’s what he wanted. And there’s this whole section just Playmobil.

Yeah. And you guys, it was hard to actually find a farm kit that didn’t have two moms. I’m just going to say it. It was hard. In fact, it was hard to find any Playmobil kit that had, like a man, a masculine man in it. The majority of them had all women and kids. And so.

It was you can’t really.

Tell or you can’t tell. Yeah. They’re like unidentifiable. Right? And so that was like hard for a three, four year old. That’s like trying to navigate, figure that all out.

So here we are right now, this time in history and the trend, we know where the trend is going. I think we can all agree on that. And so we’re so we really have to. Work this muscle of protection because it can easily get moved over by trying to love other people with a misunderstanding of what a full biblical love is. And so we’re going to talk about these things because things aren’t going to get easier in this category. Parents have to get better.

Yeah, I mean, that really is the that’s the mic drop right there. Things are not going to get easier. Parents have to become more biblical. So we thought that it would be interesting, though, because of our topic title, to kind of dig into a couple of definitions. We don’t do this in every podcast, but I just thought it was very interesting to look up know. Webster 1828 is actually one of my favorite dictionaries. If you don’t have one, that’s a good one to have in your home because you will refer to it many times. But we were looking up the definition online as well of the word innocence, because I think that there’s some some vagueness to this word and even misconceptions within the Christian community. I’m not going to dive into that right now. That’s not what this podcast is about, but it’s important that you know what the true definition is. So it says freedom from legal guilt or sin through being unacquainted with evil. Our children unacquainted with evil will win. A baby is born. They’re pretty unacquainted with evil, right? Like we’re born into sin. We’re born into a fallen world. Yes. And the Bible says that folly is bound up in the heart of a child. That’s true. But there is this element of being naive and unacquainted with evil. And as a child grows up, they become more acquainted with the evil in the world because they’re exposed to more. Right. Which is interesting because when you continue looking at the definition of innocence, it says things like shamelessness, naivete, lack of knowledge, ignorance, pure, upright. All of these are ping words that you would find under the definition if you were to look that up. And it’s kind of fun to go look it up, actually. So I recommend that.

You do that. And the other word is protect, which is to keep safe from harm or injury. Aim to preserve shield from exposure.

In computing.

In computing, restrict access to or use of data. And you have a Latin definition.

Oh yeah, yeah, I’ll talk about that for a second. But I just thought it was interesting that like in the definition it said that there was even a like in computing and technology, there is a terminology for protect, which is to restrict access to or the use of data, which we’re going to talk about boundaries later in this podcast, obviously. But I just thought that that was super relevant for parenting today because of the increasing issue of pornography and just wayward philosophies and ideologies being completely like brainwashing kids right now. And so it’s just interesting that, you know, it’s funny, whenever I look up definitions, I go, Oh, well, that goes against the woke agenda. They’re going to have to try to get rid of the dictionary. Like it just reminds me of Fahrenheit 451.

Right. And I just want to say, hey, husbands, we are to protect our families. It is our jurisdiction. God tells us to protect our families. We’re to provide for our families. We’re to protect our families. We’re to love our families. We’re to serve our families, which is part of love providing and protecting. And so it’s so important that we are masculine men, that God made us to be that good masculinity of protecting.

Yeah, it’s funny because when I was like, looking through the different definitions of protect, I was thinking about the husband’s role in this and how many scriptures in the New Testament talk about like being the head and dying for dying yourself to protect your wife, Right? I think that’s the love. And using that as an example of how Christ died for the church and that men are to try to be that example, an image bearer for their children, for their wives.

And one of the things I think happens sometimes in the marriage relationship, this isn’t all guys. I’m not trying to throw guys under the bus. But, you know, one thing that does happen is sometimes the wife is more conservative on protecting the purity of children than the husband is. This happens sometimes, and I think that we need to be just as vigilant as the wives are. I know that might not be the case for your particular marriage, but this is something that you see. It’s like, oh, well, no, they need to you know, if they’re not exposed to things, they understand how to handle things and so forth. Well, of course, there’s ages of when kids should be aware of what’s happening in the world. But let me just tell you, we have nine kids to launch from our home and we’re now grandparents. We have a little bit of experience. And I say that because there might be some new listeners and it’s you don’t have to try to let your kids experience things or allow your kids to experience things for them to come into the knowledge that evil exists in the world. We’ve done a really good job protecting. Our kids. We’ve lived this out since they were little all the way through. And praise the Lord. Our kids are doing well in this regard.

They don’t There’s this lie out there, I think, and I don’t know where it came from. It’s a very progressive thought that in order for for someone, just a person to be able to be aware of the battle that they’re in, they need to be exposed to it or to experience it. And I just have to say that that’s a lie from the devil, because being exposed to something or experiencing something is actually the devil’s way of entangling that person in sin, because the thing that they’d be experiencing is sin. Let me just use pornography as an example. When I was a little girl, this was not something that I was like really even aware of. And I can honestly say that my parents did a really good job of protecting me from pornography. And I to this day, I’m in my my mid forties. I still have not been exposed to pornography other than what I would say. Like I would say that the Victoria’s Secret like pictures in the windows at the mall is pornography. And so of course I’ve walked by those things and gone, oh gosh, turn away, you know, But like the reality is, is that you do not have to experience it or even be exposed to it to know that it’s bad. I am living proof of that. I’m sure there are many hundreds of other people that could literally raise their hand and go, Amen, That’s me. I agree. Yeah. And so I just have to say that because you can’t protect and preserve. Honestly, when we were trying to come up with the title, it was hard to choose between those two words because I also love the concept of like trying to preserve your child’s sexual innocence. You know what I mean? Like, there is an element of understanding that that is your jurisdiction as parents. It’s not just to protect them from things, but it’s to preserve what is currently intact, which when a baby is born, what’s currently intact is that they don’t have knowledge of pornography.

Hey, let’s there’s already going to be opportunities. Even when you’re protecting that, kids are going to see something, be exposed to something, and you’ll have those conversations. We don’t want to usher things in any earlier than they need to happen. We need to make sure you have to realize normal kids out there, they’re usually exposed to pornography at age eight or nine. The studies say you can go to Josh McDowell’s ministry and find all the statistics that are crazy. It’s somewhere in the 80 to 90% of all men are regularly looking at pornography.

It’s just like a big deal, like think.

About and women are growing in their percentage. I forget what it is, but their percentage is increasing over time. So it is just so important that we realize the reality and it doesn’t really. They actually have done studies too on clergy and pastors and leaders in the stats. Don’t decrease with that group of people either.

I mean. Well, and it’s interesting, too, because you would think that being a new creation and being born again, there would be this element of like being vigilant to protect yourselves. But the devil’s out. And he’s like in the sense of like he is on the prowl, right? The Bible says he’s like a roaring lion looking to see who he can devour. All right, That’s for Peter. And we need to recognize that if we’re raising our kids to love Jesus, that they do have a target on their back. Parents have a target on their back, your marriage has a target on it. And so you need to do all you can to fight the good fight.

Well, right. So, hey, we’ve got four points for you. But real quick, I just want to say all things can be now found at B courageous ministry dot org, the podcast. Yes, plural. You’ve got to go there to figure that out. What other podcasts there are. And our shops, there’s two shops. Usually you have to go to two different websites for them, the resolute man and be courageous shops all in one place. Now you can link to them also all show notes and so forth. You can get getting to this podcast through, be courageous ministry, talk courses, book all the different things, so please go there. It also helps, by the way, if you haven’t been there yet, just go. It helps the Google optimization for more impact so people see it, so it rises up and it’s easier to find for everybody. Would you go to be courageous ministry dot org. The org is important. It is a dot org where for profit for social good ministry. And by the way, if you’re interested in the parenting mentor program, I just want to it’s the price is on sale. But if you’re listening to the podcast and you’re loving it, use extra 50 at checkout. I just gave you an extra $50 off the current sale price and so go there, check it out. The Parenting Mentor program is so important. It’s important for this topic.

So let’s get back into it. Okay. So the first point that we have is to recognize your duty. We’ve kind of mentioned that it’s parents jurisdiction. Isaacs kind of gone off on his like passion for, like fathers. You rise up and protect your family. Which I absolutely love. But I think it’s important that we recognize that this is a biblical ordination, meaning God ordained you to unapologetically rise up and be a biblical parent. So what does that mean? What does that mean today? It means that we are to protect and to preserve. And it’s interesting that we even have to say like that this is part of your duty as a Christian parent. But the truth is, is that there is a progressive like resurgence seeping into the church that is against things like they’ll be they call it the purity culture, and they’re against purity culture. And like this concept of not being there against being sexually pure. They’re for promiscuity. They’re for things that are not biblical. They’re actually for sexual immorality. If I was to just lay out that truth and it’s important that we recognize that there are people that are probably sitting within pews or in their auditoriums at many churches who have these convictions and these deep beliefs.

And you have no idea that you’re sitting and going to church with them. And so to have a realistic perspective of what people believe that you’re like taking communion with and this is important. This is important because you have to have your eyes wide open and be alert and aware in order to do your job right. So if we’re saying that one of our duties, our jobs as parents, is to protect and preserve our children’s sexual purity, and we just turn a blind eye to the truth that even within our church. And so what does that mean? If we turn a blind eye to it, then we’re just like dropping our kids off at Sunday school. We don’t even know who’s in the room with them. We don’t know who’s taking our toddlers to the bathroom when they have to go to the bathroom. We don’t know who’s changing our baby’s diapers. We have no idea if we’re turning a blind eye. And I’m bringing this up because there needs to be an awakening of courageous parents who are like, Nope, not happening on my watch, because you understand that you are held responsible by God while your kids are being raised in your home.

It is a big job to protect. It is. You don’t just automatically trust people you don’t know just because they say they’re a Christian. Right? This is so important. Don’t we want our children as they grow older to adopt that as a belief that I don’t just automatically trust somebody because anything that comes out of their mouth, anybody can say anything. It’s the fruit of somebody’s life that you can tell if you can trust them. It’s as you build relationship over a span of time that you can tell if you trust.

Trustworthy or.

Not. And so we should not be over delegate and we should not be over trusting with other people for our kids. And sometimes we’re so tired, we just want to hear the sermon. We just want to do these things and a little bit of sacrifice. But you know what? You don’t want to live in regret because you retired and we need to find a way for that marriage team to work in a way where you’re less tired. Right. And we need to find a way to hear the sermon by training our kids to sit with us. Perhaps, you know, we’re not going to tell you exactly how to do church, but that’s what we did. Our kids sat with us as we went to church.

I do think that, you know, on that particular topic, we’re not going to dive into that in depth. I think that it’s important that people understand. We’ve done a podcast on that particular episode on our take on Sunday Schools and Youth group. You can go find that it’s in this last season. It’s just a few weeks ago actually very insightful and I would highly encourage you to go listen to that. But part of what the whole point is, is to like, recognize like, are you aware, like, are you alert and are you making wise choices with who you allow to be caregivers of your small children? Are you aware and alert of who you’re allowing to be teachers and influencers in your children’s lives as they’re getting older and they’re starting to talk about things that are more deep? Are you aware and alert of who is mentoring and influencing and purposefully trying to lead your teenagers? Like, are you aware that’s the whole point? And just bringing up an example of like recognizing that just because someone calls themselves a Christian or that neighbor next door calls themselves a Christian, we don’t just go, Oh, hey, yeah, then our kids can just go over and play without us there. There’s no I’m sorry. That’s in my mind that’s dropping the ball as a parent. Like, you need to stop what you’re doing. The dishes will always be there. You need to go over and meet the parents, and then maybe you invite them to come over to your home as a whole family.

You need to start out by not just like all hands off. Yeah, kids can go play over there without supervision. Now, instead, why don’t you play together in the front yard or have the whole family over together so that you create a culture or a relationship where you’re inviting families over and you only go over, your kids only go over when you are there. Also that. Is where it needs to actually begin. That’s where the play dates need to begin. We don’t do drop off birthday parties with our four year olds. You don’t know who the older siblings are, what they have on their phones. You have no idea what kind of music is being played. You have no idea whose uncle is going to be there or aunt or like. Can I just I’m just being honest. And I know that some of this might be like, Oh, well, I never really thought about that. That’s kind of scary thought. And I hope that that, that, that’s like a I don’t want to instill fear in you, but I do want you to have the rose tinted glasses taken off and recognize that the enemy is a strategic schemer and we are in a spiritual battle for our children and we are the ones that God has called and given us parental jurisdictions and duties. And part of that is this concept.

Absolutely. And you have an awesome scripture for us in Nehemiah that I think is so relevant to this.

So it’s interesting, today we were just talking about this concept and I was reading through the beginning of Nehemiah, and it has an exhortation that I think is super important for all of us as biblical parents. If you haven’t read Nehemiah lately, I highly recommend you go read it. It’s short book in the Old Testament. It’s awesome book. Nehemiah In chapter one, he just says, I think this is important for creating a little bit of context here as I asked them concerning the Jews. So here he is. Nehemiah is talking to different people about Susa Judah. He’s talking about the Jews concerning Jerusalem who had survived the exile, and he’s talking about the wall and the wall. Jerusalem had broken down in its gates, were destroyed by fires. What verse three says in chapter one, and he just continues on. Well, the very next verse, and it’s a huge section. I’m not going to read all of it. Nehemiah, When he hears that the wall is broken down, the first thing he does is he prays, he gets on his knees and for the next like six verses, very long section, he is just crying out to God. He repents on behalf of his people, his father and his father’s home. He says, We’ve broken your commandments of God and he repents and he says, I’m he basically is like apologizing in here. And he’s saying, I recognize that we need to turn and do better and we need to obey your commandments. And then he asked God to redeem them. Right? This is literally the first thing that we should be doing as parents, like recognizing that this battle exists because too, for too long, Christians have sat on the sidelines, inactive, not standing up for biblical truth. And we’ve just been like, Oh, Harm, everything’s good. It’s not been good. Sin exists. We live in a fallen world and we need to have our eyes open on the reality.

We have to stand firm.

That is true.

That’s I wear this hat everywhere I go. And at least in Idaho, everybody loves my hat.

Oh, your stand firm hat.

It’s like people give me deals, places and discounts. I can’t believe it. It’s like this funny. It’s because people are like, yes, finally, it’s I think it resonates that we need to stand firm. We need to draw a line in the sand. Nobody is going to influence my kids negatively. They’re not going to get a chance to tarnish the future of my kids. They’re not going to win them over. Not going to be I’m not going to allow anybody to be used by the enemy to impact my kids.

You know, it’s interesting because, like, obviously our all our lives are in God’s hands and God is sovereign. And like, sometimes he allows bad things to happen to good people. And we have had horrible things happen to us. Yeah, right. I mean, we’ve experienced that. But looking back on those things, like while we would never wish them on anyone because we were we were strong in our faith and we kept leaning on Christ and running towards him in that hard time he was glorified. And because of that we learned a lot and we grew a lot. So even though we would never want to go through it again, we never wish it on anybody. We wouldn’t want to change it either because it’s part of what’s made us who we are today. And that can be that’s like the story of redemption. And so if you’re sitting, you’re listening, you’re like, Oh, I’ve already made these huge mistakes or I’ve already let the floodgates open and we’ve got like apps and we’ve got all kinds of like, we don’t have like protection on our servers or whatever. Maybe a kid has already fallen to some kind of sin. I just want to tell you that those things can be used for God’s glory and there can be redemption that can happen. And that is part of Nehemiah is prayer in this chapter is Lord, we have sinned. Like he literally even mentions in here that sexual immorality has occurred in his family line, and he’s repenting on their behalf. And he’s talking about a nation, too. He’s talking about Jerusalem, he’s talking about God’s people. This is like a nation of people that he is praying for and repenting for. Are we not a part of a world that is fallen, that requires us? We should be. Ideologies that are getting pushed today. Am I right? Confusion. We just did a podcast on that.

Don’t let anyone confuse your kids.

But then you skipped down last part. I’m sorry that it’s taking so long. Verse 14 says, And I looked in a rose and said to the nobles, into the officials and to the rest of the people, Do not be afraid of them. Don’t be afraid to, guys, just because, you know, the reality of what’s happening doesn’t mean that we get to be afraid. He says, Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome. Remember him and.

Fight.

He doesn’t say remember him and do nothing. He says, Remember the Lord, our God who is awesome and great and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives and your homes.

That’s the beautiful thing. You mentioned God is sovereign. A little bit ago, God is sovereign. He also gave humans free will. It doesn’t mean he’s orchestrating everything happening by every person. Oh, it’s. We need to. If there wouldn’t say to fight right there unless we have responsibility to protect our families.

True. It’s an it’s a verb. It’s an action word to go do something to go fight. And so what’s interesting, if you were to go in here and read, it was really cool because the guys are out there like the rebuilding the wall, right? And that’s what many of you may feel like you’re doing if you’re trying to leave a new legacy. I know that for as again, we talk about legacy and building the legacy and like our ideas come from the word that’s just like you have to understand, like our ideas come from the word and you can build a new legacy too. But this concept of like rebuilding something, building something up. It says that he commanded the Jerusalem people as they were building the walls to be working hard, but in the right hand they also had their weapon, they had their swords with them. And when I saw that sort of just automatically reminded me of Ephesians six where it’s talking about the armor of God and how the Sword of the Spirit is the word. And we have to have our swords, we have to have our weapons, right? Because we are in the spiritual battle and yeah, we let the walls get knocked down for too many generations.

You might be going, Well, it’s just sounds exhausting. It’s like we already work hard, we’re already doing all these things. And yes, I’m letting my kids go to so-and-so’s house or my kids are part of this group over here, and I really don’t know what’s going on. How do you guys do all this? And I would say that this is our next point, which is to be biblical. It takes courage to be biblical and courage takes effort. It takes action. It takes prayer. Right? It takes unity and marriage. But we have to be biblical. That’s our next point, which is countercultural. It’s even countercultural to a lot of normal Christian circles. Let’s face it, normal Christian parenting largely is failing from the very day one of launching the Parenting Mentor program and the podcast, which launched almost simultaneously almost four years ago, I believe we said this exact same thing is equipping confident Christian kids for an uncertain world, and it’s being countercultural. It’s super important. So 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 have some key questions on it for your date night to 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 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.

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

So part of being biblical and being countercultural. It’s interesting because when you start thinking about what is the culture doing in parenting laissez faire, what is the the culture doing for parenting? They are literally laissez faire parents. They’re sitting back, hands off consent parenting and other worldly philosophies of parenting where they never tell their kids, no, they let them rule the roost. It’s a child centric home. The kids make the rules. The kids decide what they’re going to eat. The kids decide when they’re going like, it’s just not biblical parenting and it’s not biblical family. Right? And so when we’re when we say in point to, like, be countercultural, it’s literally like I almost feel like in a lot of ways you can look at what the culture is doing and if you just do the opposite, you’re probably going to be doing much more biblical parenting than you realize.

It’s so true. It’s so true. So we have to be biblical right here in first Corinthians five, nine through 13, it says, I wrote to in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all, meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and the swindlers or adulterers. Since then, you would need to go out of the world. But now I’m writing to you, not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother. If he’s guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or as an adulterer, revealer, drunkard or swindler, not even to eat with such a one for what have I to do with judging outsiders, is it not those inside the church whom we are to judge? God judges those outside purge the evil person from among you. It’s really important to understand the context of this and what it’s talking about. This is a very accurate verse because it’s in the Bible and the New Testament, which I shouldn’t have to say that because we believe in the Old and New Testament. But but this is talking about people inside the church. This is talking about people who say they are Christians. I think a lot of times Christians get this wrong. Christians become judgmental of people outside of the church and they’re judging people and showing judgment towards non-believers. And that’s not what we’re supposed to do. We’re not supposed to be judging them in that way. We’re supposed to be showing love towards non-believers. Of course, we’re supposed to show love towards our brothers and sisters in Christ. However, if somebody is a professing Christian, but then they’re sexual, immoral, or they’re idolaters or they’re drunkards or any of these things, we’re not even to eat with such a one. So that’s accurate. And the reason is, is because it causes confusion, especially, well, not only for adults, but especially for children.

I think one of the things that we’ve talked about in the past in the podcast, which you can go listen to because we’re more in depth there, I’m just going to drop one thing is that it’s actually more dangerous for kids when someone is calling themselves a Christian and then their lifestyle is that they’re actually choosing a lifestyle. Sexual immorality, for example, that’s confusing, confusing, that’s not traditional. I am going to say traditional biblical gender roles because kids know they don’t even have to be taught. They literally know what works and what doesn’t work, what God created and what man screwed up. Like, they just it’s an inherent thing that people actually know. And the confusion that’s trying to happen right now is an acceptance of that. So the so that the thing that is normally not the way God designed the confusion that happens is that those people are trying to make that be the new normal and there is no new under the sun, there is no new normal there. What there is, is good old fashioned traditional sin, God’s word talk specifically about that. And there is a truth that like certain things, for example, like procreation, literally cannot happen without both male and female. Like it literally cannot happen. And so for people who are out there saying, like, oh, the future is female, I’m like, oh, then there will be no future.

You know, it’s interesting. Even non-believers like Elon Musk are admitting and actually promoting that we have a demographic problem, that we don’t have enough people to keep our economies going around the world because people are not having enough children. And the number of children people are having is going down to a level it’s not replicating. And so populations are going down.

People are admitting it. Now it’s interesting because there is a lot of that happening just randomly, like people that we wouldn’t necessarily agree with on. A lot of things are saying like, oh, wow, this doesn’t make sense anymore, right? Like even there’s even a fight within the LGBTQ community regarding the drag shows and the grooming that is happening as such a. Like it’s just such a sinful level. Like, even people that are within that community are now wanting to divide themselves from transgenderism. Actually, it’s just interesting what’s been happening in the culture. And so when you see with your eyes what is happening, the only truth that we can ever count on and bank on is the Bible. It’s just the word of God, especially as we’re raising our kids and our kids are going to come to us with questions. We need to take them back to the truth that is found in the word, not our truth, not Isaac and Angie’s opinion, not this person’s opinion, but what does God say? What is God’s truth? Because it’s not even an opinion. It’s literally what’s true. And I even think about like this concept of we talked a second ago or a few minutes ago about like the progressive seeping into the church subtly and like little lies here and there and that we need to be aware of and and how there is this fight on what they call the purity culture. And I’m not I’ll be honest, I’m not super familiar with what purity culture is. I’m just trying to obey the Bible.

And when I do a definition research. So just a side note, the progressive Christians out there would need to go change the definition of purity to actually make their argument worthy. But purity in the Bible says freedom from adulteration or contamination, freedom from sexual immorality. So as a Christian, we definitely would want to be pure like that’s an obvious thing based upon the definition of purity. I do have like compassion for people who have been hurt, though I think that there’s this element where like even just people that I’ve come in contact with where they may have been raised with people that were very focused on purity all the time, but then they were hurt by those same people sexually like and the abuse levels that have happened, or even just by hurt by people like youth pastors or other people in their church or different things like that, that that unfortunately has happened on a great scale and there hasn’t been accountability for that. And that’s not okay. And that has that in and of itself is sexual immorality. And there should be church discipline. There should be a purging, like Isaac said, of the evil person out from among them the person who did the hurting, because that’s not of God. And so to be attacking purity culture or to be attacking this concept of sexual purity is an inaccurate target. In reality, what needs to be happening is there needs to be accountability and there needs to be a justice, if you will, and God will do that.

And so if there’s any pastors listening or anything, by the way, the toughest leadership job that exists, you’re leading volunteers mostly, and caring for the spiritual well-being of so many people. And that’s not an easy job. But one thing that is concrete about your job is to not allow people in the in the in the flock to hurt anybody in the flock. There is a there’s a there’s got to be a no nonsense attitude about that. And the scripture talks about that. And so I really think that leadership is complicit if they ever allow somebody to continue to be hurt in their flock. It’s part of their job.

Yeah, I think that I mean, obviously, again, if you have experienced hurt or pain or if you’ve been struggling sexually, like God can redeem those things and he can create a new creation, but there needs to be a repentance. And repentance actually means to turn away from your sin. And so, like it’s not just pornography that is a problem. Right now what we see is parents willingly, purposefully taking their little children to drag queen shows and being exposed to completely inappropriate sexual debauchery and fornication. And it’s completely immoral. It’s corrupting these children. It’s not preserving or protecting their innocence like it’s exposing them to things far beyond when they’re they should be exposed to them. And what’s crazy about this is that a lot of the times, those people, those parents that are purposefully taking their children, they also want other children exposed to it. And so part of their methodology is that they expose their children and then their children goes and sits in the school classroom with your children, and then they bring it up. Like some of the stories that I’ve been hearing in the last six months to a year of things that little kids have been exposed to, whether it’s ideas, pictures, concepts, teachings, books, what have you. A lot of it comes from kids. And it’s interesting because you know that a kid didn’t come up with that themselves. They had to have actually been groomed and taught that by an adult, and it’s just sad.

So being biblical is saying no to involvement with things is opting out of things that you have a tug in your heart about. That’s probably the Holy Spirit tugging at your heart to say warning, warning you’re putting your kids at risk. God is in control and He gives us the Holy Spirit to. Convict us of things and we need to listen. Even if it causes challenge in human relationships. That’s really important boundaries. We need to shield our children from exposure. As they get older, they’re naturally going to be exposed. Our kids understand how the world works. We educate them. They are out there in the world as they get older doing things and being exposed it. It’s not hard for them to understand how the world operates. If you just go to the grocery store, if you just go out there, it doesn’t matter what state you live in. There’s people everywhere and they’re going to understand how things work and you’re there to communicate with them. So what do you need to opt out of? What do you need to say no to? What do you need to set boundaries on?

And and then what things do you go to? But then just know that you need to have a serious conversation with your kids afterwards because you don’t know what they saw, you don’t know what they experience. And so not shying away from those conversations, I guess, is the point. Like for us with courageous parenting, we’ve tried to equip parents with knowing how to have those hard conversations. The very last session in the Courageous Parenting Mentor program, if you haven’t gone through it, literally talks about all of the hard conversations, like how do you talk to your kids biblically about concepts, suicide, rape, pregnancy out of wedlock, like sexual immorality? How do you have these conversations with your kids? We talk about all of those drugs in the Courageous Parenting Mentor program in depth, trying to help parents to have this confidence and resources that can help them to proactively have these conversations versus just being, like, scared to have the conversation. So they shrug it underneath the carpet and then their kids never feel confident going and having that conversation with their parent again in the future.

Well, and remember, Romans 12 two says do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Isn’t that a perfect verse when you’re discerning what to say? No to opt out of set boundaries on, we need to. But but the question is, are you conformed? Do you have a renewing of your mind or are you so saturated with the scrolling and the apps and the media and the peer pressure and the influence of people around you? Way more than the Word of God. And I would challenge you that we need to be in the Word of God. We need to know what it says. We need to write it on our hearts.

And we need to keep the commandments like Nehemiah was praying, like part of repenting and part of his prayer that was crying out to God was like, Lord, we know we need to keep your commandments. Do not walk away from us. Like and like there’s this aspect of like understanding that we have an incredible God. We have an incredibly forgiving God. We have been given an immense gift in grace. And to not spit on that by how we live or how we don’t live right. And understand that there is like we need to have an aim to preserve our children, our babies like Isaac. And I used to always say use this terminology of like not trying to awaken sexual desire far before it’s supposed to be there. And you have to do that now by opting out of watching movies, certain movies that have been marketed to little kids. Right. And keeping them from harm, which is our last point. One of the last points is keeping them from harm, shielding them. These are all actual definitions in the word protect. I just remind you that the like keeping from harm was one of the definitions. Shield from exposure was one of the definitions. Aiming to preserve was one of the definitions. So ask yourself right now what can harm my kids? If part of your job being a protector is to keep them from harm? What can harm your kids? Your list may be different than ours because we’ve been proactive in trying to protect our little ones. But have you? Have you have to be alert and aware? But then the next step is understanding predators and equipping your children to also protect themselves.

Like there’s these there’s these different levels, like when you’re littles we’ve been primarily talking about with like younger kids, right? Protecting your children, preserving their innocence. These are like little littles. And then as your kids start getting older, they’re like, you go to the grocery store. Like Isaac said, they’re going to notice things that the three year old’s going to go over their head. They’re oblivious, right? But the eight year old is going to be like, why were those two people holding hands and kissing? Or why was like they catch on to things at the fair or the rodeo or whatever, and you need to have those conversations with them. You need to start equipping them, then age appropriate and only you know that because only you can discern that with so that they can protect themselves. Like when we go to the mall, for example, like I remember many years ago, I used to go, we lived in Portland and it rained ten months out of the year. And so to get a little bit of exercise, I would take the kids and stroller in the backpack and all the things, and we would walk through the mall and I’d let them play on the play structure that was inside the middle of the mall. Well, there is this Victoria’s Secret shop, right? And so I had to like park purposefully park away from that part of the mall. And then I had like a walking path that protected us from actually walking past it by using elevators and escalators. No. And so that’s like a way that you can protect.

But you brought up a good point, honey, which is also, I think one of the reasons our kids have done well in this regard is because we equip them and how to protect themselves, because you’re not always there. And you’ve got to when they’re young, you’ve got to be equipping them for those times when they’re not going to be when they’re older. It’s not all of a sudden they’re older and then you equip them. No, no, it’s it’s this gradual process of doing that. And so when they are exposed to an ad or an image of a woman not dressed appropriately, you’re educating your kids to shield their eyes, to look the other direction, and to do the counter to what is normal. And so we have to do that. So shielding eyes to not look at people’s phones, to not participate in debauchery and and and and.

So having like like we were talked about boundaries and you guys are all like, well, what are your boundaries? I’ll just give you one. We talk about this more in depth than parenting mentor program, but our kids know not to look at other people’s phones. And that’s just like, obviously we have a four year old, so we’re still teaching him that, right? And even our six year old, like at times we’re like, Hey, remember, don’t look at anybody’s phone. And that also means that like you have to lead by example, by not having a device that your kids are showing other people things, even if it is good, right? Because the whole point is like you don’t want to have the temptation for technology to be there. And so if you’re like, Oh, no, my kids can’t look at your phone, but they can look at mine like, that’s just not that’s not okay. Instead, you just go, No, you just don’t do that with friends. You don’t look at each other’s phones. And when you create that kind of a standard, that boundary, then when the kid is on the soccer or basketball bus with the team driving to the next game and somebody’s like, Hey, dude, check this out. And they start handing them a phone, they go, No, dude, no thanks. And they don’t even look at the. Like, are your kids at that level where they don’t do that? Have they been taught not to do that and practiced.

Where they’re going to stand firm and they see parents standing firm and they’re not going to look at things like when we watch a movie, even an animated movie. Every once in a while, even a good animated movie will have a spot where a kiss happens or something like that.

And all of our kids, our kids, all our kids would always close their eyes.

Shield their face, look the other direction, whatever. And it’s just something we have instilled we don’t want to stir up in our children things and desires before they should be right. And it’s a long time like we could do a whole nother episode on dating, which I’m sure we’ll do.

Yeah. You know, it’s interesting because now you’re probably thinking, Well, do your kids see you kids like, you know, it just I think that there is a healthy we have to we’re image bearers and so we this this podcast because literally just keep going and going we are going to have to end it here soon. But my point is, as of course they do, they it’s good for them to see an image bearing relationship loving one another in a biblical way, and that’s a good thing. But does does that mean that they see more than that? No, of course not. And so, like, there’s this element like of again, you don’t need your kids to be exposed to things like you should be purposefully protecting and preserving them and training them as they get older and teaching them to have certain boundaries so that they can be protected, so that they’re aware, so that they know it’s okay for them to discern if they don’t feel comfortable, if they are like red flag with that person, they don’t get in the car of them. Like, yeah, for sure you have to. There is an element of discernment judging that you have to teach your kids is okay so that they don’t find themselves in those bad positions, those dangerous positions that are going to actually end up hurting them.

You might be wondering, well, how are they going to get along as they get older in the world? How are they going to make friendships? Obviously, lots of families, even Christians, aren’t raising their kids in this way. And I would just say we aren’t going to sacrifice biblical truth in training up our kids because we’re concerned it’s going to make it harder for them to get along with people in the world. That would be that. Is. Is that a fallacy?

No. Yeah, it.

Is. It’s a fallacy. It’s like, okay, so you don’t be lenient on one thing because something is true. Because something is true. Just because something’s harder doesn’t mean something isn’t still true. Truth is truth. Truth doesn’t change, right?

Actually, what’s interesting is that question is actually asking if you raise your kids that way, they’re not going to get along with people who are sexually immoral. And it’s like, Well, yeah, actually, I hope not.

I hope their lights and.

Lights.

Love other people. Well, and people come to know the Lord because they are looking different, aren’t we, to look different? And you know what? They may not be popular in all circles and that shouldn’t be any of our goals. Yeah, we’re going to look, in fact, we need to embrace being unpopular and we need to train up our kids and embracing being unpopular because that’s what Paul talks about in the Epistles and the New Testament is how unpopular we’re going to be as Christians as we live out biblical truth in a loving way. And it doesn’t mean we sacrifice our position on something We need to get good at loving other people well, while holding our biblical position, disagreeing with somebody in a loving way while not sacrificing our biblical position. And if you’re if your children see that they’re seeing a wonderful example, if they’re seeing parents who just omit and go along to preserve relationships with people, and then they’re, well, how can we expect them to do any different? And so we need to be that example of always loving people well, but never deviating from truth. We need to get good at that.

And we need to be okay with like putting like we’ve talked about this before, like having a realistic expectations on friendships and not expecting people who are not walking with Jesus or not walking with Jesus strong to be acting and being the people who are walking with the Holy Spirit activated in their life. Like there’s that’s what’s having grace with one another is actually and being able to have that opportunity to speak truth into people’s lives and like recognizing that there’s some conversations you just don’t have with some people, right, Because they’re not ready yet and you pray for the opportunity to be able to be a light to them. But then those are not the people, though, that you have in your close biblical community that you’re trusting to influence your kids like that. That type of person goes in a completely different category. Like a confused person might be somebody who’s like only friends with mom and dad and has coffee every now and again to connect because they’re from the past or whatever. And you’re like, on mission, right? Like you’re thinking, Great commission, but. And there’s people who are like in your biblical community that you are like minded with, that you rub and elbows with, that you’re encouraging one another that you’re having hard conversations with like this conversation.

Like, is this the type of conversation that you would share with your best friend? And if the answer is no, I would really like to ask you why not? Because if you agree with what we’re talking about regarding preserving and protecting your children and then starting to equip them and this like progression of equipping them for being able to stand firm against the lies of the devil. Like, if you don’t agree with that concept, then go to the Bible, right? If you do agree with it and you’re not willing to share it with your best friend, then should that person be your best friend? Like we need to get to that place where we go, What is my biblical community? Am I in close like minded fellowship? Like Paul says, being of one sound mind Because this is important. This concept of sexual immorality is covered in almost every single book in the Bible.

It can’t be ignored.

Like it can’t be ignored. God is very serious about this situation. And in our in the culture in the year 2022, it is rampant.

Everywhere. Well, the three paths the enemies using is gender confusion, marriage, confusion and sexual confusion.

So we have to understand that all of those confusions actually go in our category called identity. And so we need to pray for our kids get saved. We need to pray that God would just fill them up with this Holy Spirit that the word would transform and renew their mind like we were talking about today, and that they would have a firm identity of who they are in Christ so that they aren’t led astray by these other ideologies that are out there.

We hope this is helpful.

Thanks for joining us today. 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

God does the saving and directs parents to disciple their children pointing them to Jesus. There’s so much more to it than going to church, having Bibles, and proclaiming we are Christians. The Tolpins dig in giving you practical insights and examples on how to encourage your kids to have connections with God. He wants a relationship and there are so many ways to help your kids nourish that relationship with Him.

Main Points From This Episode:

• How does your family connect with God?
• Tune in to get many practical ideas on encouraging greater connection with God.
• Normal Christian parenting is largely failing so don’t be normal.
• Make sure they see parents who connect with God regularly.

Scripture From This Episode:

1 Peter 5:6-7 – “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”

Luke 4:8 – “And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”

Psalm 145:18 – “The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.”

Matthew 22:37 – “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”

Matthew 6:19 – “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:”

Matthew 28:16-28 – “Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

If The Spirit Prompts You to Financially Support (We are a for-profit, for social good organization.)

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 following. Welcome back to the podcast.

Hey, everybody.

So glad you’re here today. We’re talking about encouraging connections with God. I can’t think of anything more important than that.

That’s actually true. I mean, for a parenting podcast, for us to get down to the nitty gritty was the most important thing that, you know, every parent says that they pray that their child would love the Lord and that he they would follow after him, that they would want to serve him. And really, it comes down to being introduced to God first, but then also connecting with him. And so you’re right, this is probably the most important.

Also, regardless of what time of year you end up listening to this. And a lot of people listen to them right away when they come out. But we’re going into the fall right now. There’s transition and sometimes we can get caught up in our to do list and all the things we have to do, whether it’s education wise or changing with sports and relationships and the list of people that we haven’t had over yet and we need to and all those things and remodel. And for me it’s the RV, I have to record it and things like that. But you know, there’s a lot of things, yeah.

I have to overturn a garden and continue processing all the fruit, which.

Is great. So there’s a lot to do. And the most important thing is this actually, we would all agree to that. So we’re going to encourage you to encourage a growing faith in your children. Now, parents can never save their children. That’s something only God can do. We all agree with that. But a reminder that God put us in charge, put us as the loving authority in our children’s lives to point them to Jesus. It is our job.

Yeah, it’s one of the greatest jobs, actually. I mean, in the Bible, in Deuteronomy six, if you want a real good encouragement, go read the entire chapter because talk about it’s it’s good. It’s exhortation, if you will. Have you ever read parts of Scripture and you just go, Ouch, I’m not doing that. And I need to, because the Bible is literally commanding me to do this. God is commanding me to do this. Well, that’s what Deuteronomy six is for parents, right? God is commanding us to teach our children while we sit, while we stand, while we lie down, while we like all the time. The whole point is all the time to be talking about God and and teaching our kids about God and singing hymns and all these different things. Right? All the different ways that they would learn about him. So we’re going to talk about some of those ideas today. But before we do, we just wanted to say thank you guys so much. As you know, we just days ago launched the be courageous coffee dot com.

Oh, yeah. It tastes so good. Cheers.

Yes. Isaac’s using one of his courage is calling mugs. Yeah. I don’t know if you guys knew this, but we. We have a couple of shops and we have a bunch of different mugs in them, and they all like they have these great Bible verses on the back. This one has first Corinthians 558, which is awesome, but I just wanted to put that out there anyways.

We’re so encouraged. The shop already has 23, I believe five all five star reviews so far of people who’ve experienced the coffee and loving it. People that got it early were on the watch team and so forth, and orders are coming in and people are sharing. If you want to follow, be courageous coffee on Facebook or Instagram. Please do see what’s going on. And it’s just a pivotal thing to really support the ministry. If you want a vision, what’s going on? Go to be courageous ministry dot org. There’s a video right there. That’s the new ministry headquarters website. It’s access to everything there because we had all the different pieces. You know, there’s courageous parenting dotcom, there’s courageous mom dotcom, there’s resolute man dotcom. There’s the be courageous app there’s you know lots of different that be courageous coffee dot com. Now they all still will have their own websites but if you’d rather just go to be courageous ministry dot org it’s all there it links out to everything there’s a lot of stuff that’s only there to it is really our shops both shops in one place so just so much easier.

Yeah. And what’s great is we have some things that are upcoming to which I’m not going to tell you what it is, but there is a slightly secretive thing that is revealed on the website. But you have to go to be courageous mystery dot org to find it. Here’s a tip. Go look at and click on what podcasts say and you’ll find out what’s coming.

Oh, I didn’t even know. I didn’t even know what you’re talking about until you said podcasts. Plural.

That’s right. Well, they know it. They know that we have this courageous parenting podcast and they know we have the Courageous Kids podcast, which is in the app.

But somebody.

You have.

Else is launching a podcast.

Now. They know they need somebody else, not us.

Well, good.

You guys. Anyways, anyways.

You’re an important part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. We so appreciate your support. Even if you’re praying for us and you’re listening, you’re downloading episodes. That is so helpful. Thank you so much. So let’s dive into this. You know what? As a Christian family, here’s some cool things that Christian families do. They say they’re Christians. That’s a good thing.

They identify that. That’s what that is. Right. Identifying their identified Jesus, Jesus.

And then they might have, you know, our house serves the Lord or some scripture on the wall. Don’t have to, but you might. Some homes have that kind of thing.

Actually, Deuteronomy six again says, bind behind the words of the Bible on your door fronts.

And I’m sure you know, you have Bibles, you know, going to church, praying before a meal. And the reason I mentioned those things is because I think most Christians have most of those in common or some aspect of those. And while that’s awesome and those are good things we’re going to talk about more because really we believe it’s good to do more to connect with God than only those things. It’s what God wants. For example, He says, pray without ceasing. So that’s beyond that list I just talked about. We’re going to go into that because it’s so important. While our kids are in our homes that were nurturing their relationship with God, we’re encouraging connections with God. I think it’s a great way to say it. Yeah. 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 have some key questions on it for your date night to 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 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.

Steve and 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 the lights to be leaders for the next generation.

It’s interesting because I think of, again, one of the I bring this Bible verse up a lot lately we’ve been talking about this a lot and we talk about in the parenting mentor program because it’s one of the things that the parts of the program are completely, wholly, solely inspired by love the Lord your God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength, the first and greatest commandment. And then to love your neighbor as yourself. Right. And you know, I when we think about that as a believer, as a disciple of Christ, what that means for us on a personal level, to love God with our whole heart, not half our heart, not part of our heart, not a quarter, not an eighth to love God with our whole mind, not not just the Bible portion of our mind that we read only on Sundays, but our whole mind to love the Lord, our God with our whole strength. Right? So what does that even mean? Right? Like in my mind when I read that I’m convicted to think about the things that I do on the physical level and to be doing them as unto the Lord, like the Bible says. Right. And so sometimes when I’m having a hard time doing something, I’ll just whisper a little prayer or I’ll have an ongoing conversation with God where I say, Lord, would you help me to be able to do this? I know that this is too heavy for me. Or would you help somebody to come in my family that can help me or, you know, with a good heart attitude. And I’ll literally have this conversation with the Lord and I do things with my whole strength.

So and then there’s this concept of whole soul, right? Like, are we taking time in our busy schedules to connect with God and for our souls to be filled up with the Holy Spirit and to be walking in the power of the Holy Spirit throughout the day? And and this is the thing, like all of those four things that that I just mentioned that come from the greatest commandment. Jesus said, this is the greatest commandment. He’s basically saying all of the commandments, the laws and the prophets are summed up in these two things. Right. Because if you love the Lord, your God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength, what is going to happen next? Everything else is going to flow from that, right? It’s going to be easier to love your neighbor as yourself. It’s going to be easier to love your enemies. It’s going to be easier to honor your mother and father. It’s going to be every aspect of what he calls us to as Christians. It comes back to that first heart love that we have with God. And the truth is, is really that is something that we are doing in an experiential way with God. And it’s an intimate relational. Thing in a relationship with Jesus, with God and with his spirit and experiencing his presence in our lives, him guiding us and giving us wisdom. And isn’t that really, truly, at the end of the day, what we we would hope for our kids. Right. Yes, it is. Absolutely. But we can’t expect that for them if they don’t witness it, if we don’t share it.

So a question for everybody. Question for us, too, is how does your family connect with God? Now think about it for a second. How does your family, not just you, you’re included in your family. How does your family connect with God? How did your family connect with God last week? Or maybe just more simple here, how did how did your family connect with God yesterday? Now, as your kids get older, some of them are having and even when they’re young, actually, sometimes even more when they’re young. Depends. Right. Is their having their own personal relationship with God and connecting with God and you don’t even know about some of it, right? That’s awesome. So beautiful when you like. The other day we were witnessing Eli worshiping the Lord because he thought nobody was looking and he’s just belting it out.

He was just singing his heart out because he didn’t realize that we saw him or heard him and it was so precious. Right? I mean, he had his eyes squinted and he was just like, that’s right. You could see the little veins.

He just turned four so just a couple of weeks ago, but so cool. So just think about that. And I think it’s good to audit things and have some self-reflection and family reflection on that. First, Peter, you know, we’re going to go into some ideas now on how to lead your family and connecting with God. And first, Peter, five, six through seven says humble yourselves, therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. I thought, what a beautiful scripture to kind of kick this part off, because one of the most beautiful ways to connect with God is when we lower our pride and increase our humility. We we lower lower our strength and increase our reliance, and we can lead our children in these situations. Have you seen your kids be prideful? What an opportunity to read the scripture to them and connect with God. And maybe you could talk about it. And what does humble mean? What does humility mean? And then guide them in a prayer, you know, or pray together or encourage them to pray if they’re older, you know? So I just think that’s a beautiful way. That’s a connection with God. I think it’s really hard. I thought this was good to have at the top of the list because it’s hard to connect with God. If we’re walking our own flesh, it’s hard to connect with God. If we’re operating in our own strength, it’s hard to connect with God if we’re prideful.

And it’s hard. It’s interesting because pride is a sin, right? And so any sin actually would make it a stumbling block or a wall, if you will, that separates us from being able to connect with God, because that’s what sin does. Sin separates us from his presence in that sense, and he’s always there. It’s that we’re walking away. And that’s something that also needs to be taught to our kids, because there will be conversations where they’re like, I’m talking to Jesus, but I don’t feel like I’m communicating with him both ways. And they’ll put that in their own words. When they start explaining it to you, they’re like, How do I know that God’s hearing me? And how do I know I feel like I’m talking to the air. I’ve we’ve heard all kinds of things, guys. We’ve had nine kids, right? And so that concept of learning how to pray and why we would pray and what to pray about and all of these really exciting like those are the kinds of conversations that are truly discipleship conversations. And at the end of the day, I think that what’s really important for us to understand is that our our kids don’t have to be eloquent at praying for God to hear them.

They don’t need to have long prayers for God to hear him. They don’t need to. So sometimes kids just like us as humans, don’t we all get those ideas in our heads. Those or we’re tempted to believe lies actually whispers from the enemy, or maybe expectations that we’ve imposed upon ourselves because we’ve compared ourselves to other Christians that we’ve seen in Bible studies or in small groups or whatever it is. Right? Like we all do that where we go, Oh, maybe I can’t do that because I don’t do it as good as that person. And then maybe we forget about that person altogether, but we remember how well it was done and we have this expectation that that’s how it’s done. Kids do the same thing. And so we need to make sure that we’re having those conversations with our kids and they don’t have to be 45 minute conversations. I’m talking like only talk about one thing with a four or five year old for like 5 minutes before you pray to encourage them.

Well, prayer prayer is such an important way to connect with God. It is why God encourages us to pray as much as possible, as much as we can throughout the day, throughout everything, because it’s a reorienting effect. It’s it’s the opposite of being prideful. It’s a posture of humility towards an all powerful. An all loving, all knowing God has authority over our lives and to to praise him in our prayers and to ask for help in our prayers and to intercede for others in our prayers. And doing that with our kids. Them seeing us. Our own prayer life and then encouraging that in them is incredibly powerful.

It is. Psalm one 4518 says The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him. In truth, I think that this is really important for us to understand. God literally repeated himself there. Did you hear that? To make a point. The Lord is near to all who call on him. Comma. The sentence was not over. To all who call on him. In truth. In truth, you guys. And this is this is why it’s so important. How can we call on God in truth? Well, are we walking in truth? If we are coming to God and we’re saying, Lord, I cry out to you and I ask for you to do this and this person’s life. And I ask for this. And I’m, you know, maybe you’re praying and you’re just like putting request after request after request and you’re saying things like, I love you, Lord, but then how you’re living your life is actually hypocritical. Is that asking the Lord and calling on him? In truth, if we’re living in a way that doesn’t show that we love him, like literally living in sin, but then we’re calling out to God and then we’re saying, Oh, he’s not answering my prayers and we wonder why. Right? Like, we need to be careful because we have a responsibility ourselves to be humble like Isaac was talking about. And and part of that is that when we come to the Lord, we come with contrite hearts. We are not haughty or boastful. We understand the humanity that we walk in, the fleshly temptations and and we repent of those things. And we cast those things before the Lord. And then we walk in the freedom every day. Right? And that that concept of like walking with God and growing with him on a daily and throughout your day, like Christianity is not a Sunday time thing.

It’s not even a three days a week thing. Like when you are a Christian, you’re made a new creation. You’re not the old you anymore. So your whole life, like God does not want us to compartmentalize him into certain categories of our life. Now I’m going to get fired up because this is something that for a long time we’ve been talking about that for many, many years, where it’s like, wow, like as believers, we need to understand that when God saves us, when we are born again, there is evidence of Jesus all over our lives. Like I remember when our son got baptized, one of our sons got baptized. I remember that that night there was like this. I’ll just say it like that adrenaline and that, you know, some people might describe it as like a spiritual high, in a sense. But as a parent, like when you’re when your child receives Christ and gets baptized and you’re like, this is like the pinnacle for that child. And you’re like, so thankful that Jesus has saved him and that he’s dedicated his life. You’re just like, there’s nothing that quite compares to that with each of your children. And I remember, though, the next day reflecting and going, he really is a new creation. Mm hmm. God is so good, you know? And that’s that’s remarkable when you understand that the old has gone and the new is here and that it literally every aspect of what you do and who you are and what you talk about and what you desire is transformed. Your mind is fully renewed, all because of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Amazing.

And so you got to encourage your kids in this and for living it out, we can encourage them. Another aspect of prayer is a lot of times as parents will pray for something, a need for the family or fruitfulness with the business or whatever the thing is. And we forget to circle back and share how God showed up. And this is so powerful. We’ve had so many experiences. In fact, one thing I found is really helpful is to even. Brainstorm all the ways God showed up in the last week or the last couple of weeks. And to talk about that and to come with some some answers to that, to kind of get things going. And I think it’s important, too, that we don’t miss the small things. God does care about the small things and he shows up in small ways. Unfortunately, it’s those small things that sometimes we take credit for. Sometimes they have to be so big for us to give God the credit because we just default to, Oh, I probably did that, or that probably just happened because of this other thing I did. I would err on the side of if I prayed for something, I’m going to give God credit. What? How faith building is that to the children? Circle back. That’s a connection point with God. That’s a that’s showing God’s might and strength and authenticity and his.

He’s just that he cares and he listens and he does answer our prayers and he does give us the desires of our heart when we are in alignment with his will. And teaching your kids that concept too, that their heart desire would be changed, that they’re not just like asking God for things, but that their heart would change, that they would desire the things that God would want them to desire, so that they are praying in alignment with His will. So important, I think, to when we are just talking about this concept of encouraging our kids to connect with God and have their own personal faith, because that’s really what it is, right? As parents, we get to introduce our kids, kind of like if you’re introducing someone to to one of your friends, right? As our kids are growing up, we get to introduce them to Jesus and introduce them to other other aspects of who God is. You know, when you’re teaching them about how God is an intelligent creator and he’s an intelligent designer, are they not learning more about God? They are. They’re learning about a different character quality, a different attribute that he has. And it just further expands their relationship and their understanding of their father in heaven. And it’s the same thing when we’re like trying to teach them the different spiritual disciplines and and we’re trying to live them out ourselves. Like, it’s so easy, I think, for people, especially when you’ve been a Christian for a long time, or maybe you were raised in a Christian home.

So maybe you have some habits that are good habits that you do like, for example, maybe going to church every Sunday. That’s a good thing to do. God tells us not to neglect the gathering together, right? Because He created us and he knows what’s best for us. And we need accountability. We need teaching. We need to be in his presence of his body. We need to be exhorted and encouraged and edified. And all of those things can happen during a church meeting. There’s so many reasons we need to rejoice with those who rejoice. We need to mourn with those who mourn. We need people to mourn with us. When we mourn, rejoice with us when we’re rejoicing like there’s so many aspects to why we would go to church on a regular basis. But for the argument’s sake, maybe you’ve been going to church your whole life, and for you it’s just this like. Religious thing that maybe you’re doing, or maybe it is something that in your heart of hearts you just like you love going and and you desire to go and you can’t wait to worship God and you can’t wait to learn more about Him with the body. And you can’t wait to serve and you can’t wait to share your gift with the body. Maybe that’s where you’re at, regardless of where you’re at. Do your kids do your kids understand all the whys behind it or are they just going on Sunday? Because every Sunday this is what we do.

One thing with church, it’s really important to connect it back to God, which should already be connected to God, but is to have those conversations after church. So what did you guys think about this when the pastor was talking about this section or in the pastor was talking about this other thing? What do you guys think about that? And kids will say wonderful things. And it’s such a, I believe, a faith building experience when people are able to vocalize in discussion what they thought about something, what they thought about the scripture, or maybe somebody got baptized or, you know, there’s people raising their hands and worshiping the Lord fervently and your kids witness that maybe they were doing that right. It’s just to kind of have a conversation about the experience of God being present at church. And what happened I think is so important. Family worship is another one. This is huge, is to worship the Lord together. This is something that Angie has really been the one to initiate in our family because I didn’t not grow up singing really to anything and didn’t know God until I was 23. So this was a new thing for me when we got married. And but it’s beautiful. Of course, we all worship together. And I love looking at the pictures of when our our oldest kids now were all younger. And I remember Ethan having a drum, a little hand drum, and Austin with a guitar and Kelsey singing and Megan playing the piano just a beautiful.

You could rotate all those instruments, too, because they all were doing them.

It was just so beautiful to see and I’m so thankful for what those pictures represent. When they pop up and I see them, it’s just it’s just an amazing thing. I’m so thankful for the family worship we’ve done and it’s a reminder to even for us to do more of that. Obviously, one of the things that’s been special lately is Home Church, because our kids have all been doing guitar lessons and some of our older kids, I guess they’re the middles.

Now, they’re the metals now, but the oldest ones that are at home.

After or leading worship in church and just a such a sweet thing to see other kids from other families also do. And they take turns and it’s just really neat to see children activated and worshiping God sincerely.

And it’s not. I think that for us, I know that not very many people have the same church setup that we have as far as being a part of a smaller fellowship, if you will. But one of the things that’s been great is that they have had courage to be able to do that right. Like even after they’d only been taking lessons for three or four months, they were giving it a go and even Ethan was trying to lead worship and now he is leading worship and doing such a good job and they’re always improving. But what’s great though is that like they understand that they don’t have to be like a professional performer for God to delight in their worship. And I think that, you know, for our family, like we have family worship, like Isaac and I were talking about this concept of family worship and it looks different in every family and then definitely should not be any kind of competition between family and families and different gifting, too, right? Like some families are just much more gifted at music. Right. But I will say that you can have music playing in your home throughout the day. I talk about this in Parenting Mentor program. It literally changes the atmosphere of your home, and it’s one way to literally be experiencing the presence of the Lord and to be in communication with him all day long. If you’re singing under your breath in between, talking to the three year old and changing the diaper of the toddler and doing homeschool with this kid, you’ve got worship music going on in the background. It helps you to be patient. It helps you to have just to be to be kind with your words.

It helps you to mediate. When there’s conflict between different children, it helps you to have a better attitude when you’re trying to do maybe some of those mundane tasks in the home that you really have been putting off when they’ve gotten worse and you don’t want to get to them. Right? Like I have a few of those. And so the truth is, though, is that worship is something that can happen all the time. It doesn’t have to look like a formal thing, like in a church setting. Worship can be many other things. Also, I believe that praise like singing praise hymns or praise songs is a form of worship, but so is how we actually serve our families. How we clean our homes can be worshiped for. And part of that I would say where where do we draw the line? Right? Like, how do we know if it’s worshipful or not? Well, are we doing it as unto the Lord? Do we have a good heart attitude? Because if we’re grumbling and we’re complaining, there’s not a song in our heart while we’re doing it or or or we’re like, just mad about doing it. We’re doing it because we have to. That’s not really worshipful, but if we are like any of the above, it doesn’t have to be all of these things. If we are thanking God for the family while we’re doing the dishes because we’re preaching to ourselves, Lord, I want to enjoy this and we’re trying to make it worshipful and we pray. God, would you help me to have a worshipful attitude while I’m serving my family that does turn into worship because God sees that you’re praying while you’re doing it.

Yeah.

But you can also be singing while you’re doing it.

To worship is so important in Luke four eight it says and Jesus answered him, it is written, you shall worship the Lord, your God in him only shall you serve. It’s quite a few scriptures about worship and what what a great way to connect with the Lord. And, you know, sometimes not everybody, but a lot of people, I think when they worship the Lord and they’re sincerely worshipping, there is you feel it inside like you can you can feel that connection with God. And if that happens to you, express it, share it with your kids.

Yes.

That’s part of sharing a relationship with God that you have with them. With them.

And it’s the same thing with serving. I mean, this verse says, you shall worship the Lord, your God and him only shall you serve. And so it’s interesting that it’s talking about worshipping and serving together. I would say that serving is another one of those experiences that you can have with your children where either they’re participating in serving with you or you get to go serve. And then you come back and you share with them how what you got to do, what, what, what that did to the people’s hearts that you were able to serve. Right, and to share those experiences or those encounters. Like, I just even think about like this last week. You guys know that we just became grandparents. Yeah.

Oh, we’re so excited.

We love our granddaughter, our son. And see.

May.

Yeah, our son and his wife had their baby last week. Today, the day that we’re recording, which is a few days before this podcast comes out. She’s one week old today. Yeah. And her mom was helping with her with just taking care of things around the home so she could rest for the first few days. And then I was able to go yesterday. Megan went today. And we’ve just been really just enjoying being able to serve. And I have to tell you, like I had worship music playing while I was cleaning and cooking for them in their house and it was just a delight. And I got filled up and I came home and I was I was lit. You were? I had energy, like more energy than I had had in a long time. And and part of that I was working. I literally cooked like three meals in a matter of like 4 hours. And I cleaned all the dishes from that and I did some laundry. I was there and I was doing other things, but I came home and I was filled up because what I was doing was serving because I serve a good God. And I really, really wanted to bless my son and his wife. I wanted to bless them. I wanted them to rest. And it’s just it’s a beautiful thing. It says, you shall worship the Lord, your God and him only shall you serve. And I do believe that when we go with that heart attitude to serve other people in the name of Jesus, we get filled up. But then coming home and your kids experiencing how you have joy, even though you went and did some things that maybe people might not have joy about, that that literally shines so brightly for them. They know that. But I’m even convicted now as we’re talking, going, Hey, I should have shared more with Solomon and Eli when I came home about how neat it was that I got to be there.

It’s hard to remember. Sometimes we have to work that muscle of being purposeful. How can I encourage my children by what God is doing, by helping them hear what God is doing in my life? And how can we on the serve thing is how can we encourage our children to serve and experience that? That’s another way to connect with God, which is helping his people and doing it for no gain. But for just because we love them, right? And we’re doing God’s work. And I think that’s that’s a beautiful thing. So so what.

Are some other ways that we’ve connected with God or or invited our kids into that connection with God as they’ve grown up over.

The years? Well, I think it’s so important, especially, well, all ages, but it’s conversations with them about God, you know, how is your relationship with God? What a good question to ask a child, you know, and not in a pressure way or anything like that, but just in a conversational way. Maybe when you have one on one time. And you know, just maybe they have questions about God and you can answer those questions. You can dig into the Bible. I know at times we’ve taken different kids out and just done some Bible study with them. I’ve had, you know, few of the boys with me in the studio and done that. And you’ve had breakfast with the gals and yeah, with the daughters and just, you know, bedtime and Bible time and all those things. I think the Bible is so powerful and we should talk about that for a minute because it’s not as we know, it’s not just a book, but your kids don’t really grasp that unless they experience God from the Bible. Does that make sense? You kind of no matter what you say, it still is a book to them until they start experiencing what you’ve experienced, which if you’re like me, I’ve experienced reading something for the third time, all of a sudden it.

Makes.

It makes so much sense in a new way and hits me right where I have opened the Bible before to a Scripture. That was exactly what I needed at the right time. How many times that happened to you? A lot. I know. Do we share those with our kids? And because now that they’re like, wow, I’m excited about that happening. Maybe, maybe that stirs in your child who’s a little bit older, maybe it stirs in them to go to ask God to make the Bible real to them and so that they can understand it. Because remember, the Bible says that people won’t understand it unless they’re seeking. And so we can encourage our kids to be seeking so that the Bible starts to make sense to them. You see all that? How many teenagers today in Christian homes? They read the Bible and they don’t understand it because they’re actually not seeking. It’s just part of the culture of the family to be Christian. They don’t even understand that’s what’s happening to them. But they don’t. They aren’t really cultivating a deep relationship with God. And the Bible is always confusing to them when they try and read it and they never tell their parents that.

Yeah, I think too that little kids as well. I mean, sometimes there’s hard things for them to understand, big words and different things like that. And so having conversations as you’re reading Scripture to your kids before they can read is going to be really important that you slow down and you have patience and you go, Do you know what that word means? You know what exhortation means, Oh, let’s look it up together. And then you teach them how you look it up and you’re teaching them, discipling them, really, in how to be a disciple of the word and teaching them that like even Mommy doesn’t know all these words. Let’s look this up in the dictionary. Let’s look this up. Oh, I have this really neat app called Blue Letter Bible. Oh, let’s listen to what the word is. And when they see you excited about learning, that literally lights a fire in their heart for having a desire to want to learn that same thing to and if you have an excitement in you. And so I have to ask, like when it comes to this, do you have an excitement? Do you have an urgency in your heart where you just are hungry to read the word you miss God when you haven’t been in the word? Like there are times we’re all like, Tell Isaac.

I’m like, I’m just dry. Like, I, I really need some time to. I just need to be with Jesus. I just need to be in the word because it’s literally the only thing that gets me excited. I mean, just even before the podcast, I was tired and I’m like, Oh, it’s been a big day. Like, there’s so much has happened today between harvesting a huge harvest, which was wonderful. Praise Jesus because he brings increase. But that also means lots of work for Mom on the preserving end of things. And I haven’t even really gotten started. I was just using up the stuff that we had harvested three or four days ago. And so there’s a lot of work and and homeschooling and trying to get the house going and all the things. But you guys were then we sat down and I started really reading these verses and it, it woke me up like I’m much more awake right now. And that.

Is.

Something that you want to share, like that experience of like, wow, this really is the bread of life that gives you energy. This really is the life giving water, if you will, that keeps you hydrated so that you can keep on keeping on. Do your kids know that about you? Do they know that this is your life source? And having that conversation with them just again, it puts us in that posture of like, I am not a good mommy without Jesus and I would not be raising you the way I’m raising you if it wasn’t for what God had done in my life. I don’t know how many deep conversations I’ve had with our older kids where I’ve said that, where it’s like you guys. I think that sometimes they like we. I love our kids. They’re wonderful kids. Don’t get me wrong. Not perfect, but but I love them and they they all love Jesus. Praise God like I’m so thankful. But there are times when I think to myself, I was even thinking it today. I wonder they’ve got. I wonder if they take. For granted how they’re being raised and that they’re raised by two parents who love Jesus more than each other, even, right? Like we fully love Jesus and we’re chasing hard after Jesus. And then we meet at him, right? And that our everything is found on him and centered on him. Like, how blessed are the kids that they have that and that they don’t recognize how different it would look if it wasn’t that way. Right. And that is huge. Right.

Well, so we’re talking about here overall, I think his testimony is little testimony here and there of how the Bible impacted us, changed our attitude, how this happened, and the circle back of the prayer where God showed up and it happened and not second guessing whether you did it or God did it. Just let’s give God the glory. If we asked God for help, he’s a good God. I’m just going to believe that he did it. And I think that that’s that’s like having a faith having faith like a child that Jesus prescribed for us.

It’s interesting, in the Old Testament, God had commanded his people, especially when they were sojourners, to make him an altar. When they had experienced his blessing and his provision in different things, they would oftentimes make an altar. And the reason why they made an altar was to honor God. But it was also so that when they were traveling in, other people would come to this altar. They would know, Whoa, God met with someone in provided with that person here and it told a story, right. It it brought God glory. Well, today we don’t build altars, Dewey, but the truth is, is there’s still a need for us to remember those milestones, if you will, in our spiritual walk with God, and that we give him honor and glory by sharing those those testimonies, if you will, with our children. Because that’s it’s like the Jewish people sharing the mid rocks over and over with their children and that their children would know Jesus through their, through their historical testimonies as well. Right. And as Christians, we also need to do this. That’s what that’s part of the Deuteronomy six charge is that we would be teaching our kids God’s word, but that we would also, when we’re talking about relationship with God, that we would be sharing with them the testimonies of our faith journey with him so that they also can know God and so that they expect him to show up in all of the things, the big times that are awesome, the mountain top moments, as well as the valleys that they walk through, that they would go, Well, okay, so my parents, they did this when they walked through a hard time and I’m in this hard time now.

Maybe it’s the first time that they’ve had a really, truly hard time. And then they start praying and they start seeking God and they experience him. And then that becomes their testimony, a spiritual milestone in their personal relationship with God. And those are the connecting moments that we as parents cannot conjure up for our children. But what we can do is when we experience them with God, we can openly share what we’ve learned from Him and that we were experiencing him all throughout our child’s childhood so that they seek him hopefully in the same and in different ways too.

Yeah. So a final thing we want to talk about is generosity. We can connect with God through a generous spirit and through tithing, through helping somebody with their finances. So it’s important that children, as soon as they can, they can start having some things they can do where they can earn some money, because when they earn it and they have it and they give some of it in with a heart of pleasing God and a joyful heart about it, then it’s a beautiful thing and there’s an experience there. They’re experiencing God, they’re there understanding it’s God’s money, that God is the provider and that God asks me to do this and I can’t wait to obey Him and look at what God did with that money.

And that I mean, that’s huge right there, like connecting the dots for your kids. On what? How was that used for God’s glory? Matthew Chapter six, verse 19, says, Do not lay it for yourselves. Treasures on earth where moth and breast destroy, where thieves break in and still but lay up for yourselves Treasures in heaven were neither moth nor rust destroys And where thieves do not break in and steal for where your treasure is there your heart will also be This is so priceless. Like when you start experiencing with your children, you’re leading them. In that practice of being generous, like Isaac was saying, you start to see their hearts change their eyes. Start focusing more on Jesus and less on things of this world. And that is a practice that we all have to exercise. It’s like a muscle that we have to exercise regularly or that muscle starts to deteriorate and then if it deteriorates so much, then it literally isn’t there anymore. And as adults, if we want to continue being the people that God has called us to be, that we want to continue growing in spiritual maturity, we do not want the things of this world to distract us from what is truly important, which is eternity and eternal souls, and doing the work that God has called us to with the Great Commission.

And so, like all of us are a part of that. We are all called to the great commission starts first in our home, and that’s what we’re talking about today. We’re talking about encouraging your kids connections with God because that is part of discipleship. Bible says Go ye there and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. That’s Matthew 28. Making disciples starts first with your kids again in I think it’s first Timothy when when they’re talking about qualifications for leadership and different things like that, right? He warns them and says, If you can’t manage your own household, how can you manage the church? Right. And so we need to be all pursuing, discipling our children well so that we, in our older years can walk out the calling that he has for each of us in the body of Christ.

Amen. And hey, we hope this is helpful to you. If you love it, please share it. I kind of have a feeling this one would really help a lot of families. As you know, together we’re on the road to impacting 10 million legacies. And so we appreciate the impact together. Hey, we hope this is helpful.

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

We’ve all heard, “Marriage takes work” but sometimes once down the road, it’s hard to see how to work at it in an even better way. We share with you four tips for communication as we reflect on our 23rd wedding anniversary. Regardless of where your marriage is at, these will help make your marriage even better. By the choices you make, you can influence a more thriving marriage.

Main Points From This Episode:

• Start and end each day well together.
• Honor one another.
• Practical insights to breaking negative communication cycles.
• Pursue your spouse regularly.
• Husbands usually need to communicate more than they think they need to.

Scripture From This Episode:

Galatians 6:9 – “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

Matthew 7:12 – “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”

Ephesians 5:33 – “Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 – “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”

Proverbs 27:15-16 – “A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. Whosoever hideth her hideth the wind, and the ointment of his right hand, which bewrayeth itself.”

If The Spirit Prompts You to Financially Support (We are a for-profit, for social good organization.)

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 following. Welcome back to the podcast.

We’re so glad to hear, especially if you’re new. Thanks for joining us.

Hey, guys. So today we are going to be talking about very I think timely is always timely. Yeah. Conversation on marriage. We’re going to be talking about practical strategies for better communication in your marriage. This is something that we have been really proactive and growing and learning over the years. Isaac and I have we’re not perfect at communication. I don’t think any couple is perfect at communication, even the ones that probably say they are. And so I say that because I think it’s really important that we all always have an attitude of wanting to learn and grow in this area.

Absolutely. We, like anybody, can get better. But we have learned a lot and we’ve noticed a lot, too. And it seems to be an epidemic of bad marriage communication, maybe not even just bad, maybe just a lack of marriage. Communication is a better way to say it because there are things that proactively need to be talked about so that things go better. The family unit runs better, relationships are improved. There’s not misunderstandings, even exterior relationships to the immediate family. It misunderstandings and a lack of communication can really hurt those.

You know, it’s interesting because over the years, as we’ve I mean, we’ve done a lot of things actually, as I’m thinking, you know, people are always asking about our past. I get messages, which I love. I love getting messages going, hey, hold on a second. You went on a three month RV trip with your kids and I’m like, Oh, yeah. And it just brings up all those those memories that love sharing about them. But one of the things about Isaac and maybe you don’t know, is that many years ago we used to do marriage seminars and we loved to to encourage couples and being able to be better communicators and that really like the work that we put in to prepare for those and to teach those things really impacted our marriage greatly. And that was back when we were only married like ten or 11 years. And guess what? You guys today were shooting the podcast on our anniversary. It’s our 23rd wedding anniversary today.

We’re going to after this, we’re going to go hang out for lots of hours.

Yes. We’re so excited. And our kids are really excited to help us be by babysitting so that we can go out. And yeah, we’re really excited, but we thought that it would be awesome to talk about something that is near and dear to our heart. And something that we’ve also seen can be a both a positive impact on a marriage long term to help it be thriving versus surviving. But also when it isn’t done well, when communication is not done well. What we’ve noticed a lot in marriages is that it’s like the thing that creates the erosion and the breakdown that can really cause a lot of pain in relationships, resentment, miscommunication. People start to think that they’re not valued or respected or undervalued, all kinds of things. And so if I have said anything or Isaac said anything in these first few moments of the podcast where you go, Oh, man, that kind of like hits me right here in the heart. Like, I want to encourage you guys because we have a lot of practical tips that we’re going to share with you guys.

And but the number one tip we wanted to get off to you guys is to pursue time together. We were talking before, this is what a what a really healthy marriages do that communicate well with each other. They spend time together. And that is a challenge. Well, I’ll give you a couple of challenges. Being a provider is, for many people, harder as time consuming and harder right now, the way the world is going and the economy, inflation, all these things. Right. There’s challenges with that. And but it takes I think the key is pursuing. There’s always time for the things that matter most to us. And so sometimes we tend to neglect the things that matter most to us because we have those things.

And we take them for granted the things that we’ve had for a long time, it’s easier to take those things for granted, just like it’s easier for some. Maybe you notice this with your own kids, right? If you have more than one child and you have they have a sibling relationship, don’t they take each other for granted? Sometimes. Imagine how much more they would have appreciation for one another if they realized, Wow, my brother or my sister is a gift from God. There are kids that don’t have a brother or sister, you know what I mean? And it’s the same thing with marriage. It’s easy for us, especially when you have been married for a while, to start growing complacent and not try anymore. So when we’re talking about pursuing time together, it’s not just going on date nights that are going to cost you money. That’s not what we mean. What we mean is like pursuing time together, even if that’s like pursuing like stopping everything and hugging in the kitchen. You’re pursuing to be there together and love one another.

In an even means if just chit chatting in bed. Yeah, we do that for long.

Periods of hours every day actually.

It causes us to stay up till midnight sometimes.

But, you know, we’ll go. We’re going to talk more about like starting and ending the day. Well, which is one of our our next points. So we’re going to talk. Here’s the agenda for today’s episode. We’re going to talk about what it means to pursue your spouse regularly. We’ll go into those points deeply. We’re talking about starting and ending each day. Well, then we’re going to talk about honoring one another and what scripture says about that. And then the fourth one we did title. The fourth point be kind, but really it’s so it’s like being kind in all kinds of things, the.

Practical things to.

Do. Yes, yes. And so please stick around for those. But you guys, I just want to encourage you that if you’re in a place of stagnation in your marriage communication, or if you feel unappreciated or disrespected or just undervalued, or if you feel like you have lost that lovin feeling, if you will, you know what I mean? Or if you’re maybe you feel like maybe your spouse has and you’re like, I’m choosing daily to show up, but they are not, if that’s you like I do believe that this podcast will have many nuggets that will be not just an encouragement but an exhortation and give you some good guidance as to some things to do to maybe like liven it up again and, and make the next decade, if you will. Right. Like for us, we’re at 23 years of marriage and we’re looking forward. We’re looking ahead to many, many more as many as the Lord will give us. And that’s an exciting thing. Yeah. You know, and I don’t know how many marriages that have been married for 20 years or more view that idea truly as being an exciting thing.

Absolutely. So we’re just going to take a moment here to share some really exciting things and then we’ll go into those points. But if you’ve been hanging out for a while, you know that God has put on our hearts to impact 10 million legacies as we steward the ministry to do that. It takes effort, takes time, it takes money, finances, actually to be working full time and expanding the impact and the things that need to happen and so forth. And so rather than move the nonprofit direction, we have stayed being a I guess for profit for social good as a way to say it, meaning that we’re not a nonprofit, but we operate very much in the same way. The whole purpose is to have impact for the Kingdom of God. And so we some exciting things are happening. Ways to support that is to be part of the parallel economy and provide things that are valuable to Christians. Give them options to choose that now they’re not supporting some woke company. Instead, they can be supporting this mission. So we recently produced a video of us talking I want to share with you guys. It’s about three and a half minutes. I really we’re putting this in here. We never do this. But it’s super important. Everybody hears this because there’s some changes. There’s a new home website for the entire ministry where there’s access to everything. So you’ll find out about that in this next clip. And we’re also launching Be Courageous Coffee today, so we’re so excited about that if you’re listening on Tuesday, September 20th. And so we’re so excited. Listen to this and I think you’ll love what you hear.

Do you remember when churches.

Were pressured by the government to close their doors during COVID?

Do you remember hearing about pastors going to jail for leading a church service?

And have you heard the stories around the world of churches omitting parts of scripture or facing closure?

And of course, you witnessed big tech canceling people, sharing conservative values.

Truth. Do you ever shop places put in the back of your mind? You realize these people actually need me and they are trying to influence society in the opposite direction of what I believe in. Of what I would want for my children’s future families.

The enemy wants to rid the world of anything godly and has enlisted much of the modern culture to do so.

See, the enemy wants you to believe you don’t have the influence to make a difference.

We certainly remember. We also remember the attacks and cancellation efforts of this ministry.

And aren’t we seeing an unprecedented number of Christian organizations caving to the pressure because they’ve allowed their organizations to be built in a way where there’s a lot to lose.

See, the more dependent organizations are the anti Christian corporations and authorities, the less likely they will stand for biblical truth.

Big tech and cancel whoever they want is it’s their right. Governments can take away nonprofit status as soon as biblical positions about marriage, gender and sex become illegal to preach or write about.

So what should we all do? Well, the Bible says to be wise, the serpents and innocent. Steps.

Taking action and wisdom doesn’t mean you don’t trust the Lord. Let’s not misunderstand this. We need to vote with our money. But there has to be alternatives for Christians to log into and to purchase.

So here’s the opportunity. There’s a parallel economy that’s needed and already being built by so.

Many our friends at Brave Books. Gap, Rumble, The Daily Wire and so many other companies participated.

But we have to realize that complaining doesn’t help anything and is often a result of someone who isn’t participating in the solution. It’s actually an exciting time for believers to take action.

And we hope you continue to take action with us in more ways.

As the Ministry aims to have an indelible impact on 10 million families and their legacies. We need a new home brand for the ministry, which includes courageous parenting, courageous mom, resolute man and the Be Courageous app. And for what’s ahead.

To now, everything can be found at be courageous ministry dot org. While we are completely dedicated to social good, we will never move to being a non-profit while financial gifts are extremely helpful, especially as we invest for greater impact in this direction, we believe it’s vital to create valuable solutions in the parallel economy that support the ministry.

We’ve been joining the effort to give Christians better alternatives. It’s why last year we launched the alternative social media app for Christians. Be courageous.

It’s also why we launch online stores with gear to wear and use the further the movement.

It’s why we never stop giving our best weekly sharing biblical wisdom on the podcast.

It’s why we’re so committed to the Parenting Mentor.

Program and other courses.

It’s why this year we launched the Kid weekly podcast in the app too.

And that’s why we’re now launching Coffee at Be Courageous Coffee Premium Italian roasted coffee with free shipping to your door.

We are growing part of the parallel economy as a Christian for profit organization to further the 10 million legacies movement.

See, we refuse to be silenced. We refuse to be quietly influenced, to be less bold. We reject pressure, to be passive. Therefore, we continue to move in a direction less reliant on opposing forces together.

Let’s be courageous in raising our children and influencing our culture with the gospel.

Together, let’s work to influence a better future. God chose us for these times.

If you want a better future for your kids, we have to build it.

If you want better coffee, we have it ready for you. Be courageous.

Coffee Rt.com. All right. So, hey, thanks for listening to that. It’s near and dear to our horror. It’s a really important message and go to be courageous ministry dot org as you’re listening or later and check out all the things that are going on go to be courageous coffee dot com check out everything is going on. We would so love it if you at least tried the coffee. People are raving about it. We had a launch team. It’s been so.

Fun. I know Isaac is so funny because in the morning he gets really excited about hearing these testimonials and he’ll read them to the whole family during our family meeting. And the new one that he shared with us was actually from a couple that has just devastatingly experienced a hurricane, right? Yeah. And they had got courageous coffee, be courageous coffee and put it in their survival pack or something like that. Right. The evacuation pack. And they put a they put a testimonial together saying it was great to be able to have coffee when we were evacuated.

It was an important part of their evacuation.

So sweet of them. I’m very humbled by that thought. I mean, here we are like we’re not experiencing the after effects of a hurricane and someone else is. And they’re still, like, taking time to put in a testimony that just blows my mind. So if you’re listening and that was you. Thank you so much. I’m, like, blown away by that. Well, atrocity.

Let’s get into it. So our first tip is pursue your spouse regularly. And of course, we have the days like we are experiencing today. They anniversary the special, special days for special.

But the milestones.

We’ve got to make lots of day special in small, little and unique ways. I mean, what can you do to make sure your spouse is feeling pursued? I think that is that feeling is what needs to not ever die.

Yeah. And this is not necessarily when we say pursue your spouse regularly, I’ll just share with you guys. When I was first putting together that part of the outline, I had put date your spouse regularly because that is part of pursuing your spouse. But it’s more than just like we had to change it from date your spouse regularly because now that’s like a sub point underneath this because it’s like a daily pursuing. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like it’s a heart connectedness where like on a daily basis, otherwise you just start to feel like, oh, it’s Friday. So they’re trying hard that one day of week, you know what I mean? And for at least for women, it can feel that way. If they’re women are the ones that are at home maybe doing more of the mundane things and they’re really struggling in their marriage. That can affect the atmosphere of the home, it can affect the culture, it can affect the desire to even want to serve in the home, actually. And so if men if you’re listening and you’re like, why is my wife struggling so much with like wanting to be at home? Sometimes I’m just going to give you a little tip. Not always, because she’s responsible for, like, choosing joy in the moment and pursuing God and finding that purpose and that identity there for sure. But there’s also this element of like, it’s so like, isn’t it better when you want to do something because you love someone and you want to do that thing for them because you love them, because you also feel loved and appreciated as well. And that comes from that daily pursuing. And when that is missing, then it’s easier for the wife during the week to be like grumbling while she’s picking up laundry or cleaning bathrooms or whatever, you know what I mean? And so this tip is really like when I when we say pursue your spouse regularly, it’s like a daily pursue your spouse regularly throughout the day if you can.

I remember in our premarital counseling, if you call it counseling, what you call it, and.

That’s what they called.

It. But it was meeting with another married couple. Yeah. And by the way, on that note, I remember I shouldn’t have been doing this, but I had a new business and I was working six days a week. I shouldn’t have been doing that anyways. I just remember being so exhausted going to these premarital meetings because before church, wasn’t it?

Yes, we go very early.

And then we go to church. Yeah. And I’ve been hustling for six days in a.

Row or working like 80 hours.

Oh, my goodness. But I remember this thing that stuck out, which was don’t get stuck in maintenance talk. And so often the normal rhythm of communication just becomes maintenance things. Oh, I need to go to the grocery store, and I need this. Oh, hey, I need to go fix this. Oh, hey, this about this kid and this, this, this. Oh, the calendar.

Bills and the.

Bills. The finances.

And the garbage.

All all those things. There’s. There’s an endless supply.

Of.

Things, things to talk about that are just maintenance and those need to be talked about. But if that is 99% of your communication or 100% in some cases, there’s a problem like we need to purpose to pursue each other in relationship connected words, relationship connected communication. And that is really important. And sometimes when there’s a lot going on, we have to just we have to with. Ward some of the maintenance stuff. So there’s room for enjoying each other and having good communication with each other.

It’s interesting because we have talked about in depth with people, with other couples and kind of like in our mentoring with them said, hey, the, the business meetings, if you will, right. Are important, but don’t let every date night be that like maybe make one of four in a month, be a business meeting and really hash it out, be super productive, and then have your other three things be completely different things where you’re not even allowed. Like you put boundaries around that and you’re not talking about business stuff, right? Because you and I, we had to do that with ourselves. Yeah. And it became like, I can’t even tell you how life giving it was to be with your spouse without the expectation of needing to go over all the hard things that haven’t been covered that week, but instead putting them on a shelf and going, They’re not eternal. They will be there tomorrow or they will be there next week. It’s okay. And then really like engaging with one another person to person, enjoying one another person to person without all of the other things and without the other people, without the other stories, without the other narratives. Right. And I think that there’s when you make a purpose to like go, okay, so obviously we need to have business means maybe you can even work it out where you have like a certain two days a week at night where you sit and you talk for an hour, but then your date nights are never that whatever works for your family, right? Whatever works for you as a couple.

But like the point is, is communicating about not mish mish mashing in so that it’s always something that is on your mind, right? That can be huge. Another thing is getting time to communicate alone without kids. And so a minute ago I just shared like pursuing your spouse regularly, for example, like even just getting time where you hug in the kitchen and you make eye contact and you just say, I love you, right? Or you’re just like engaging where it’s just the two of you and that can be special. But like, you also need to be able to have time where you can communicate about things where little ears are not listening, where little mouths are not putting their $0.02 in, if you will, where there’s not extra ideas or Oh, and I need this to being tacked on to whatever the communication is, because that can become overwhelming for a couple when they’re already talking about something that’s like difficult, right? You have other people interjecting or interrupting.

One of the recent ones that we’ve enjoyed is garden time. So Angie would be out there. It’s more Angie that works in the garden. I usually have Zander in the backpack and I’m walking him around and chit chatting with Angie as she’s doing that. That’s been fun. We just put two chairs in there, so I’m looking forward to more of that. We also take walks together. Sometimes we hope to do even more of that, which is getting out of the house. All the kids stay in the house and and we’re out now. We have older kids. I understand the seasons and sometimes you can’t leave Littles alone and those kinds of things and those seasons, it was all after ours. We put the kids to bed and.

Then we really we had our.

Time. We really had that time. And sometimes I remember I’d be so exhausted from work and I would be, Oh, let’s watch a movie or something like that, and we would do that. But I think sometimes we would go, Well, even though we desire that, let’s actually spend some time talking to each other first. We put that movie on later and we’re not at all. And sometimes we would just end up talking and there would be no movie at all.

And it’s interesting too, because I feel like things have changed so much for us to where there’s just like today in today’s culture, there’s just not anything worth really watching very much that it’s not that big of a temptation. Actually, as far as changes go, things have changed so much in 23 years of marriage. And so I would just challenge you guys to to like have especially if you have littles, if you are one of those people that just have littles, like when we had our oldest and we didn’t have olders to help with the kids, we were very routine, focused and always had our kids in bed by 730 to remember that and we’d go sit on our front porch. Yeah. And we lived at the time we lived in a neighborhood and we had three kids under five. And I remember neighbors walking by at 730 and here’s Isaac and I sit and just chillin and they got kids in their stroller and they’re like, Where are your kids? And we’re like, Oh, they’re in bed. And they’re like, What? And we’re like, We need our time. Like they can go to bed early. And they were just shocked by that night.

Because kids get up early regardless of what time they go to.

Bed. Exactly. So we just found that like for us, that was what worked. And then Isaac wasn’t as tired because it wasn’t like 10:00 at night. And of course, there were some days where he was working later and we had later nights. But typically speaking, if you have little kids, it’s a good idea to have routines where you have nap time and you have bedtime routines where you can put them down and you can know that those are two times that if you need to have like. A phone call with your husband while he’s at work where good little kid’s ears are not listening. Do it during nap time so that when you are together you can see each other. Or maybe vice versa, because sometimes hard conversations need to be face to face, making eye contact. Otherwise, like texting, I never recommend hard conversations for, but those are just a few tips anyway.

And it’s so important to dream together, you guys. You’ve got to have dreams. You’ve got to talk about the future. The future propels us forward and makes the mundane more enjoyable, like thinking about having goals and working towards something. Of course, that’s a vision for your kids lives and your legacy and and them being, you know, launching and being strong believers and having families. And we’re starting to experience that. We just our first grandchild just came.

That’s actually a new fun announcement for today’s podcast, is that she wasn’t born last Tuesday. That’s true. Yeah. So our grandma a little here’s a little plug. Our granddaughter was born on the 15th of September. She’s so amazing. Her name is Quincy and we’re so excited to have her in the family. Yes, her initials are cute. Ha, ha. I love that.

She is amazing. It’s just when you’re holding your grandchild, it is next level. Goodness, it.

Is. It is like tears in your eyes can’t hold back. And yes, for those of you who are listening, who maybe read Redeeming Childbirth, my book or gone through my Christian postpartum course, I was so honored, so blessed by Caroline and Austin that they invited me to be a part of the birth along with her mom, and we got to be the part of the birth team, and that was super special.

So on this dreaming together, you know, obviously that is probably the most important aspect of dreaming together, just how the legacy is going and how to help it and encourage the kids and all these things. But there’s other things too. There’s things about your marriage. There might be a trip you want to go on, there might be a business you guys want to do together or a project around the property or the house that you want to do or, you know, maybe it’s you’re going to flip a property in the future or these kinds of things. It can be years out, but big things don’t happen unless you’re thinking years out. And so you’re thinking about the ideas and these things and interest. Or maybe it’s moving somewhere, you know, eventually having a vacation property somewhere. You could literally have just enough to pay the bills right now and still dream about having a vacation property somewhere or doing a vacation or eventually having the ability to do an RV trip. You know, we had a dream of doing aa3 month RV trip, you know.

Years before we it was like a decade before we actually did it, you know, as before we bought our RV. And I remember thinking like, Oh, won’t it be fun when our kids are all older and we were able to, like, make history come to life in geography, come to life as we’re driving around the country and we’re showing them these places that they’ve been learning about. Right. And then all of a sudden, we blinked and our oldest was about ready to go to college. This was almost five years ago and it was four and a half years ago, you guys. So I’m telling you, don’t blink. Yeah, but we literally looked at each other and it was the worst of circumstances. So if you’re sitting there going, there’s no way I could afford to take off three months. There’s no way I could afford to do a three month RV trip. Where would you get the finances for that? Let me just share with you briefly for a second. This is the power of dreaming together, and this is what we’re talking about. Isaac and I had a dream that we wanted to do something like this with our kids so many years ago when they were little, little like Kelsey was seven, eight years old. And then ten years later, when she was 17, about to go to college, we were like, It is now or never, what can we do? But we had just experienced a business failure and we had a lot of debt that we were trying to pay down and we were working hard.

We were a couple of years into paying off that debt and we just decided, you know what, you can work from the road, praise God. So let’s downsize and let’s sell as much as we can in a garage sale and build a little nugget to help pay for the trip. And so we did. The kids all worked super hard together and we did this. And it’s an incredible story. I’m not going to go in depth into all of the things regarding the trip, but the point is, if we didn’t have that dream, it wouldn’t have come up and gone, Whoa, wait a second. That was something that was super important to us. We need to do this. And you guys, it wasn’t just like the fact that it was an RV trip. It was that it was a legacy building relationship building trip. Like the trip had a bigger purpose behind it than just seeing things. Although that’s super cool. It was more about relationships and experiences and building memories with our kids, and that was what our hearts desired way back when. And so you can make those things happen, Lord willing, but it doesn’t start without a dream.

You got to talk about it. There’s an interesting thing that happens. Your mind. In your relationship and your sense of teamwork orientate into a direction that you communicate about. And if you don’t communicate about it, it might take years for this to happen. But those little steps, those little decisions on the way, oh, we don’t want to get into debt because we have this vision for this. Oh, no, let’s not do it because of that. Oh, yes, let’s add this tool because it’s useful now. But also it’s part of that vision in the future that we hope to be able to do, whether it’s maybe it’s remodeling and flipping a property. So then we need this tool for our house to do something here. But we also could be used in the future and then therefore, you know, so that’s it really does orientate and I find people don’t tend to do those dreams if they weren’t talked about years in advance.

No, it’s amazing. And I think that that’s part of what keeps your marriage alive, actually. Right. Is that you’re not looking back because you’re so focused on being purposeful in the present and moving towards a goal in the future. And when you have those two things in your equation versus looking back like I think of looking back as like a minus sign or even a division sign in a in an equation, right? Versus multiplication. When you’re looking forward to the future and you’re thinking legacy, that’s like multiplying, right? And so you guys, when this is literally a game changer for couples and I think that what we’ve witnessed over the years with many different marriages just in proximity with people, is that there is a difference between those marriages that are thriving and the ones that are just surviving and the ones that end up failing. And unfortunately, we’ve been married long enough to see the ones that fall away after seven years of marriage, ten years marriage, 11, 15, 20, 26. And it’s devastating. It’s devastating to their families. It’s devastating to their their friendships, to their church communities. And it’s it’s not God’s will, actually. And so you have to put up these safeguards. And but but at the same time, you also need to want to pursue one another. Yeah. And so dreaming together is just part of pursuing your spouse. Right. And growing together, which is another aspect of this is growing and learning together. That is a really fun thing to do on your date nights.

One thing that I was thinking of when Isaac was sharing about this concept earlier today, I want to ask you ladies a question. This is and it is for guys can listen to it, too. But really, I think that women’s groups are a really popular phenomenon in churches where there’s women’s Bible studies, everywhere in churches, am I right? And it’s easier to find women who have been a part of a women’s Bible study than it is to find men who’ve been a part of a solid man’s Bible study for a long period of time. I’m just going to be honest, this is sad to me, but my question is this Are you more intimately sharing what you are learning in the word and the ways that you’re growing and the things you’re passionate about? Are you sharing more of that with the women in your Bible study than you are with your spouse? And if that is off kilter, if that is weighed in a wrong way, if you were to put on a scale, then something needs to give. I’m not saying you need to walk away from your Bible study. What I’m saying is you need to prioritize and put effort into pursuing your spouse and you need to communicate those things first with him, actually. And I would say the same for the guys as well. Like if they’re they have friendships that they’re learning and growing from more that are brother relationships versus like a spouse. There’s something.

Off. Yeah, it’s going to be your spouse first. And you know, how many spiritual conversations do you guys have together? Do you talk about doctrine? Do you talk about what you’re learning in the Bible? Do you talk about questions you have in wrestling with Scripture together and these kinds of things? Or are we just relying on Google podcasts and other influencers we have never met? And so it’s really important that podcasts like this are extra to, you know, learn to communication with each other. And it’s really, really important. And that’s our second point is start and end each day well together. And I think that that’s got to have some spiritual activity going on, like praying together. It’s, you know, and if you guys have never really prayed together, it can feel awkward. And so I want to encourage you to do what’s hard and to make a better marriage. And so sometimes we have we go, wow, I wish my marriage was like this or I wish I wish this was easier. And I would just say, no, I think you should wish you were better. And I know that’s a hard word, but that’s how I think about myself when I when I think in my mind about something, I think I wish this was easier. I’m like, Well, no, how can I do better? And I think that’s the most productive thing. We always it can be easy to go, Well, how could they can be better? And these kinds of things know how. I be better. And if both spouses start thinking that way, even if just one at first starts thinking that way, it rubs off on the other one.

It totally does.

How can I be better? I wish this was easier. No, how can I be better? I wish this business was easier. Well, how can I be better? I wish this ministry was easier. Which it’s not. Right. How can I serve better in this ministry? How can you know what needs to happen?

Understanding that your marriage is your first ministry actually is a huge thing. And I think that you both will be if you both view your role in your marriage as your ministry like I view my role as Isaacs helped me to help encourage him as he’s leading. And I do that, by the way, that I am like how I’m present within the family. But I also do that with the things that I say or with the position that I allow him to walk in, that I try not to overstep. But I also do that in like through when he comes to me and he’s, he’s brings a sermon that he’s been working on or thought that he’s thinking on, and he’ll go, What do you think about this? Right. And so, like, even just sharing within our ministry, like when we have posts for courageous parenting, like we always talk about them before they’re published. Yeah. And I love that, that there’s a respect and a collaboration and a team effort that is there. And part of that is this concept of like debriefing one another, right? Or downloading what we’re learning together in the word. And then that leads the other person towards the same thing regarding God and what He’s called us to. And yeah, it’s so powerful.

Like, I really appreciate how you encourage my leadership versus discourage it. I think that there can be a competitiveness in marriages sometimes, and I do feel like you encourage me in that leadership. And but at the same time, just because God made men, leaders of their families, that servant, I mean, that is like serving, not lording over lording over would be sinful. So I think that the lording over leaders tend to not communicate as well their marriages decisions. They just make decisions and these kinds of things. We’re making some generalizations here, but I think that we want to be aware of that and wary of that. And I learned so much from Angie. I’ll run something by her and she’ll bring an essence to it. Then I’m like, Oh, that’s really helpful. You know something I’m missing or some other slant to the scripture where these kinds of things and I just really appreciate that. And I think that that’s how marriage is supposed to be. We’re supposed to sharpen.

Each other one, right? Like and I think that there’s an accountability in that, but there’s also a sharpening, like you’re saying, when two people become one, it’s not like that one that is the head is more than the other person. It’s that two individuals who have intrinsic value, who have personal relationships with God, who have brains, who think and have knowledge and understanding, they come together and there’s even a stronger it’s harder it’s harder for them to be broken apart. Right. Especially when it’s regarding growing in the Lord together. And I think that this is literally at the core. I think of all the things that we’re talking about today, this concept of like I’m growing in the Lord, you’re growing in the Lord and we meet at the Lord. Yeah. Like this concept of a pyramid, right? Like Isaac’s in one corner, I’m in another corner. We’re like moving towards the Lord and we meet together at the Lord. Yeah. Like that is actually the picture of walking in a Christian marriage together. And if you’re doing that, if you’re pursuing God, then all of these other things should be added unto you. It’s kind of like that verse that we love, right, that says Seek First the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you.

If you are seeking first the Kingdom of God and you’re seeking God, you’re going to be seeking the Bible. And then all of these things that we’ve been learning over 23 years as we’ve been seeking God and seeking to grow, they will be added to you as well, because this stuff all comes from the word, right? Which reminds me, let’s jump into Galatians chapter six, verse nine, it says, and let us not grow weary of doing good for a new season we will reap if we do not give up. And I am so encouraged by this, but I’m also reminded and disheartened, heartbroken, really, for the couples who did give up. Don’t let that be you don’t give up on your marriage. Don’t give up on the Lord. You guys, this is what God is literally commanding us. You are going to reap what you sow. And so we today, wherever you are in your marriage, if you’ve been married six months, if you’ve been married seven years, if you’ve been married 11 years. If you’ve been married 40. Seven years. You have the opportunity today to sow righteousness, to sow kindness. You have the opportunity today to sow grace into your marriage, and you will reap from those things that you sow.

Well, hey, starting and ending each day together, everybody has different schedules and different things going on. One of the things we like to do, and you can fit this in or apply this however it works for you guys, but we’ll do a debrief in the morning, not all the time, but when we do, everything goes better. We debrief a little bit about the day and then we spend time with the family. We eat breakfast. Either Angie or myself will make breakfast for everybody and we’ll sit there and I’ll lead with some scripture. We’ll talk about the day, we’ll discuss the scripture. And I think that’s really important. And when we debrief before that meeting, it’s way more helpful. So, you know, how could that happen with your schedule or does that need to happen in the evening and talking about the next day? That totally works, too. That’s really good. And I think praying together, family that prays together is is a healthy family. You know, marriage is to pray together is healthy. I think that’s important. Getting the download from your wife husband’s at the end of the day is so important. So if you’re driving home from work, one idea is that you could give her a call and get a download before you step into the door. That could really help. So you can reinforce some behavior issues. You can reinforce and acknowledge the good things that happen and the kids did in front of their mom. You’re anchoring that good behavior and so forth. You can share your hearts. Maybe, maybe the wife, maybe it’s easier to talk over the phone because there’s less distraction. You know, it might be hard for the wife, but with kids around. But, you know, you can try things.

One thing that might be helpful on that, too, because sometimes I know that as a wife, that’s like when men are coming home from work after. Like for most people it’s usually dinner prep time and then things are a little bit can be chaotic in a home when you have a lot of kids. So one thing that’s been helpful for me is utilizing like audio messaging with Isaac and that’s something that you can do. I mean, I don’t have to do it as often now because he’s here, but that’s something that you could do when you do have kids down for a nap. If something big that he needs to know if you have special intel that God enlightened you to regarding your child’s heart intentions or a circumstance or situation that happened that you feel like he needs to know about and he needs to pray about it. And then he also needs to help you with confronting it. Give him an audio message while the kids are napping and he can listen to those later when he’s driving home. As long as you guys have communicated about that, sometimes wives want to a response right away, but you guys need to have grace with each other and communicate about expectations regarding when they’re going to listen to it. But that would be a good time to do that because they’re like downloading from work and they’re like, okay, I have to get into the dad mode. I got to get into the home mode now and to hear that intel of like, Oh, today so-and-so lost their tooth in this person, this happened. But then there is this, this big deal.

I know that it helps me to lead into to have a knowledge about what’s going on and to reinforce what’s happening and to be an influence. A dad’s influence is paramount. And it’s hard to influence if I don’t know what’s been going on, if I don’t know what to influence because I haven’t been there. And so it really is a wife. It needs to do that. It’s super helpful, but the husband needs to be receptive and want that and actually use it. If husbands don’t use the intel and she spent all that time giving it, then that’s going to be demotivating from continuing to give it. If someone works from home too, you could always make a little debrief meeting your most important meeting in the day. Maybe you have all these other meetings and work and then you’re like, Wait, I’m going to catch up with my wife for 15 minutes before I’m off. Hey, text her. Yeah. Can you come into the office and you guys could debrief real quick before you go into the family? It’s just super, super helpful to do those things.

I think another aspect is that sometimes women think that there are certain things that they need to do that they shouldn’t be asking for help with because they feel like it lands in their jurisdiction and then they keep doing those things right. And depending on what they’re going through in their life or life transition, they can they can just feel guilty for asking for help. This aspect of starting and ending your day. Well, if there’s something like that where you need to ask for help, you have a doctor’s appointment or something like that. These are the times when you’re going to have that opportunity to ask for help, because parenting is supposed to be a team effort and you guys both need to help one another to also take care of yourselves. Well, and so communicating about the dentist appointments, doctor appointments, chiropractor, whatever it is, or just even needing like 5 minutes when you get home to go for a little walk to blow off some steam and then come back and serve dinner, whatever it is you guys need to communicate about those things.

Well, hey, we’re going to Lightning Fire over these next three points. There’s a lot of practical stuff in that fourth point. I just want to invite you real quick to the parenting mentor program at Courageous Parenting. Go check it out. Over 2000 parents are raving about it. It is literally changing the way they parent strong Christian parents to new believers to that are parents alike from waiting for the first child to large families and all in between lots of mid-sized families in the program and what a powerful community to you get that for free for a bit. So I just wanted to share that. That is a major part of what supports the ministry too. So you can check that out. Also, by the way, as you know now you can go to be courageous ministry dot org and get to courageous parenting to OC. So there are third point is honor one another. This is so important. I have a scripture for you, Matthew. Let’s see here. 712 So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them for this is the law and the prophets. So the meaning of that is to how do we like to be treated? Well, that’s how we want to treat others. But to take that even a little bit further. Usually, not always, but usually people marry people a little bit different than themselves, wired a little bit differently. One might be more detail orientated, the other one is like forgets details quickly. Okay, so but they might be more visionary or something like that. We’re all a little different, right? And so we need to not just think about how we’re wired, we need to think about how God wired our spouse. And we need to stay who we are, but we need to honor who they are and how we communicate. So it’s just really important to think about that. We could do a half day training session on this, this one.

Thing that we used to.

But but but what? But I want when I want to tell you is just to start thinking about that. Do I honor her in the way I communicate? I like everything. Short soundbites and to the point and quick. Am I? I do this. I make this mistake. Do I expect this out of my wife, Angie, who actually likes to hear more details, who actually likes to know the information? Most of it, maybe not all, but most of it until it’s not necessary information. Right. So it’s really important to understand who you’re communicating with and honor them. Maybe you need to share more details. I think so many husbands are like, we just keep things in. We just we’re like these smiley bound, you know, self preserving protectors of the family, but non-communicative. I know not every dad’s like that, but there’s a lot of people like that. And I think we need to work that communication muscle and talk about things that maybe we don’t think are important to talk about but are vital to the marriage. And so what are those things and are you honoring the other person? I think that’s.

Important. Yeah. The other aspect about honoring one another is understanding that there are some very basic design differences between men and women, for example, just even the sheer amount of words that a woman puts out or could be putting out on a daily basis. Now I get that not every woman is wired exactly the same, just like Isaac was talking about that. But typically speaking, there are a whole ministries and books written about how men are typically more likely to put out about 10,000 words in a day, and women are somewhere around 30,000 words in a day. So understanding that there are design differences between men and women and adjusting our expectations of our spouse so that they’re more realistic of them, it’s going to be super, super important for being able to have understanding with them, living with your spouse in an understanding way. I know that the Bible talks about that. And first, Peter, right. It warns men that they need to live with their wives in an understanding, way less their prayers be heard. Whoa. That’s huge. Right. And I just even think, like, how many times do women want to share their hearts, right? Kind of like they do at a women’s group. And they maybe try, but their husbands aren’t living with them in an understanding way. So they cut them off or they’re like, Are you done yet? Or they’re just like, They lose interest and they start looking at their phone and scrolling or like their body language will tell them something different or their facial expressions tell them something different than I’m interested in what you’re saying and I care. And I think that it’s super, super important that you understand that, that that is part of living with your wife in an understanding way, that there is this need for women to feel a connectedness from heart to heart, where they feel loved and cherished is actually going to come from if they feel like they’re heard.

And so in husbands, you want to be respected, right? So well, cherish your wife and you’ll be respected a whole lot more. We as leaders, we need to be the initiators. We need to initiate our part and just watch how beautifully your wife will respond. It’s so amazing. It’s. It’s if I cut Angie off and I’m short with her, you know, it’s going to be hard for her to respect me. But if I understand. That she just wants to share her heart and to communicate. And getting the words out is makes her feel understood and cared about and loved and cherished. She’s going to respect me more. It’s going to be easier for her to respect. So let’s make it easy for our wives to respect us. That’s really important. Ephesians 533 talks a little about this, which is pretty cool. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. So love. If you love someone your wife as yourself, then you care so deeply how she’s doing, right? So it’s super, super important.

And you guys, I mean, we don’t have enough time on the podcast to really go over that entire scripture. But if you want to read more, actually Ephesians Chapter five, that entire chapter is about walking in love and wives and husbands, and then it goes into children and parents. And this is just a really good scripture for you guys to study together. But we also wanted to share with you from First Corinthians Chapter 13, because our next and final point is be kind. And I know we named it something simple, but we’re going to rattle off a bunch of different ways that you could potentially be challenged to be more kind. And here are just a few eye contact.

Wow, that’s important.

I know that there are times when I feel like the person is not fully listening, whether it’s Isaac or one of the kids or a friend. If if they’re not making eye contact with me, I’m like, Are you actually hearing me or are you just hearing half of my words? I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation like this before where maybe you give some kind of instruction or you ask someone to do something and then they do it halfway. And you think back to the conversation and you remember them being distracted, not making eye contact. That’s even more infuriating. Right. And so one of the ways that you can really honor one another and be kind to that person is by making eye contact with them and really trying your best to listen.

Yeah. Another one is don’t be distracted. Stop what you’re doing. Go do the eye contact and communicate. That’s more important than ever. There’s so many distractions, digital distractions. Also, we are so used to getting stimulated so quickly by being sound bites entertained. Information, news. I know for me.

Everything is fast.

I do enjoy understanding what’s happening in the world and these kinds of things. But I have to be disciplined. I have to not let that take over. The most important thing to me. But sometimes we don’t act out what’s most important, which is actually listen to your child, to actually listen to your wife eye contact, these kinds of things.

So another one is your tone of voice. I mean, obviously, like, yeah, think about that for a second. Is your tone of voice kind or is it harsh or is it impatient or is it does it tell your kids, hurry up, I’ve got more important things to do, right? Like I just even think about this as a mom. And so all of these things that were going over could easily be applied to your parenting to like Isaac just mentioned. But put think about this in regards to your marriage, is your tone of voice towards your husband one of respect? Is his tone of voice towards his wife, one of really loving her and understanding her and having that same kind of respect where it’s an equal love for one another. And then the tone of voice in my mind just kind of goes along with also evaluating our body language, right? Because you can tell if someone has crossed their arms, right? You can kind of tell their posture, gives you a an opinion about their their heart posture, really. And I think that there is an element where we can really tell what someone’s heart, where their heart is postured towards based upon their outward body language and their tone of voice. Those two kind of go together and so are we being kind with those things.

Also, the eyes, are they showing annoyance, haughty eyes, frustrated eyes? I have good frustrated eyes, angry eyes. Right. If you’re watching a.

Rumble I struggle with you see, with struggle struggling. I struggle with this sometimes too. I would say for sure. Like when I think about it, if I’m scolding a child for doing something dangerous or and I like, it’s always in my face, you guys, my eyes. And so I always it’s interesting. I have this little saying no mean eyes and I’ve used to brush my toddler’s little eyebrows up. But then I realized, Oh, I need to make sure that I don’t have those little crowl lines on my forehead when I’m older from scowling.

How about not talking down to each other? Don’t assume you know what they’re thinking. Just because you might be right, it doesn’t mean that they don’t want to communicate their whole sentence. We’ve got to be able to allow each other to finish sentences. It’s really tough if that’s not allowed. Right.

Don’t nag. Here’s a verse for you guys for the nagging one. I love pulling these out. It’s interesting how much God talks about all these things. If you wanted to look up something about body eyes, by the way, just go to Proverbs chapter six, verse 16, because 16 through 19 talks about all that. Got to teach that for kids. Yeah. So Proverbs 27, though, verses 14 through 16, it says whoever blesses his neighbor with a loud voice rising early in the morning will be counted as cursing. So obviously, like your husband is one of your neighbors, right? Is your first neighbor. And so rising early in the morning, you don’t want to be like blessing your neighbor with a loud voice. And that’s that’s convicting for me. I don’t know about you guys, but sometimes, like when Isaac and I are up in the morning, like, I’m, I’m like, hey, come on, get up. We’ve got to be up together. Let’s go. You know, and I tend to be like a quick person in the morning that gets up quick. And so this is something for us to be aware of. It will be counted as a curse. That’s not okay. Verse 15 A continual dripping on a rainy day and a quarrelsome wife are alike.

And whoa, that’s.

Convicting.

We’ve got to have grace for each other. And I would say we develop rhythms of communication and ways of being with each other. You are around each other more than anybody else, I hope, and it’s important that we understand that we have to break the cycle. Sometimes all these things we’re talking about are breaking negative cycles. If those things aren’t, if you’re not having eye contact, if you’re being distracted, if you have a bad tone of voice by body language, all these things you’re in, if that’s normal, sometimes when you guys are having conflict or hard communication, then you have to break the cycle and not have the bad eye contact more. Have good eye contact. You can’t control the other, but you can control yourself. Start with yourself. Start influencing by doing the right things and you’ll watch the cycle break. Because we have rhythms of communication and we take each other for granted and we make assumptions based on seeing a body language and that can trigger us to believe that they’re coming from a certain angle. So we have to purpose to change those things and the other person has to not be quick to judge. This is one of those times they’re being critical or whatever the thing is, and we have to break those cycles. So what cycles do you need to break in your marriage communication so that you have a more harmonious, peaceful, loving communication even when you’re talking about things you disagree on?

I even think about when you’re talking about breaking negative cycles and not judging the other person wrongly. I, Isaac and I have talked at great length, even with our children, about allowing one another to grow right over the years because it’s easy to build a reputation with one another. And it’s the same in marriage. It’s easy to build a reputation or like he’s saying, get into a way of talking to one another or communicating with one another and having to choose to break that cycle. Well, it’s easy to to build a reputation with one another. It’s harder to let the other person grow. But that’s the biblical thing that we need to do biblically. We need to have grace with one another and allow one another to grow over the years, to change, to master things that maybe have been a struggle for even 40 years. Amazing, right? Because that’s the power of our God and that’s the the God that we believe in, that he brings healing, that he breaks bondage, is that he is the one that will set people free from strongholds. Right. And so if there is something that has been in your spouse’s life that has been a hang up, something that has irritated you, having grace with them is actually allowing them to change and grow and at the same time expecting virtue. This is something that we talk about a lot, right? Like just even communicating in a way where we expect virtue from the other person.

Assuming the best from each other is so important and final encouragement is draw close to the Lord. If you’re in the Bible, then you’re going to be prompted by the Spirit. You’re allowing the Spirit to influence you at a greater level, and it’s going to be a lot easier to have good eye contact, to be patient and have the right body and language and to be give grace. If we’re not walking strong in the spirit, guess what? You’re walking in. There’s only one other option. You’re walking in your flesh. And the Bible says, Do not walk in your flesh. And if you have.

Two people walking in their flesh.

Oh, good luck.

No, you’ve got to be walking strong with the Lord.

Yes.

Don’t be nominal Christians. That’s a hard word. But nominal Christians means nominal marriage.

That’s a really good word. We’re to wrap it up with First Corinthians Chapter 13. You oftentimes probably hear this at weddings and it’s for good reason. Verse four says, Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love, bears all things, believes all things, hopes, all things and endures all things. So you guys, as you’re communicating, imagine how different your communication could be if you communicated with love, you communicate it. That means you’re communicating patiently, you’re communicating kindly. You’re not being jealous of one another. Oh, he’s going off to work and I’m here with the kids. I’ve struggled with that in the past. That is not the right way to think. You’re blessed to be at home with your children. Love does not is not arrogant or rude in how it communicates. Loves not insist on its own way. There are so many things guys like Isaac was saying, if you just read the word, it literally changes your perspective on how to love one another, which should impact the way you communicate. Well, we hope this has been an encouraging podcast that you’ve taken some tips away, some exhortations and some challenges maybe to hope to see you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom 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

Do you ever feel the more courageous you are to live Biblically the more unpopular you become? The Bible tells us this is going to happen to believers. Since so many Christians are nominal, when you make more conservative or Biblical decisions it can backfire relationally with Christian friends. Well, it may be time to be unpopular. Be encouraged to stay the course in this episode.

Main Points From This Episode:

• Following Jesus isn’t supposed to be easy.
• The world wants you to be tolerant when we actually aren’t supposed to be open-minded away from Biblical truth. 
• Sometimes you have to dust off your shoes.
• Be introspective on how you can build stronger relationships.
• Always be 100% yourself, otherwise, you attract people using a false you.
• Tips for building strong relationships.

Scripture From This Episode:

Mark 12:30 – “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.”

Galatians 1:10 – “For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.”

Philippians 2:1-2 – “If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.”

2 Timothy 3:12 – “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”

Romans 6:6 – “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.”

Romans 12:9 – “Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.”

Proverbs 27:17 – “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.”

Scroll down to see other resources

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 following. Hey, everyone, we’re so glad to have it here on the podcast with us today.

Hey, guys.

How are you doing?

I’m good. We are talking about a topic that, you know, has been inspired because so many of you guys bring this predicament up to Isaac and I, whether it’s in messages on Instagram or in the Parenting Mentor program during the Q&A time, I feel like people get super transparent in there and they pose this predicament, which is it’s very hard to find like minded people and they feel sometimes persecuted even within the Christian community that they’re in for the decisions that they’re making or their stance on certain issues.

So what a weird title, isn’t it courageous and unpopular? We were going to title it courageously. Unpopular. Maybe we will. You’ll find out. But the point is that the more courageous you become in the sense of living biblically in an increasingly fallen world, the more unpopular you’re going to feel at times. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. There is no, like, simple fix for it, although we are going to give some practical insights in our third point here. But it is it isn’t easy. And the Bible doesn’t promise that it will be easy. In fact, it says something really different than that.

Yeah. So we’re going to go over some scripture with you guys. Hopefully this podcast is extremely encouraging, but before that, we just wanted to say thank you so much for joining us, continuing to join us on a weekly basis. It means so much to Isaac and I. We put a lot into these podcast planning, finding scripture, all the things. And so we really love hearing from you guys. If you have any recommendations for podcast topics, please reach out to us. You can email at Isaac at Craigs Parenting or just reach out to us on social media or in the app messaging, which is actually the best.

And the 10 million legacies movement so important when you share, we know you’re part of it. Give us reviews on iTunes where 80% of people listen or else where it’s great to. In fact, we have a lot of listeners at Courageous Parenting dot com and all the show notes and so forth. There are a lot of free resources to I just want to say that there’s so many aspects to this ministry today that it’s hard to even speak to it all. So very soon we’ll have one place we can give you one URL where you can find everything in the ministry and these that change, plus the coffee, plus some other things that you’ll find out about soon. Important video about to launch is going to be really helpful to really understand why are they doing coffee and why are they doing this and so forth. And I just want you to know that you’re I think you’d be really pleased when you hear this video message or the vision of the ministry that Angie and I do. And I think you’d be really pleased with the whys and probably cause you to think about some of the things in your life, too. So I think that’s going to be really important. We’re proactive thinkers. I think that’s because the Holy Spirit is giving us wisdom ahead of time and decisions we need to make. We see that it’s about a lot of times it’s 2 to 3 years out that we get kind of like the gumption to do something that’s required two or three years down the road. And I just praise the Lord for that. It’s been really.

Awesome. It’s been a regular basis. I feel like even from the beginning of our marriage, we’ve experienced that where we look back and we’re like, Wow, so glad that we started this then. And so you guys were really excited to be running this race with you. And we are. And I hope that you are encouraged. For those of you, especially who are feeling discouraged at the moment, maybe you feel like you’re standing alone and you’re running the race alone. We have done a podcast called Don’t Run the Race Alone. I think it’s in season one or season two, so please go look that up. We are going to go over different scripture. We have a very different message today, but that in conjunction with this would be very, very encouraging for you. But I just want to say, if you are feeling discouraged and like you’re the only one, if you’re feeling alone and if you feel like, man, every decision that I feel like I’m making in life, why is it the hardest decision or the hardest path? Right. I mean, we’ve had this conversation with a few families that go to our church and it’s just it’s walking biblically.

Like Isaac said, it’s not easy and it can be very fruitful at the same time. And so we just would encourage you guys to stay the course. There is a spiritual law of sowing and reaping that no man can escape. And while God is the one who produces the fruit and he’s the one that grows things and brings the increase, and we don’t want to take credit for any of that. The truth is, is that if you don’t do your part, nothing will happen, actually. And so God calls us to partner with him in that process. He calls us to partner with him the great commission in the discipling of our children in and all the things and being a light wherever we are. And we have to do our part so that God has the opportunity to move and be glorified. And so I hope that you guys are encouraged to stay the course, to keep on keeping on if you. Well, because it isn’t easy. So let’s let’s start out, Isaac, maybe for some of those people who are really struggling with finding friends.

Mm hmm.

That can be hard.

Yeah.

Some of you maybe feel more condemned by people than you do feel supported.

Or lifted up. I mean, there’s a lot of wrinkles to that, right? In an interesting way. It’s like we if somebody’s successful, we should be able to fan their flames and be happy for them. Right. If something good happens, there should be a group of people that are way to go, you know, in celebrating that with you. But sometimes it can feel like, well, I don’t want to share that because it might make someone else feel down that that’s not happening for them. Right. There’s other aspects of.

Being.

Being courageous and and making decisions that maybe some people around you haven’t made, but instead being interested about the decision, even when you talk about it in love. And just here’s something we’re learning and something we just decided to do the condemn it or maybe say your legalistic or, you know, make you feel like you’re too extreme or things like that when really you’re just like, Well, I’m just deciding.

To.

Do this kind of simple thing that the Holy Spirit convicted me of. And as I read the Bible, it kind of makes sense. So that can definitely happen and happens all of the time. And let’s start. I think the message, important message is let’s all of us listening be the best. Friends we possibly can towards other people, meaning let’s put the foot forward we want reciprocated to ourselves. And I think that is the step. But I think we need to be introspective sometimes and go, hey, am I one of is it one of these situations where it’s a log in spec issue or is it something where I’m actually trying to be loving and a great friend and nurturing the relationship and I’m not getting that reciprocated? Well, I would say just keep stay the course in that it doesn’t mean you stay the course in relationship in the same way. Right. Because we can only run the race with so many people. There’s a bandwidth issue. But it does mean let’s be the best examples of the things we’re talking about in this episode.

And I do think that there’s you know, as we as we’re diving in here, one of the things that Isaac and I have talked about in parenting mentor program for parents and this need to teach their children to choose friends wisely that starts with us first and modeling that right because we can’t expect our kids to stand strong and to choose wise friends or people who are loving the Lord as their closest friends if we are not doing that. And so we have to recognize that there can’t be hypocrisy within our parenting and how we’re living. Right. And so sometimes when when Isaac’s talking about loving people, he and I are 100% in alignment on this. And what we’re talking about is you can love people, but they can still be in a different category of friendship, meaning maybe you view that friendship as more ministry, or maybe you view that friendship as you’re you’re being a witness because they’re not saved. Or maybe it’s a friendship where you are just where they are a close friend in the Lord, but they aren’t the type that is going to be as iron sharpens iron because they don’t have the spiritual maturity or don’t have the desire or they don’t know how to go deep. Right. And we’re going to talk about those things a little bit later. But being able to, like, categorize in a sense in your head so that you actually have realistic expectations can be very helpful because you wouldn’t, for example, expect a non believer to show love to you in the way that God’s word describes love because they don’t have the Holy Spirit in them. Right. And so you wouldn’t have that expectation of them to give that, but you should give that because you have the Holy Spirit.

It’s so important for your kids to it’s just imagine if you put them in some big group of kids or even a small group of kids, but they don’t understand how to discern and know who to to be more transparent with and who the less because of. Who can you trust and who can you not? And these.

Guys face teacher.

Or if they’re not equipped for that, you may be endorsing something by putting them in a group somewhere, church or elsewhere. And, you know, they’re not discerning. They’re not looking out for these things and they just become friends with whoever is really nice to them. Or later when they, you know, do other things in society, they might just become friends with whoever response to them. And we need to make sure that there’s a difference between loving people well and then building close friendship. And we have to be careful who we build. Close friendship again. We have bandwidth. We, you know, yeah.

I think everybody has a bandwidth based upon like the things that they have going on in their life. Of course, the amount of children they have also is a massive impact. Right. And, you know, other ministries are responsibilities that maybe they have, whether it’s running a business or maybe they’re working really hard to build a business on the side while they have another job. Right. There’s so many different examples. You can figure out what your scenario is, but you have realistic expectations for yourself regarding are you are you spending a little bit of time going shallow with many people and at the end never feeling filled up or feeling like you have like mindedness with anyone because you’re not able to actually invest in just a few friendships that can really go deep and be iron sharpening iron. If that’s you, you need to make some some adjustments in how you’re actually pursuing people.

And I would challenge anybody listening, if that’s your situation, that it’s likely that you’re not being 100% who you are. Yeah, because when you’re living biblically and you’re being 100% who you are, while at the same time being loving towards others, but not holding back your biblical stance on something in a loving way, not holding back on decisions you’re making. Or like, Oh, I better hide this thing I’m doing over here, even though it’s biblical, because I know they’re probably not going to agree with it. And I want to stay in friendship. Well, that’s not real friendship.

No, you’re being fake, actually, if that’s the reality and you can’t build a friendship with someone who’s not being completely who they are.

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 have 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 courageous parenting 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.

Steve and 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.

And 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 the lights to be leaders for the next generation.

You know, I think that it’s it’s interesting because in this situation, a lot of the parents are are saying, hey, you know, when it comes to even family members, like they make a choice whether it’s that they’re not going to be watching certain kinds of movies. Right. They’re going to get rid of Disney plus or they’re going to boycott something else. Right. Or they’re anti video games or they’re whatever it is and their families like, wow, you’re too extreme. Or, Oh, that’s legalistic, right? Like that’s one of the things you’ve actually called that word a weapon many times. Would you explain that?

Isaac Well, I just think that when somebody when a Christian disagrees with another Christian and and and they’re disagreeing with someone that’s taking a more conservative approach on something, oftentimes they use the word legalism as a weapon to discount the decision to make look poorly. That other person may be to another friend, a mutual friend or things like that. There’s a natural thing that happens in friendships. It doesn’t need to be this way. Not everybody does this, but the natural thing is you talk poorly or you insinuate something poorly about a mutual friend if you’re having conflict with them to preserve the other relationships around. And that’s not a biblical thing to do, but that is often what happens. And they use that legalistic term versus taking a moment. Now, some people do get legalistic. You should never get legalistic. We don’t want to be like the Pharisees in the Bible. That is the definition of legalism. And Jesus was very opposed to the legalistic Pharisees.

Preaching things and not living them is where Isaac is going at it. But if you’re in a position where you are trying to obey the word and regarding how you’re raising your kids, for example, and you have a biblical conviction on why you’re doing something right, you should never, in a real true friendship, feel like you have to hide part of who you are to be accepted by that person. That’s not friendship. And a lot of times when people feel insecure, especially within the Christian community, right? Because everybody wants to be equal and of sound mind and be all on the same page. That’s what people desire. Truthfully, even you desire that, right? The reality is, is when they rub up against somebody that maybe challenges a decision that they’re making as a parent specifically, because that’s a personal thing. Parenting is personal. We all do our best and we all love our children. Regardless of the decisions that we make. We all love our children just as much as other people love their children. Right? Amen. Yeah. And so because of that, it can be a sensitive topic. So when someone does something that maybe rubs up against them, maybe even in a conviction kind of way, sometimes what people will do is they’ll use the weapon Isaac’s talking about in saying, oh, legalistic or Oh, they’re just super conservative or or or any of these kinds of words, or they’ll persecute a little bit, maybe even make fun so that they feel better and it justifies what they’re doing. Right. And that’s not okay. That’s not biblical. And you want to be surrounded by people who are actually going to rub up against you in a good kind of way, in a way that’s going to spur you on towards good works like the Bible says.

Right. In a way that’s going to actually challenge you to grow in. Your relationship with God and grow in spiritual maturity because you’re leading little ones to the Lord. So you need to be continually growing as well so that you can be leading them somewhere so that they don’t stay stagnant and you don’t stay stagnant. So let’s read some scripture mark. Chapter 12, verse 30 says, And you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength. I love this. We are just doing a a Q&A time and a teaching time in the parenting mentor program. And I brought this verse up because I really do believe that this verse is one of the core verses that has inspired the courageous parenting mentor program along with Joshua one nine. Right, which says, Be courageous wherever you go for the Lord. Your God goes with you wherever you go. But at the reality, the reality is that this concept of loving the Lord with all of who we are, not half of our heart, not a quarter of our mind, not our mind. Only on Sundays when we’re sitting in church, not half of our strength or our strength on Sundays or when we’re around people that we want to impress. It’s all the time we want to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul, and with all our strength. And when you do that, sometimes people who are not doing that get convicted. At times I get that. But you should never feel like you have to apologize for obeying God, especially when your intention is to love the Lord, your God with your heart, mind, soul and strength.

Amen. And I would say that we shouldn’t be seeking popularity. And you’re like, Amen, amen. You’re probably thinking in your head, but how often are we actually subconsciously seeking popularity when we’re out in groups, when we’re at events, when we’re thinking about our friendships, when we look at social media and we look at someone else, maybe with lots of friends around them and these glorious perfect pictures and events and things that you’re not at or weren’t invited to or whatever the case may be. Are you seeking popularity? And I would say maybe, maybe not. I hope not. I really want we want to seek as deep friendship. We want to have good friends. And if it’s that desire, that’s wonderful. But we don’t want our kids to seek popularity either, because there’s no way to be popular and be biblical when the world is falling apart from a spiritual perspective. So if you’re if you’re desiring popularity and lots of friends in this really amazing life with massive number, lots of number of connections, then you’re setting your kids up for something that’s going to be even more difficult when the world is even more different when they launch in the future. It says right here in Galatians 110 four, I am now seeking the approval of man or of God. Question Mark Or am I trying to please man question mark. If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. We’re actually not supposed to please, man.

We are not to ever try to please. Man in a way that moves us away from biblical truth, causes us to hide the light of Christ or anything like that, where to please God. And so what does God want for us? That’s the most important question. It’s the most important question you want your kids to care about in their own lives as they grow older. So I hope they experientially witness you in some form or fashion that you are asking that question versus getting sad about being alone for whatever reason. And I would encourage you to stay the course and maybe the aloneness is because you’re trying to ride both lines still. And this is really interesting. I was just thinking about my previous career actually, and there is no way I was outspoken for biblical truth. I would share scripture, I’d run these events or speak in front of 1000 people or whatever. I would have lots of managers with offices around a couple of states, and a lot of them weren’t believers. And it was it was okay back then. Like, I could be a strong Christian and do that today if I was doing exactly the same way. I’m not talking about being resolute, man, and every day being super outspoken. I’m talking just even the way I did it back then. I would not it would not be it would not work. The world has changed. If I spoke scripture in front of a thousand young adults in my speech.

Like you used.

To like I used to that one thing, I’ll be blasted today. And so what would I do if I was still there? I thought about this earlier today. If I was still there, I would move on because that was the. Reason I was there. The reason I was there is because God told me to be there, to be a light to these young adults and to help them and equip them in entrepreneurship, but also life skills and introduce them to the spiritual truth that there is a God through Jesus. And I think that because that was my purpose, that I would walk away from that in a heartbeat because it wouldn’t work anymore. I would have had to dumbed down my influence without the spiritual stuff, and that just wouldn’t have been appealing to me. And so how I think of that example and I go, How often are we not fully ourselves just because of our sphere of influence that we’ve cultivated? And I just think it’s not supposed to be easy and actually we’re going to be unpopular with certain people and we need to embrace that. We need to embrace that we are going to be unpopular and it’s okay.

I would also say to you that while you’re desiring unity and like mindedness with people, that is something that God does desire of his people. And so you standing firm and being courageous on issues that should not even be issues that create division, in my opinion. I’m like literally baffled. Maybe if you if you’re listening and you’re like, has the world gone mad? Has what has happened in this world that people, Christians are even, like swinging on this issue? This is like wild, right? Have you ever thought that have you have you felt that way? If you have thought that the truth is, is that what you’re desiring inside is a biblical thing. I want to read to you from Philippians chapter two, verse one and two. It says, So if there is any encouragement in Christ, see, I hope that you are encouraged in Christ. So if there’s any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. This it says Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. And then it just continues on and in a biblical fashion of how we’re supposed to treat other people right, not looking to our own interests, but also to the interests of others having this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, God wants us to actually be in alignment with each other on the things that matter most.

He wants he doesn’t want Christians shooting friendly fire at other Christians who are more conservative, and he doesn’t want Christians who are more conservative shooting arrows at other people, but instead loving them up, loving them into walking in a more righteous way. And when I say that, I what I mean by that is to we are supposed to challenge one another. We talk about this all the time, this concept of iron, sharpening iron. What else is there a purpose in friendship for? You know, Gary Thomas says in his book Sacred Marriage, that marriage is not about making you happy. It’s about making you holy. And in the in reality, that is the same concept that we need to see that God’s purpose is for friendship. He gave us friends, and it’s not just to make us happy. Does that mean that we enjoy company with one another? Yes, just as much as we enjoy being married. Right. But the truth is, is it’s actually supposed to be creating an accountability, helping us to grow in spiritual maturity, to grow in our love for God, to continue to spur one another on towards being a light.

Right, walking through the hard times together. Because guess what? This message of like, oh, if you’re a Christian, life’s going to be easy. That’s actually false. It is false. Life still happens to Christians and yes, God blesses those who love him. That’s right. He does. But it doesn’t mean that if you’re walking through a hard time where you’re maybe not experiencing as much fruitfulness in your life, sometimes we need to I think we always need to be introspective. Right, and go, okay, is there anything in me, Lord, that I need to learn from this hardship? Did I make a bad decision? Am I reaping what I sowed? Like, we need to be honest, right? We look at all these different scriptures, but then at the end of that introspection, if we have searched our own heart and we’ve said, Lord, search my heart, oh, God, show me if there’s any wayward way in me if there’s nothing. What we need to recognize is that life is hard sometimes. But praise God that He walks with us through it.

Mm hmm.

It’s so he can have an opportunity to be glorified, so you can grow. Because sometimes growth doesn’t happen on the mountaintops when everything’s easy, it happens in the valleys. Right. And so we need to recognize and look back. Maybe if you look back for a second, you see where you’ve come from. You think about the hard remember the hard times that you walked, right? Whether it was a loss of a job or a loss of a child or or death of a family member or maybe sickness or suffering of some kind or. You guys. We’ve all experienced those different things in our life. And I bet if you’re honest and you clung to the Lord during those times, you would agree that those were some of the most strength biblical relationship building times you’ve ever experienced in your walk with God. Praise Him for that. So we need to be like walking and fellowship with people, being transparent about those times, because if we’re like walking through a season of fruitfulness and where we want to rejoice, the Bible says to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. But a lot of times people are much, much better at mourning. Right? They’re much better when people are going through a hard time, because when it comes to really rejoicing with people, when things are going well, sometimes people get competitive and it ruins that opportunity for truly walking in biblical fellowship together and rejoicing with one another and saying, Hey, good job, keep going like you’re in a race, right? And you’re about to pass the baton and you’re like, Keep going to the finish line. You can do.

It. That’s what it’s supposed to be like. Yeah. Cheering each other on, encouraging. But you can’t do that if you’re not willing to be sharpened or if you’re not willing to help sharpen someone else. See if you’re friends with other believers. We are supposed to do that, right? Super important. Second, Timothy 312 says, Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ, Jesus will be persecuted. So all who desire to live a godly life. If you’re not persecuted, you might ask yourself about that if you don’t feel any persecution as a Christian. You might not be letting people know you’re a Christian. And I’m talking about more than the word I’m a Christian. Letting them know by how you live your life.

By being courageous.

If you’re courageous, as the Bible tells us to be, if we’re loving with truth. God talks about how words to be loving to others all over the place. But he also talks about how to stand for truth, how to evangelize and share the truth, how the purpose of life is the end of Matthew. Matthew 28 The Great Commission make disciples of all nations. See if we’re a quiet Christian. I’m not talking. You’re introverted. I’m introverted. But if you’re a quiet Christian, me, I keep that hidden. It’s personal. No, no, no. Relationship with Jesus is not. It is personal and it’s meant to be shared. And if we’re not sharpening the believers around us, if we’re not sharpening each other, the whole group gets a little less sharp and a little more dull and a little less useful for God. Don’t we want to be useful for God? Don’t want our relationships to stir up more usefulness for the for our Creator, for the God we love? I think that is so, so important. So just remember persecution, hardships. God says we’re to expect those. He says all will be persecuted. Mm hmm. I think that’s. That’s really interesting. Interesting. But I think we should talk a little bit more about truth and love.

Yeah. So, you know, this concept of tolerance. So this is this is something that’s going around. It’s been going around for quite a long time. This concept of how Christians are not tolerant. Have you been accused of that before? Or maybe you have been accused of worse things? Maybe you’ve been called a bigot for the beliefs that you have on certain issues which you hold firmly to them, because your belief is based upon your worldview, which is formed by your faith in Scripture. Right. And the truth is, is there is a movement to try to get people to be more tolerant. We see it every day. It’s everywhere to make it acceptable. Tolerance is really accepting sin. Accepting sin. Did Jesus accept sin? No, he actually didn’t. A lot of people say that he didn’t condemn people. There’s a scripture that says that for there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Yes, but for those who are in Christ Jesus, who are walking with the Spirit activated in them, are not going to give way to their flesh either. Right. Interesting how those two colors are correlated. Right. We need to recognize all of what the word says. When Jesus went and was ministering to Mary Magdalene, what did he say? He said, go and sin no more. Right. When he healed people, he would say, Get up and take your mat and walk and sin no more. He literally over and over again was healing people where healing really needed to happen at a spiritual level.

But here’s what happens today. Someone buys a new mat for him and then buys him something else and then doesn’t encourage anything good, any change in their life.

Right. Because that’s what being tolerant and accepting them. But in reality, that may feel good to the person for a brief while, but there’s literally no long term change happening in that person’s life. Real love is when you help them up and you say, Hey, buddy, this is really ripping something really bad in you and I’m scared for you. And there’s this other path towards healing and life, let me tell you about it. And you walk with them through that. But that takes long suffering. That takes truly being willing to go the extra mile. That takes me in the Good Samaritan, actually. And most people who are shouting the tolerance at the narrative are not willing to actually go the extra mile if you really are honest. And so when it comes to tolerance issues, it was interesting. I was just having a conversation with like minded sister in Christ and she brought up this topic that I just want to put it out there for you guys. You can contemplate this. This is something that’s been stirring in my mind, have been encouraging me lately is this concept of how being open minded is actually not a biblical concept? Oh, whoa. What did I just say? So think about this for a second. If we as believers are told to use the Bible as our filter for everything in the world, everything we read, everything we hear, everything we learn, everything, everything right. We we filter things through the Word of God as courageous biblical Christians. If we are doing that, then what is the filter going to look like? Like, if you think of a filter, it has like a mesh screen, right? And depending on your filter that’s there, it’ll determine how big your holes are that things can fit through.

And when it comes to Scripture, God says that His way is what does he say? It’s large. No, he says it’s narrow, actually. And so when we’re reading the word of God and we recognize, yes, that Jesus came for the lawless. Yes, he did. He came to save sinners for which we all are sinners, actually. But he has a way, a guidebook for us, for living that when we do live this way, even though like making the decisions that we make, if we seek God’s word and we try to obey His word, our decisions will make the what we reap will be a little bit easier in some circumstances. In some circumstances. But when it comes to persecution, it’s. Going to be harder. Do you see why we’re saying that? It’s not easy to be courageous. I don’t want you to walk away thinking that if you’re a new believer that walking with Jesus is going to be this, like this is going to be way harder. Because the truth is, is that God’s word is our guidebook. And if we obey it, our life will go better for us. It’s kind of like children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right that you may live long in the land, that the Lord Thy God have to give it thee right? Like there’s this element of blessing that comes when we are choosing to walk and righteousness. That is true, right? When we make wise decisions on friendships, then we’re less likely to be led astray.

That’s true. So we’re not supposed to be open minded about things that are biblical, meaning it is definitive what the Bible says about certain things. And so let’s just bring up the big three that are being used by the enemy to confuse Christians and to create division amongst believers. It is marriage, gender and sex. So those three things are the areas that are being chosen to create division, I believe, by the enemy and used by many people, including believers. And we’re not to be open minded about those issues in in a way that moves away from biblical truth on those issues.

Right. Our filter for our mind is a screen, and it’s the word of God. And we need to just recognize that we have to choose to filter things through the word and not through the world. Romans six six says We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin for one who has died has been set free from sin. Guys, that’s the truth of the Gospel, and that’s what the world needs. And sometimes Christians who’ve been raised in the church need to be reminded of this that Jesus sets us free, that our old self is crucified, that we can walk as a new creation in Christ. And when we walk this way, yeah, sometimes people are going to say things or maybe it’s going to feel unpopular. But the truth is, is you never know who’s watching and for what purpose. God has allowed it to be watched, but there will be a fruit one day. God has the opportunity if you let him use your life by standing firm.

That’s so important. Oftentimes the people that are open minded and change what the Bible says and live in certain ways or people that don’t actually read the Bible very often. Right. So that’s an important thing to think about. Romans 12 nine says Let love be genuine, abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love that going on. It says love one another with brotherly affection. I do one another and showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. And it goes on, actually. Actually, probably very good. Yes. So it says rejoice and hope, be patient and tribulation. So what we’re talking about, be constant in prayer, contribute to these the saints, and seek to show hospitality. There is the equation for good friendship right there. Hospitality, having people in your house.

Being trained for others.

Not being down if there’s tribulation or challenge, but being patient, trusting the Lord. Not a lot of times when we’re not patient and tribulation or challenge, we cut corners. We make, you know, we go, well, you know, I can’t figure this out, so I’m just going to stop being so biblical around this friend to try and build a friendship and, you know, these kinds of things. And I would just say, well, how does it feel not to be yourself? I mean, I understand Paul says be what people need to be said a little different scripture he didn’t say ever deviate from from biblical truth he never did. But what what it is when you’re when you’re witnessing to somebody and when you’re presenting something and relationally connecting with people, maybe where they’re at, but it can’t stay there. Right. You have to still be 100% yourself and you have to move to being 100 even more truly yourself as fast as possible in the entire time. But he’s just saying be what people need right. To build relationship in the beginning, but it can’t stay there. How often does it just stay there and it gets stagnant. You get frustrated and you don’t have deep relationships and you have all these people you know well, you need 100% who you are, right?

Which is actually our first point when it comes to building your tribe. So we just want to end with encouraging you guys on some things that we’ve recognized have helped us over the years with building like minded fellowship with people who are willing to grow, who we just are so thankful for in our life. The first thing is to be 100% who you are. Because the truth is, is the people who are going to be most like minded will be attracted to you if like the real you, if you are showing them 100% you. Does that make sense? If you’re not, you’re going to attract a different kind of sheep, if you know what I mean. And so you need to be 100% who you are, which means you need to be encouraged to be who you are in Christ. Remember that Romans six six verse that I talked about. The old has been crucified, the new has come. We need a walk in the newness of life and in the joy of the Lord. And then that will attract those kinds of people who are also that actually we need to be what we want. Right. And so be 100% who you are. The second thing is to dust off your shoes. I know that this could be taken wrong, so I just want to be really clear about this.

Isaac mentioned bandwidth and we kind of talked about that very, very briefly and quickly. And so just to remind you that every family, every person has very different bandwidth based upon their capacity and what they can handle, what God has already placed in their life. So clearly, you’re not going to put friendships above your first jurisdiction’s, which is your marriage and your kids. And depending on how many children you have and how time intensive it is, like if you’re homeschooling or different things like that, your lifestyle choices greatly impact what is realistic for you as far as how many friends you have. And the goal should never be many people. As many people as possible. An inch deep. No, no, no. You need to have a few very close confidence that you can count on that. They can count on you that you invest in. So if if at all, you’re like in a relationship and things are just you can’t grow like you’re being yourself and you feel like you’re always bringing the challenge and they’re not like you can still stay friends with them. But like as far as them being maybe one of the closest ones, you kind of got to dust your shoes off and just don’t give up and pray for those biblical friendships because God will bring them into your life.

It’s so true and we do need to be introspective at the same time. If you ever are having a difficult time in relationships, we do need to be mindful that we’re not perfect. We do need to look and ask God to reveal to us any areas we can improve to make connecting with people better. Maybe we’re guarded in our relationships because we’ve been hurt before, so we’re not putting that foot forth, that warmth force, that hospitality forth that needs to be there to to kindle relationships. Maybe we don’t pursue people who are strong, even though we want to have relationships to those people because we’re too were to guard it and were to afraid. Maybe fear is driving us away from cultivating friendships with people who appear to be strong. But really you are strong, but you have fear holding you back. So do you think about what are the things that are holding you back from really building your tribe? A tribe I like. That word because tribe contemplates, you know, family. It contemplates, you know, locking arms and going to battle together and and running the race together and fanning each other’s flames and being there for each other and these kinds of things. What is your tribe look like right now? Maybe do a little audit and think about it.

Maybe do some journaling, maybe have a marriage conversation. What does our tribe look like? What do we want our tribe to look like? Yeah, maybe we haven’t really had some vision for what kind of tribe you want to build around you and your children. Because remember, and we’ve said this over and over again, it’s not just those you’re building relationships with. Your kids are going to become friends with each other. And we want to make sure that that’s good for your kids. Right? So all those things to think about and it is really, really important that we’re running the race. Peer relationships when kids are young are so influential, it is unbelievably influential. And I think that has been a big challenge to why so many Christian kids are leaving the faith when they graduate and leave the home is because they’ve been peers with people that really in not all cases, but many cases doesn’t take too many wolves and sheep’s clothing to steer those impressionable kids a different direction. And we go way, way, way, but my kids are going to be alight. Well, how many of those motivated parents where my kids are going to be a light became the people that need a light.

Right. I think, too, that there’s been when I look back on just what I’ve witnessed over the years regarding parenting, I think that a lot of parents also make the mistake to put a higher priority on creating friendships for their children versus cultivating the friendships within their kids like to one another. And the one encouragement that I really, really hope that you gather from this is that when you’re building your tribe, don’t underestimate the power of the discipleship that you are doing with your children, because one day they’re going to grow up and they are going to, you know, Lord willing, they get saved. They will be a sister or brother in Christ, not just your child. And those friendships are actually going to be the ones that you’re going to want to invest in the most and spend the most time with because there is like mindedness because they were raised by you.

So they’re.

Going to be.

More important than your current friends.

Right, in.

Terms of friendship.

But you don’t want it. So this is the thing. Like when Isaac was talking about vision, I was like, amen. Because the truth is, is when you think about what your future is going to be as a family and ten years, 15 years, 20 years, let me just bring this up. A lot of people end up experiencing what is portrayed in movies where their families only get together during holidays. And usually there’s one or two of the kids that it’s their only their by obligation. They’re not there because they want to be there. They’re not there because they’re friends with everybody. They’re only there because they only see each other at holidays and they only allow the the parents into their lives, on their terms when they want it and they have their own life going over here, all the rest, and it doesn’t even look the same. That is not the kind of culture that you want to cultivate in your family. That’s that’s not raising or building your tribe. And God put these people in your life first and foremost. So you’re going to dedicate 20 years or more, 20 plus years to raising your children. What for them to just go off and not have a part in your life, not have a part in each other’s lives? What a waste. So, guys, when it comes to building your tribe, do not neglect or underestimate the power of building strong relationships between your kids as siblings, but also raising them up in a courageous fashion with courageous biblical convictions so that when they grow up, you see eye to eye. You’re like minded and you want to spend time together because it’s refreshing to actually be around one another. You don’t have to try hard. You already know you agree on the most important things and it’s just fun and it’s lively and it’s challenging in a good way. So then what you want?

So then how important is it that the kids that are hanging out with your children are like minded? How important is it for you to model being a courageous parent and to pay attention to these things? And what deep relationships? How important is it to model being 100% who you are all of the time? It is vital to do that. And if you’re not doing that for the sake of keeping friendships, that is a tough proposition. You’ve got to be who you are. You’ve got to be loving to others, but you’ve got to be patient and tribulation and you’ve got to kind of embrace that. If you’re going to be a biblical Christian, you’re going to be persecuted. And a lot of times it’s friendly fire. And you know what? You just have to embrace that because the Bible says can happen to everyone for Christ.

And you know what, guys? There is an encouragement in that when you experience those kind of persecutions, those sufferings, those broken hearts, if you will, you actually get to experience God in a new kind of way to see things, just a glimpse through what he experienced when he was here. And your appreciation for what Jesus did for you will grow so much more and you’ll grow in your relationship with Him in a really unique and special way. And so we just want to encourage you guys to continue to be courageous, even when it’s not popular, and know that at the end of the day, really, the only person that you’re trying to please is the Lord.

Amen.

Thanks for joining us. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to. Courageous parenting and courageous mom. 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

This is a battle every parent faces more strongly today than ever before. There is an orchestrated agenda with the purpose to confuse children in ways that cast doubt on Biblical truth. Unfortunately too often it comes from friendly fire; other believers are unaware of their nominalness, friends, and even family. This episode dives into this challenge with practical insights and empowerment to take effective action. Tune in for practical insights!

Main Points From This Episode:

• Discuss different kinds of lying
• How to talk with your kids when they lie to you
• How to have the right perspective so you don’t get angry
• The Biblical truth about lying
• Tend to their hearts and teach them what the Bible says about lying.

Scripture From This Episode:

Proverbs 12:22 – “Lying lips are abomination to the Lord: but they that deal truly are his delight.”

Proverbs 6:16-19 – “These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.”

Exodus 20:16 – “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.”

Matthew 18:15-18 – “Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Colossians 3:9 – “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds”

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 the following. Hey. Welcome to the podcast, everyone.

Hey, guys.

We’re so glad you’re here. We’re talking about, wow, a really practical, important topic, lying children who are lying, but not just that, but also equipping them to understand how to deal with lying themselves.

That’s right. So we’re going to be talking about dealing with line because this is going to cover both. As a parent, how do you teach your kids about lying? What does the Bible say about lying? But also, how do you equip your children in how they should handle it when someone lies to them or when they lie to someone else? And maybe you’re not there to mediate the reconciliation of that offense. So before we dive into that, though, you guys, we have some exciting news. Yeah. If you if you’re listening, like right as we’re putting this podcast out, those of you who have been faithfully listening for a long time. Thank you. We appreciate you. And you know what’s coming.

Yeah, be courageous. Coffee launch team is building right now. They are the first that get to order it. The first shipment goes out today. Yes. So we’re super excited about that. If you’re listening to this sometime in the future, go to the social media on Instagram or Facebook and you can hit the link to the actual website. But right now it’s a link to the launch team because we’re not letting people know what the website is unless you’re on the launch team.

That’s right. Not not yet. It’ll be complete very shortly. Very soon. We’re very excited about that. You can join the launch team, be the first ones to be able to order the coffee. Guys, I love this coffee. It’s not a surprise. Isaac, are are doing coffee because during every podcast we always have our coffee. Well, I have water today because we were kind of in a hurry to come.

But if you’re watching on Rumble and the reason I say that is a lot of people are like, where’s the videos? You’re not on YouTube. Yeah, rumble. We don’t like YouTube. But anyways, right here, this we’re giving this doing drawings and stuff, having fun with the launch team, giving this cup.

Away, the Joshua one nine mug.

Yeah. So it’s cool.

Yeah. So we always have coffee or tea or whatever when we’re doing the podcast and we love coffee, but this is a special Italian artisan coffee that is actually it’s very good, you guys. It’s it’s Alderwood roasted, right?

Yeah. One of them is the four is a yes in the Kyrgios. So. And the resolute toe.

I love how he says it.

I don’t say it even correctly. I’m sure most of our customers won’t say it correctly, but that’s what’s fun about it. All right.

Oh, you guys. It’s been a fun adventure anyway, so you can find out more about that. We’re super excited for you guys to be able to partake in that with us. It supports the ministry, of course. We’re super thankful for those of you who send in donations and who support us on a monthly basis. We couldn’t be doing this without you. There’s all kinds of expenses that you don’t necessarily know about. Behind the scenes, we have our podcast editing team. We have tools and equipment we have to buy and different things like that. So we’re just really thankful that you guys are on the journey with us, helping.

Us with this full time effort. Let’s go into lying. Lying is something that at one time or another every person has to wrestle with. Would you agree with that? I think that if someone says I’ve never lied in my whole life, they would be called a liar.

Actually.

But it’s something that can be worked and trained out and we can grow and mature into people who literally don’t lie. Not even white lies because a white lie is a.

Lie or a half. Truth is actually a lie also. And that’s what can be. So I think regarding just even false teachers in today’s church, this just popped into my head. There’s a danger and we’ve talked about this as parents to other parents regarding like who is actually the most dangerous influence in your child’s life. It’s someone who claims to be a Christian, but yet is not actually believing or living out the convictions of Scripture because then they can lead them astray easily because they seem trustworthy on the outside by putting the label of Christian on them. And so now this is the thing. We all struggle with sin at some point, right? And the the better that we are at walking in the Holy Spirit and reading the Word and and having relationships that hold you accountable, like your marriage, like friends that are in your life. And even when you’re raising your kids, the less likely you are going to send because one, you know, you’re going to have that accountability. And to when you do, you’re going to be accountable and then you’re going to repent and get right with other people. Right. And so there is this is an important distinction for you to understand that half truths or living things half heartedly versus wholeheartedly, God wants all of us. What did he say the greatest commandment was? Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength. Not half of your heart, mind, soul and strength.

And other forms of lying is a mission to like if it actually lacks integrity. If somebody is asking you something and you only say part of the truth when the you know, they’re really asking for the full truth, but you admit the part that you don’t want to tell them. And, you know, kids can fall into that. Anybody can fall into that. And it’s really important that, first of all, we say this almost every time we’re leading by example and we really have to ask ourselves, hey, are we truthful? Are we truthful? Or do we purposely omit things to manipulate a situation that’s hard? Right. That that can be hard for some people to hear. So we want to work with our kids on this, but we also want to lead by example and be truthful in our own lives. So that’s really important.

So let’s just get down to the nitty gritty. What is the thing about lying? It’s interesting. It’s actually one of the Ten Commandments. It’s the Ninth Commandment. If you go to Exodus, chapter 20, verse 16 with me really quick, I’m just going to read to it. Read it real quick. It says, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. This is a form of line, because what you’re saying about your neighbor is false, not true. And so this is one of the Ten Commandments. This is a great verse that you want to start out teaching your kids. I would say that when your kids are little and you’re raising you’re trying to live biblically, you’re wanting to disciple your children, teaching them and helping them to memorize key verses like you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor and explaining what that means to them, because that might be kind of a complicated thing for a three year old or a four year old to actually understand. They might go false witness. What’s a witness against a neighbor like? They don’t necessarily understand that. What that means is what you’re saying about your brother is true or false, true or not true. And so, like getting really down to the bare bones and describing is going to be really crucial for those little kids. And as they get older and now when I say this, I’m going to assume that the older ones have been explained those things when they were littler, but if they were not, even when they’re older, you need to go, Hey, do you know what that means? But like, if I had an eight or a nine year old and I’d never been discipling them before, let’s say I hadn’t been very purposeful in reading the Bible with my kids.

That is some of the stories that we hear. And you get to this verse and you’re just kind of going through the Ten Commandments, maybe with your kids, stop for a second and go, Hey, can you tell me what that means? Have them repeat it back to you as they understand it, to see if they truly do understand it. And if they don’t, then you can explain it to them. And I would say this is a good tactic to just or not tactic, but skill to use as your discipling your children, regardless of where you’re reading in Scripture or what you’re teaching them, even if it isn’t in the Bible, but you’re explaining something to them and maybe you’re using big words that kids don’t understand sometimes, and they’re just looking at you with glossed eyes. It’s very important that we are teaching our kids what the Bible says about these things.

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 have 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 college 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.

Steve and 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 the lights to be.

Leaders for the next generation. Here’s another one and this one. And by the way, I would keep track of all these and if you want to look at them later. And you’re listening while you’re driving or something. Courageous Parenting has a blog post with all the scripture references for every episode so you can go there. But this one is great. Proverbs 1222 says Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight. What a great scripture to actually teach what lying is. Lying lips. Talk about the lips. The lips create noises and it creates words. And through words is how we say something that’s either true or not true. And maybe give an example of somebody saying something not true for self preservation. Isn’t that why people lie? Is because they’re scared of what’s going to happen if they tell the truth. Or sometimes if they love somebody, they scared to hurt that person. They they love their feelings or to let them down because God put in children to respect the parents and to to respect their authority. And I think God put in every parent I’m sorry, every child, a desire to please their parents, even if they get into a situation where they’re disobedient. Really, there’s that desire there and sometimes they’re lying because they don’t want to let you down. It doesn’t it’s not an excuse for lying. It’s an abomination, as the scripture says. But to talk about the reasons why maybe they’re lying and find out those reasons and talk through that you’re building an experiential understanding in open communication about why in these specific situations that just happened. It’s important for them to still tell the truth to you. And and here’s how I promise to respond with that, is to have a listening ear to discuss it with you. Yes, there may be consequences, but I always want to hear it and I’m always going to love you.

So it’s interesting. The other day I was reading a different verse to my three year old and six year old that also had the word abomination in it. And I would say that that definitely this verse is a great verse, but it’s definitely one that you are going to be able to have the option to go, Hey, guys, do you know what abomination means? Who knows what abomination means? Most kids ten and under, don’t know what abomination actually means. And so when you look up the definition, what you’ll find is that it’s literally it’s synonymous with hatred. So when it’s an abomination to the Lord, it means that he hates it. And so it’s very interesting when you look up the definition, that is the simplest way to describe it to a three year old. He hates it, right? God hates it. And when we as Christians are walking and loving the things that God loves and hating the things that God hates as Christians, we should also hate sin in ourselves and in other people. Not hate other people, but hate sin like we should not want to do sin. The only way you’re going to not want to do it is if you also hate it, right? Because if you kind of like it, that sin is going to be a temptation. So the truth is, is that we need to discuss this concept of really hating what God hates when we love God and understanding that He hates things that are wrong and mean and bad, that he’s full of love and that we want to be like Jesus.

And so you can get really into the foundation of what this is and going, Okay, so do you like it when people lie to you and they’re going to respond and go, No, I don’t like it. I feel like they don’t. I can’t trust them. I feel mad inside and I hate it. And they you can get them to describe the different emotions that they experience when other people lie to them and go, okay, so when you lied to mommy or when you lied to Jimmy, how do you think we’re feeling? Mm hmm. We feel the same way you feel because we’re human, too, and we don’t want to feel that way about you. So what do you think is the right thing to do? And you lead them through this process of what do you think is the right thing to do? I need to admit that I lied. I need to own that sin and I need to apologize for it. Now, this is what’s really important, is that line is not just straight out telling a lie, telling something that’s false. It’s also telling a half truth like we talked about before. It’s also bearing false witness like we talked about before also. But it’s also blame shifting where maybe in a situation you try to shrug under the carpet, the sin that you did, the little lie that maybe you did, and you try to expose and make bigger and blame, shift a different sin onto someone else so that all the attention gets on them. That’s also lying. That’s also not okay.

I see this all the time in the business world. It’s so interesting. Don’t you like those of you that maybe work careers or work or so forth or lead is so often companies will minimize what they did and maximize some other positive over here. They’ll minimize their mistake and then they’ll maximize the positives around and.

Or they’ll blame shift and fire other people and so that they don’t look like the one that was guilty in the first place. Right?

Yeah. It seems like they’re good at that one lately.

I’ve seen that in other companies as well. On a personal level, too. Yeah. And it’s it’s lacking massive integrity. It’s lying. And that’s what you see in older people. If they are never taught the importance of understanding what line is and how it’s wrong when they’re little, when kids don’t learn what God’s word says about lying, when they don’t know that it’s wrong, when they when they aren’t taught that being honest is integral and that it’s valuable and and they’re not affirmed in being honest. Then later on in life, if if it gets brushed under the carpet, which I actually that’s something that I think a lot of parents struggle with today. Right. Like they think that they can have they think it’s peace. They would call it peace, but really, it’s tranquility that they want in their home by not confronting the sin. Whatever the sin is, it might not even be lying. But I see this with line too, because they’re like, Man, I’ve just been correcting all day long. Have you guys ever felt that way? And then all of a sudden your kid will lie to you and you’re like, I don’t want to have to confront this too. So then it just I’m just going to vacuum that one up or sweep that one under the carpet temporarily.

I speak about you for a second because I’ve witnessed this a lot of times, which.

Is sweeping stuff under the carpet, not just.

The opposite of that, which is to actually stop what you’re doing, even though you really need to get your thing done and to spend actually a long period of time to get to their level, to educate them, and to share Proverbs 616 through 19, which I think you’re going to share in a second and share that scripture with them, because it’s such a pivotal scripture. And to really get to their level and understand in in and have a communication where you’re actually connecting at a heart level. And that is so important. Sometimes it’s hard because we have our agenda or things we need to get done, and there they go, lying again. We get frustrated and angry and just do a quick punishment. But that’s not.

That’s not really going to.

Do it. You want to actually you want to look at this bing, bing, bing opportunity, shift your mindset. Here’s an opportunity to train them. Some of the best training you’re ever going to do is when there’s conflict. But it only happens well, if you do it well and doing it well is the opposite usually of what we feel like doing. So, Angie, why don’t you share how you do that using that scripture?

Yeah, well, the scripture he’s referring to is in Proverbs 616 through 19. We also teach this more in depth. I’m just going to read the verse here and then I’ll talk about what Isaac is telling me, asking me to talk about. We do cover this more in the courageous parenting mentor program in the very first session that we do, because we talk about the importance of using a biblical vocabulary with your children when you’re raising them and not labeling your kids like I would never call a child who has lied a liar. And so I’m bringing this up because this is extremely crucial, especially when there’s a massive attack by the devil to try to get people to be confused about their identity in Christ. We do not want kids growing up in a legalistic home that is calling people names and labeling them with the sins that they’ve committed and that becoming part of their identity if a child grows up thinking that they’re alive. Then what can you expect from them as they grow up.

To fulfill to fulfill.

The curse that you have spoken over.

That plane because you have way more influence than you may realize.

Amen. Yes. And so I just want to make it very clear that in this, when we’re identifying the sin and we’re dealing with the sin, we need to make sure that we’re talking about it as this external thing that is not part of who our child is. But we are talking about a sin that they were tempted to do, that they fell and did that they chose to do.

They are responsible. Yes, but it’s not by you. You don’t want to change their.

Identity, right? Exactly. It’s not who they are, but it’s something that they chose. And so they need to own the responsibility of the fact that they chose to do that thing and that they had a choice not to. And so when you talk to them about, well, what do you think it would have look like if you didn’t lie right? And you go down that role playing journey with your child so that they can see how it would potentially play out if they would not have lied. That’s extremely important because sometimes kids feel like they’re stuck, right? Especially when there’s multiple kids involved and there’s maybe even lying happening on multiple people’s responsibility, actually. But what you’re trying to do is deal with your child’s heart. Right. And help them to understand that they have to lead and they need to stand up and maybe be a good example. But Proverbs 616 says there are six things that the Lord hates. Yes, seven that are an abomination to him. So see how it’s putting what the Lord hates an abomination together. It’s very interesting, haughty eyes, which I would say I tell this to parents all the time. Do your kids ever scowl at you? Do they ever roll their eyes? Do they ever glare at you? Do they ever look at you like you’re an idiot? I’m just going to say it, or you don’t know as much as them, do they look at you with haughty, prideful eyes.

That is one of the things that is an abomination to the Lord. A lying tongue. There we go. And hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are that make haste to run to evil. A false witness who breathes out lies and one who sows discord among brothers, brothers in Christ, brothers in a family. So listen to this, you guys. There’s multiple times that God is talking about line specifically. A line tongue literally says it. And those who their heart devises, wicked plans, usually wicked plans involved some sort of line. There has to be some sort of line in that feet that make case to run to evil. You could probably say the same thing and it says a false witness fault that who breathes out lies. There it is again. And it’s actually put in the same category as someone who has hands that shed innocent blood. That’s murder, that’s this is intense. These are things that the Lord hates.

Before you go into more of it, I just think about the world that that is right now. And then the even more changed world that our kids will launch into eight, ten, 12 years from now, depending on how old your kids are and how much even worse in terms of the embracing of lying by society, the the the evidence of lying all around from politicians to basketball players to whoever it is. Not all of them, but many right to just the corruption that is in people’s hearts and how that comes through. And they’re going to see that all over the place. And so this maybe is more important than ever because the pressure and normalization of bad behavior in the world is greater and it will be even greater when they’re older. So no fear at all because we’re going to train them, we’re going to equip them, and they’re going to have the Holy Spirit, hopefully. Right. And these things and God’s going to get a hold of their hearts. But your training really makes a huge, huge difference. And so and by the way, the hottie ice thing, maybe you have a two year old and a four year old and a six year old right now or something like that. This is so important to talk about when they’re young, because if you want to love the teenage years.

He.

Got to instill the importance that hottie eyes is not a good thing. And over and over again they understand what it is and when you see it, you call it out. Too often, parents roll their eyes after the teenager rolled their eyes at them. Right. And they go, Oh, teenagers, teenagers.

They just.

So hard.

And yeah, and they just let them do it as if it’s something that they’ll do. But do you realize that it’s literally creating a habit that’s never going to change? They will be rolling their eyes as far as even your relationship, when they’re older, when they’re raising their own children, they’ll be like, Oh my mom, my dad, right? Like if you don’t teach this ever, it’s not going to stop. It’s partly because it is actually a sin. It’s a generational sin that can be passed down from generation to generation. And I believe it’s one that’s overlooked all the time because people just rub it off and go, Oh yeah, that’s how kids are. But it’s not how kids are. It’s how human flesh is tempted to be sin and have haughty eyes. And we need to draw some attention to it. And. We need to make sure that we’re holding it accountable. So, you guys, I think that regarding just even this topic of like generational sin, I think that there is an element there where we need to be introspective and we need to go. Oc Is this something that I’ve ever struggled with? And if it is, that doesn’t mean that I don’t correct it in my child. It means that I need to repent if I have not, and then I need to use that as an example, a teaching example humbly for my children. And I need to share with them the brokenness that it’s created in my life.

And I think that that is extremely powerful, whatever the sin is. And I think that there’s an element there when we’re talking about things where we bring stuff up like a generational sin, as could be a generational sin. Like how many people, how many families, probably almost every family has experienced this because I bet hardly any families literally tried to nip it in the bud, if you will, or deal with that sin of hotties. Same thing goes for lying lips. If you let your kids, you don’t ever deal with lying. And then they launch from your home. And they’re in the world, they’re not going to be held accountable by anybody else regarding line except for like if they steal something, they get caught and then they’re put in jail. Right. And so the reality is, is it could literally become part of their character, a habit that’s in their life. And I know you don’t want that. We don’t want that for our kids. We know you don’t want that for your kids. But it starts today. It starts by getting serious and understanding the serious ramifications of sin in our lives and our need for a savior. So some people, some kids. I love kids because they are so honest, aren’t they? Yeah. When they are struggling with something, they will just flat out go. I can just feel I can feel like the enemy is trying to get me to do this thing.

I don’t know how many times I’ve had that kind of a conversation with the little kid where they’re like, I kind of want that, but I know I’m not supposed to, and so I’m just not gonna. And then they, like, keep looking at it, right? Like of the cupcake that they really want to touch and lick the frosting or whatever it is. You guys, listen, we need to get down to their level and we need to tell them that that’s human, that you have that temptation. But Jesus can make you strong and he can help you to not fall into that temptation to send. Let’s pray right now and you teach your kids how to cry out to God. You teach them the importance of recognizing their weakness and not being ashamed of it, but understanding that it’s there so that God can be glorified and that we need to be humble. We have to be in a position where we, as all people, regardless of our age, go, I need help. Jesus, would you help me to not lie? Would you help me to tell the truth, having these kinds of prayers over and over again with your littles, I’m telling you, it literally will help them to break the bondage of the spirit of lying. And then they don’t walk with that when they are teenagers. You won’t walk with it when they’re young adults.

Have you ever struggled with sin? Well, the answer is yes, right? Have you ever struggled with a certain sin? Well, the answer is probably yes. And, well, maybe your kids are struggling with lying. And how hard is it in your own strength to overcome a sin that you that you keep having a difficulty with? It can be hard in your own strength. And what does God tell us to do? It tells us to rely on his strength. And so when we’re really quickly saying, you need to stop lying, don’t lie. When you do that, what are you saying in your own strength? Stop this habit you have of lying. I’m not saying that that’s horrible or anything. I’m just saying it’s not as effective. What’s more effective is God helping them? Is the child relying on God to help them? And now what is the bigger opportunity here? You’re pointing them to Jesus. You’re having a heart change and you’re watching this happen. You’re watching Jesus take over your child’s life in terms of helping them to not become a liar. And then they see it happen because you prayed and they’re giving credit to Jesus for helping them not lie anymore, and they’re seeing this change up in their lives. Remember, if we operate on our strength and we expect our kids to operate in their own strength, then are we showing them there’s a need for Jesus? Sin is the opportunity to show the need for Jesus in their lives, to experience God in their lives. And when we shortcut this, we’re missing the whole big picture opportunity to point them to.

God is literally the point. And I think that sometimes we as parents, we get personally offended, right? Like there’s this this truth that if we are the one that’s been lied to and it’s not us mediating between two children that have struggled with lying to one another. Right. But if we’re the one that’s been lied to, we get personally offended. And while I have spoken in other podcasts specifically to this concept of not getting personally offended when your child sins, because we need to understand that their sin is their sin, there is an element of being offended from other people, and that is a real legitimate thing. And that would be an opportunity where you can actually talk to your child about how it has broken trust between you and them, how it breaks trust between them and their sister when they lie to their sister. And there’s an element where Isaac had mentioned omission. And what I just have to bring that back up, because sometimes that is like the half truth and omitting the whole truth, like omitting part of it. So it’s not a whole truth is a lie. I know that for us over the years we use this book called Halfway Herbert that Francis Chan wrote, and it was so helpful.

You guys got to go look it up. I’m sure it’s still for sale, but it has helped us to be able to describe to our children why half truths are lies. And when you omit part of the truth that you’re actually living in sin, that you’re living in darkness, and how that affects your relationship with other people and your relationship with God. And you need to reconcile together with your earthly relationship so that you can also reconcile with your father in heaven and vice versa. And so understanding that there is literally like a separate our sin separates us from God, but it also separates us in our relationship regarding truth and honesty and trustworthiness, in our relationships with whoever we have offended. Am I right? You guys know what I’m talking about. And so in those moments, though, if if you are dealing with lying when it’s been an offense to you as a parent, I want to encourage you to remember that you are the one that is more spiritually mature. At least you should be.

Hey.

And so in that you have a responsibility to restore the one who is in sin gently. And that means that you speak truth, but you do it in love and you don’t get angry. Amen. And so even though you’ve been personally offended, maybe those are the situations where you need to take extra time by yourself first and they have to sit in their room for a little bit before Mom comes in to talk to them. And that’s okay, especially if they’re a little bit older. The reality of what you’re dealing with is a heart condition that’s a sensitive thing, and you need to deal with it because your child, when they grow up, is not always going to have the blessing. Yes. The blessing of being in a home with people who can love them and hold them accountable at the same time when they move out, whether they go to college or they launch into the world and they have their own home, they’re not necessarily going to be living with people who both love them and can hold them accountable. And so that’s a really big deal. And for those of you who maybe are stuck in some kind of bondage of sin, the best thing that you can do is put yourself in the environment, put yourself under authority of someone that you know loves you and can hold you accountable, because that’s going to be the most helpful tool to helping you break free from bondage and holding you accountable in who you want to be.

Amen. And this scripture, Matthew. 18 is often used when there’s challenges in a church, when there’s leadership challenges and and there’s there’s an elder or somebody that needs a correction or something like that. That’s that’s where I’ve heard this used most. But this scripture is for everybody.

It’s the scripture for families.

It’s for families. And that’s the point. So, Matthew, 1815 through 20, it says if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. So there’s the first step, right? This is such a great scripture. And you want to equip your kids and understanding all of the Scripture because this is equipping them for life and how to handle when people lie to them, when they’re in a leadership team and somebody dealing with a problem when you’re part of a community.

All kinds of things and other offenses as well. If someone sins against them in any kind of way, this is the approach that we want to teach our kids to be able to use.

So the first step is go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. By the way, someone once asked me, Wow, there must be a lot of work with so many kids and them all running to you with their problems with the other kids and things like that. And I said, Well, actually we follow this, which is the first thing we tell them to do if they’re old enough, of course, is to go talk to the other person. Some things we don’t even need to hear about minor offenses that they need to solve on their own. Right. Okay.

You want to equip your kids to handle it, is what Isaac saying?

Thank you. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. So that’s when they bring parents involved or.

Or other siblings.

Siblings.

Other friends.

You know, those kinds of things. If you refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church as a period after that. So that’s the third step, is if they’re not listening to a small group, then you take it to the church. That’s why you have to be walking a community. And if you refuse to listen even to the church, let them excuse me, let them be to you as a gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you find on Earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you lose on Earth shall be loosed in heaven.

This is a big deal. This is showing us how important it is that we understand that when we’re dealing with sin and offenses, it’s an eternal heart issue. That’s ultimately the main thing that I get from that last part especially. And so I think that for us as parents to remember that this is an eternal heart issue thing. And when we’re dealing with lying, we need to we need to be diligent and consistent in going to our children and dealing with the offenses as they happen, not waiting too long, making sure that we’re not just brushing it and going, oh, it’s just a little white lie. No, that’s part of the if we continue to let that happen, that becomes part of their character. That becomes a habit in their life that’s not okay. And so what we want to do, though, is to have that approach of understanding like this and how we handle this. Parents listen up. How we handle this will greatly influence our children and their teach ability and humility down the road regarding other sins, it will greatly influence that.

I know that there have been times where I’ve come down really harsh on some of my kids, and there have been times where I’ve done it really, really well, and those times when I’ve not done it really, really well, I’ve had to go back to them and apologize. And so if you’ve made that mistake, I want to encourage you, exhort you as a sister in Christ who’s been there. I mean, we have nine kids and we homeschool, so we’re with them all the time. You have to go to them and you have to apologize for maybe being too intense or maybe not listening enough or maybe interrupting whatever it was. You need to make amends and you need to make it right with your kids. But ultimately, when it comes down to it, they need to understand what God’s word says regarding line and how that affects their relationship with God and their relationship with the person that they lied to. And then truthfully, we have to work on forgiveness. That’s a whole nother podcast is dealing with the forgiveness aspect.

So I think, you know, the final thing and we talked about this a little bit is just having a different perspective. Sometimes we as parents need a shift in perspective. You heard us talk about look at it more as an opportunity to point them to God. Shifting the perspective as as Angie was talking about is not looking at it as a as much of a personal offense, although it is, but not getting angry about it, but instead going, you know, here’s an opportunity to strengthen my relationship with the kids and and to really talk to them about that and teach these things and just realize if we do things in anger, we’re defeating the words that come out of our mouth. It’s kind of defeating they’re not effort you’re putting forth.

They’re not actually going to hear you. I mean, I think that there is an element to where you can exasperate your kids, the Bible warns. Parents not to do that. And if you talk too long with especially with younger ages, right. You can exasperate them. They can get tired of listening to you. And maybe you have too many words to where they can’t actually remember the most fundamental things that you want them to know. And so depending on their age, depending on how they’re wired, I really would encourage you guys to evaluate, especially the moms, because I know that we tend to have way more words than dads have. This is just a really good, honest conversation to have with yourself. Do I repeat myself too many times? Do I use too many big words? Do I go on and on and on about this? Because I really want to make sure that my child never does this again. And I think that we need to be careful to not cross those boundaries, maybe lay some boundaries for yourself. I know that I’ve had to do that with certain things regarding like just even time with certain kids. And I do think too, at the same time, when you’re led by the Holy Spirit, God knows how much your kids need to hear and He will lead you if you are surrendered to him. So that’s my prayer for you guys that as parents you would be fully surrendered to the Holy Spirit, being willing to be used as his vessels in discipling your children and correcting your children, specifically in confronting the sin of lying. And I just pray that you have wisdom as you go about it, that you are not heavy handed and harsh, that you are gentle in how you talk to them, but that you are confident and unapologetic and bold with how you teach the Bible and that you are really equipping your kids for their lives.

Amen. Thanks so much for joining us.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom 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

This is a battle every parent faces more strongly today than ever before. There is an orchestrated agenda with the purpose to confuse children in ways that cast doubt on Biblical truth. Unfortunately too often it comes from friendly fire; other believers are unaware of their nominalness, friends, and even family. This episode dives into this challenge with practical insights and empowerment to take effective action.

Scripture From This Episode:

• The enemy is the author of deception
• God is the author of truth
• With a purposeful effort to confuse children in society make sure you are instilling Biblical truth about the issues.
• Love others well, but our love for others should never perpetuate confusion in our children.
• Your omission silently gives your kids permission to do the same someday
• Always clear up any confusion even if it means talking with your kids about others’ sins.
• Teach your children how to discern for themselves what’s a trustworthy decision, path, or the quality of wisdom coming at them.
• Talk to others in your children’s lives if you need to about the issue.

Scripture From This Episode:

John 8:44 – “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”

1 John 3:18 – “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.”

Galatians 5:19-21 – “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

1 Peter 5:8-9 – “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.”

Romans 12:2 – “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

Romans 8:6 – “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”

Proverbs 27:6 – “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”

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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 the following. Well. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast.

Hey, guys.

Today we’re talking about don’t let anyone confuse your kids. This was requested by many listeners and has to do with the topic we actually talk about often in the app and the parenting mentor program.

That’s right. And today, I think you would agree that confusion is definitely something that seems to be around every corner, lurking around every corner, if you will, as well as deception. Those two things are not to be confused, and we’ll get into that in a minute. But before we before we dive in, Isaac and I just want to say thank you for joining us here on the podcast. And for those of you who have been following for a long time, we just really appreciate you. We are thankful for the ratings on iTunes. Do you know what we are like? Five ratings away from 2000 ratings.

The ministry has got a good rating there. So we’re so.

Appreciative of that. So thankful for you guys. But every every comment, every message that you guys send really means a lot to Isaac and I. It keeps I know it keeps me motivated for sure. I’m one of those people that I like to connect more personally with you guys. And so whenever I get a message, it really means a lot.

Yeah. So, so good and a lot of good things about to happen. So keep your ears peeled as coffee is launching soon. If you want to be on the launch team, you might get some notifications about that. We would love the help with that and there’s going to be a video out soon which really talks about the whole ministry. So make sure you keep your eyes peeled for that on social media and stuff. It’s just a really exciting time for the ministry and a lot of good change that it allows a bigger impact. You might be asking, Well, how does coffee allow a bigger impact of all? You have to see the video, but we’re really excited about it. And there’s going to be a new website at some point where it’s the hub for the whole ministry because right now, right, you go to creator’s parenting dot com and if you want Angie’s blog, you go to courageous mom and the guys. If you want to, you know, check out the shop at Amazon.com. Right.

A lot of dot coms as well.

And then there’s then there’s the app and the app store. But, you know, sometimes people might how do I get to that? So just really, you know, bringing clarity to all that. So, hey, we’re going to dive in confusion, you know, don’t let anyone confuse your kids. I think everybody agrees with that. Why would anybody want their kids to be confused? However, this is a really difficult problem in today’s world. As you know, we’re in a post Christian nation as far as the United States is concerned. And those of you all around the world have probably been post Christian for a long time or never. And so and so it’s a really an interesting time. It’s the time where these woke beliefs are harmful and confusing. There’s a lot of confusion that can happen about lifestyle, about worldly beliefs, even from Christians, Christian Nominalism that even seeps into many churches. Now we love the Bride of Christ, so we’re not disparaging the bride of Christ at all. But we do have to deal in reality that there is a nominalism that has seeped in sometimes for the sake of loving others and really love doesn’t have to be that way. We’ll get into it.

I’d say to that confusion tries to well, confusion doesn’t try to sneak in everywhere. The enemy tries to deceive people. And I think we would all agree that there is a massive attack on our children these days as much as there is on adults. But children are. We all know that children are the future in the sense of leadership of who the future citizens are going to be, of decision making for the Earth, all of these things. And the enemy knows that he is on a timeline. And it seems like the attack on children has definitely sped up, if you will. There’s been a much more at least exposed effort. I think a lot of us are able to see more of what’s going on regarding children’s education, media, movie. And when I say media, I’m not talking about social media, although that definitely if you have teenagers that are on social media, there’s an attack avenue right there. Another attack avenue would be movies, books that are in the library, books that kids are being assigned to read in school. Aside from parental peer pressure that parents have to allow their children to participate in video games or social media or watching certain movies, children are also exposed to a massive quantity of different kinds of peer pressure. When you and I were kids. The peer pressure that we had to be prepared to say no. Do you remember that the just say no verbiage that was being taught in schools? That’s right. I mean, that was that was a huge thing. Just say no to drugs. Just say no to sex. That was something that was taught to our generation when we were in the public education system. Nowadays, that is definitely not being taught. In fact, there’s a different agenda that is being taught, which is how can you know that you’re a certain way unless you try it? And there’s descriptions of how to do certain things being taught to children. There’s teachers using their influence in their position and sharing from their own personal convictions and lifestyle choices, trying to influence other kids to be like them.

It’s a really an orchestrated effort, an orchestrated agenda that we all know about. So which is really difficult. And The Enemy is the author of Deception. But the good news is God is the author of truth. There is truth. And as believers we believe that and we believe in the Bible and so forth. So then as parents, the most important job as parents is to love our kids well and point them to Jesus. Right? That’s the most if you get really down to it and equip them to share the gospel in the future. So that’s the most important thing. So then what is a parent’s job? The parent’s job is to make sure there isn’t confusion, right? To make sure there is truth instilled in their minds and understanding of godly principles.

In part, there’s many different ways that you can do that, right. Like I think of little kids, a parent’s job is more to protect them from confusion so that they’re not even necessarily exposed to confusing or conflicting agendas or lifestyles or different things like that. There is an element of protecting that we as parents are called to do. It is our jurisdiction. It’s our duty as parents, right, biblically. But then there’s also this element of as your kids are getting older, equipping them with so much truth and teaching them that it is right to discern that they do need to judge, especially within the church, when it comes to who they make friends with, who they listen to, who they allow to influence them. We talk about all this stuff in many different podcasts, more in depth than the Parenting Mentor program, but there’s this element of equipping, so there’s protecting and there’s equipping. And those are two of the main ways that you can be truly engaged in this battle, if you will, because I do believe this is a spiritual battle to fight against confusion and to fight against the enemies, plots and schemes to try to deceive your children.

Remember, confusion, just a little bit of confusion leads to a little bit of doubt and a little bit of doubt. Breathe life into more doubt. And pretty soon it can sway a whole paradigm of how a human being looks at the world. And we want to look through a biblical paradigm and the enemy’s constantly trying to whittle away and help anybody. Then began to look through a worldly, self seeking, self glorifying paradigm.

So we want to start off, we’re going to go over a few different scriptures here with you guys that, that to, to kind of really cover some bullet points that are super important here because there are many different ways that your children are potentially exposed to confusing ideology, confusing philosophies, confusing ideas, confusing agendas, if you will. You could call them many different things, confusing issues of the day. Current events, people use different terminology to describe all these different things. But really what it comes down to is that we know that we have we have three enemies, right? We have our flesh, right? The temptation to sin. We have the world, the secular fallen world, and the temptation of the world. And then we have the enemy, the devil, we have Satan. And the Bible gives us some different verses throughout Scripture that will describe who He is in character. We’re not going to dive in deep into that, but but I do think that there is an important thing that needs to be said here. I was just talking to a mom about this in an app and messaging the other day. She was like, I don’t really think I know very much about my enemy. And I went, You know what? I think a lot of Christians don’t. And a lot of times Christians I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this before.

I’ve heard this many times. Well, I don’t want to give the devil any power, so I don’t want to talk about him. And I’m sorry, talking about him actually doesn’t give him power. That’s a lie from the enemy because he doesn’t want to be talked about. He doesn’t want to be exposed for the liar that he is, for the schemer that he is. The agenda that he has to that set to steal, kill and destroy. Right. Like he doesn’t want to be exposed. He likes lurking in darkness. We know this from First John, where God says that we as children of light need to walk in the light as God is in the light and expose darkness. Right? Because then it has no power of us. There is no bondage. It’s when we hide that sins have power in our life. And so as believers, when we think about all of Scripture and we think about who Lucifer was in Genesis, we think about the different things that God has said in His Word that give us insight into his character. We as Christians need to be wise. We need to understand that he has certain character traits and a schemer is one of those things. Right? We know this from Ephesians six where where God is saying to be able to withstand the devil’s schemes, the flaming arrows of the evil one.

So we know that he’s like an archer with arrows, right? Otherwise, why would that even be in scripture? And so when we’re reading these different verses and we’re talking about things, it’s important to go, Wow, God is so good that He is warning us about our enemies so that we can be strategic and prepare our children so that they can be strategic and be able to discern, to be able to obey. Where God says, be aware, be alert, be aware, be alert of false teachers that are going to confuse your kids or deceive them. Be aware and alert of the enemy. Right. So here’s John. Chapter eight, verse 44, actually, before we dive into verse 40 for the part that’s just before I really want to encourage you to read it. It’s too much for me to read here in the podcast, but this whole section, Jesus is basically like saying there’s a difference between being a child of God and being a child of the devil. And he’s literally telling them, like, if you were truly like the sons of Abraham, this is not what Abraham did. So listen to this. In verse 44, it says, You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.

He was a murderer from the beginning, and he does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. This is telling us about the devil. There is no truth in him. He’s out to murder. We can see these different character qualities of the devil, which are terrible character qualities. It says when he lies, he speaks out of his own character. See, God is saying Satan has character. He’s speaking out of his own character when he’s speaking of lies, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me which one of you convicts me of sin? And then he continues on. This is a really important passage of Scripture. I really hope that parents actually study this with their children. Isaac Because it’s important if God, if Jesus himself is saying this and one of the Gospels and He is telling us to be and he’s doing this for our good you guys, he’s warning us that Satan is a liar. He’s a father of lies. There is no lying in God. There cannot be. There is no sin in God. And so if you were to lay those to people before your children, they would clearly go, Well, I want to be on God’s team.

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 have 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 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.

Steve and 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 the lights to be leaders for the next generation.

And so this all makes sense to everybody listening, and I’m sure they’re like, Amen, amen. Angie And that was so good. And but then when it comes to family and when it comes to people close to your family. Yeah, that’s where it gets difficult, doesn’t it? Sometimes it’s this it’s this tension of how do we make sure people aren’t confusing our kids. I get that out there with people that aren’t close to the family. But then how do we handle this with people who are in our family, who have chosen an ungodly lifestyle that kids witness or they are proclaiming things that are wrong? Or as your kids get older and they’re teenagers, they see other family members and people on social media pontificating and supporting things that are.

Their.

Woke, that are terrible. Yeah, right. So how do you handle that? And I think that’s the deeper question that people really want. So we’re going to talk about that. And first, John, 318, it says Little children, let us not love in word or talk. But indeed and in truth, as I looked at that scripture, I’m like, that is the shortest sentence that has so much weight to. It’s unbelievable. It is. Let me just read it again. Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but indeed and in truth, this isn’t written just to little children. If you read first, John, he’s talking about everybody. So we are to not just have lip service and we’re not just to have action. Good deeds. Deeds are actions once you agree to do something good for someone else, but also in truth. And when the Bible is talking about truth, what is it referencing? Biblical truth, sound doctrine, what is real? That is true.

And so isn’t that true about like what our kids see in us? Also, like you could spend all day talking to your kids or at your kids, but if they see you literally doing something that you have also taught them or if you haven’t taught them, but they see it all the time, like, let’s just I’m going to use an example forgiveness. Maybe you haven’t sat down and taught your kids about forgiveness, but have they seen you forgive your husband? Have they seen your husband forgive you? Have they seen you guys come together and forgive one another? Have they heard you talk about to one of their siblings the importance of forgiving them? Have they experienced you worshiping God because he’s forgiven you and seen you being reflective during communion for the forgiveness of it? Like there’s so many aspects where what we’re doing is more important than what we say.

And this really comes to the question about what do you do with family? And people close to the family is we need to love others. Well, and that scripture is talking about how also we should love others as well, not just in deed but also in truth. Do we omit truth because we’re scared to hurt the relationship? Does that fear of hurting the relationship then continue confusion in our kids? Does that confusion our kids continue? Because we’d never would want to say anything corrective or disrespectful about somebody that’s an extended family member. But we we have that desire and that sense tends to trump the God authorized directive to make sure our kids are not confused, to make sure that we’re discipling them and equipping them, and we’re allowing someone influential then to be pontificating and doing things in their life in a way that doesn’t get corrected, even if it’s silently between you, just in your child, and now by omission, you are authorizing what they’re seeing. I hope you heard that by omission. Not talking about something with your kids. You are actually authorizing in their mindset, something they’re seeing out there but somebody they love doing. So I think that’s pretty convicting, but it’s truthful. See, our love for others should never perpetuate confusion. God would never have it be that way, especially for children.

Yeah. I even think about like how many people actually, they think that they’re loving the other person by and respecting them and whatever you want to call it, tolerating the sin, all the things they think that that is greater. And, more important, justified in their brain. They must have justified that in their brain, then correcting it with their child. But what they don’t understand is that by allowing their child to be deceived or be confused by what the other person is doing and not talking about it, it’s the most unloving thing that they could do as a parent for their child. So what they’re actually choosing to do is, in their mind, they’re loving this person, but actually they’re not loving their own child in that way. Yeah, and that’s an important distinction that we as Christians need to understand that we’re actually putting priority over this adult over here who’s maybe an extended family member or a neighbor or a friend. And we’re putting this idea of what love is, which isn’t actually love at all, because that person is literally living in bondage of sin and they’re lost. And if we loved them, we would try to help them to find breakage from that bondage, which there’s freedom in Christ. Right. And so and there are gentle ways of being able to communicate that with an adult. But the reality is, is if they have chosen this thing and they know the gospel and you shared the truth with them, and they’ve chosen to not walk in the truth, but they’ve chosen to walk in the flesh. By just allowing that friendship or that relationship to go on. There’s no boundaries. And to let it just continue on the way that it was before, at the expense of your child is unloving to your child.

Hey, you know, if you read about elders and pastors in the Bible and the qualifications for elders and pastors, you know, it’s talking about one of the things they’re to do is to protect sound doctrine in the church, to adhere to biblical truth and protect that. And they’re not to allow divisions to come in about myths and things like that. But how much more actually does God want us to do that for our own kids? Remember, husbands, you’re the pastors of your own family and wives. You’re incredibly important spiritual leaders in your family, of your children as well. And so it’s so and you’re that team, that marriage team, that spiritual leadership team in your family working together. And how how important is it that you never allow your flock to take the church analogy real quick, to be confused, to get wayward on unsound doctrine, to attach some worldly thing, and to allow adultery to exist in your family because they’re witnessing it existing in extended family members.

I even just think about sin, you know, we know that there’s sin of omission, sin of commission. There’s like we all sin at times and sometimes we’re unaware of sin. But there are certain sins that people literally choose to walk in a lifestyle of sin. And those are the sins that are outwardly being pushed on children. For children to join in on those things, there is an effort, a concerted effort like we talked about by the enemy to try to deceive children into not just tolerating, but also participating or wanting to participate in the future in sexually immoral sins that are going to be choices that are lifestyle, choices that are like continual sins. I want to read to you guys from Galatians chapter five, verse 19 through 21, and the part before the part before again is talking about the difference between walking by the spirit, walking by the flesh. This is super important. And so we need to have realistic expectations of people who are not saved, who are lost. They will not have the ability to walk by the spirit because they don’t have the spirit in them. And so we need to have compassion and grace on them. But that is also what should motivate us to share the truth with them so that they can experience the power of the Holy Spirit, helping them to walk by the Spirit and not by their flesh. Right? That’s the distinction. But in verse 19, it says, Now the works of the flesh are evident sex, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these. So there’s a whole bunch more things like these, and then it continues. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

So there needs to be a point of clarity made with your children in the most loving way you can for the other person, of course. And while you still want your children in most cases to still respect these other people and so forth, in some cases you may not if it’s such a terrible situation, in a challenging situation, but you have to discern these things. And so we want to talk about these things in the best possible way. And so remember, parents, that’s a different category. It is a unique category. When you think of parents. Parents do not have as much leniency to allow things to fly in terms of communication from others towards the people that are in their jurisdiction. They have God authorized people in their jurisdiction to disciple and raise up.

God is it’s actually their authority. They are supposed to be doing this because regardless of if you’re exercising your authority or not, guess what God created at the beginning of the world? When He created man and woman and the family unit, he created image bearing. And as parents we are image bearers to our children. And we need to understand that that brands God to our children.

And that comes our children come before any other sphere of influence outside of the family. That is the priority, and we all agree with that. But then what are our actions actually show? Do we allow certain relationships to allow confusion to be perpetuated on our kids? And then we don’t even correct it. Now we’re not isolationist. We don’t believe in. Completely isolating our families from the world and from people in the world on these kinds of things. Absolutely not. But there is a discernment. Very young children, the very careful and protecting them. And as they get older and they get stronger, you want them to experience conversations and things to where they come back and you have good discussions about it and you correct any confusion, you correct any unbelief or wrong communication that has come at them from the the arrows of the enemy or the arrows from just people not thinking rightly.

And I do think that it’s important. I think that one of the most positive things that a parent can do, because we’re talking about what they can do, what they should do. We’ve been talking a lot about what you do to protect your kids. Right. So it’s kind of like, okay, well, there’s probably going to be some relationships where you need to put boundaries around them. That’s a hard thing to do. Here’s an easier thing that’s more fun to do. You get to actually help cultivate. You’re going to do this with prayer, with insight, with discernment, with judging, in alignment with your spouse. But you guys get to cultivate good community, like minded community, where your kids are able to grow up with people who are like minded, who love the Word of God, who view things the same way that they do. And so it’s not that they’re isolated because they are around other people, but you’re choosing who they’re around so that as their worldview is being formed, it’s not being formed in a confused fashion. It’s not being formed on lies, it’s being formed on truth. And while you’re doing that, you teach them about what’s being taught over here in the world from a biblical worldview here and there, age appropriate conversations. But it’s not like they have to literally go experience the thing in order to learn it. No, that is a lie. That’s what you actually see the the hole in the whole. There’s pride parades and there’s all kinds of crazy things happening with drag queens out there. They’re literally exposing children to something sinful to teach them.

And to normalize it and then to raise up a generation of people who normalize all of these things.

You don’t need to teach kids by having them go experience something, is what I’m saying. Like, that’s a lie, actually.

So our next point is, and we kind of talked about this, but we’re going to talk a little at length and how is always clear up confusion. So when do you clear up confusion? Always clear up confusion. Well, what happens with so-and-so? Always clear up confusion. Remember, a mission is.

Giving permission.

Of permission to that. And so if there’s something happening close to the family or with family member and so forth, within reason, you need to clarify and, and in the way to do that is. Well, what let me ask you, what would be the loving way to do that with your children as much as you can, remaining the reputation of the respect for the love for the other person while differentiating.

What they’re doing.

Their sin, what they’re doing is sin. And if they’re non believers then you can teach them about that. They don’t have the Holy Spirit. This is what happens to people that don’t have a mind of Christ and so forth. And this is, you know, they’re following the ways of the world and these are really normal things, unfortunately in the world. I don’t think it’s bad to say that we need to prepare them for the world they’re launching into.

And so and we need to be praying for them. Like if we really, truly are people who love God above other people, like, I know that’s a hard thing to say, but who’s number one in your heart? Everyone talks about priorities and how God’s they’re number one. But this is really where the rubber meets the road or where like the truth is revealed. If God is number one in your heart, if you truly care more about what He thinks than you do what other people think. This is also the test of if you have truly surrendered all to him, including your opinions in your convictions. This this is a test above all tests. Right. And when it comes to our faith with our children and bringing them up, if there is hypocrisy anywhere, if we’re willing to just be lenient over here a little bit on this doctrine, because our kids chosen a lifestyle of sin, da da da da da. What does that teach our other children? And we see this so much with older parents, don’t we? Like as we’ve grown older and kids, we’ve gotten.

Older, so many parents follow the watered down doctrine of their kids.

Their wayward.

Children.

Yep. And I would say another way to put that is that we have definitely witnessed people actually sacrificing their own personal, deep convictions, which are based on Scripture that they always believed they’re sacrificing them for their children. And what that tells me, they think that that’s being loving. They think that they’re they’re they’re they literally have chosen to love their children’s sin more than loving God is what that has done. And so we need to be aware of this and recognize that there is like and it’s subtle, you guys. Sometimes it starts out it’s a slippery slope. It’ll start out so subtle just to, oh, I’ll lean up a little bit there, because if I if I really point out my sin and the teenager, then they might rebel. So I’m not going to say anything. Have you heard this from other people? This is literally the most disastrous thing that you could ever do as a parent. If you are claiming Christ and you have been raising your children in spirit and in truth, and then you go back on that out of fear. Which are based upon lies from the devil. By the way, I just want to bring that up. Then that child literally gives way to their flesh.

Hey, first, Peter. 5839. It says, be sober minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour Resist him firm in your faith, knowing the same kinds of suffering of being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. So it’s not an abnormal thing. This is the thing happening all the time to people. The enemy is trying to destroy everybody. And there’s we’ve got to make sure that we’re not letting the enemy have any footholds in our family through extended family. We’re not letting the enemy have any footholds through other relationships, other influences. We’re going to correct that in a biblical way. We’re going to love others. Well, while talking about what the Bible says, well, let’s say there’s some really bad idolatry happening and your child is being influenced. Your your middle schooler is being influenced to have this idolatry over something and then go to Scripture and read what idolatry is and talk about how God doesn’t like it and why it’s so bad. Because idolatry is one of those ones where it doesn’t appear to be that bad. Oh, that person is just ambitious actually.

One of the.

Ambitions within reason. True. And you know. But but when something becomes distracting away from a relationship with God becomes more important than time with God in the Bible and these kinds of things. And it deters and it changes and it creates an unhealthy competition between them and others. And all of these things like sports can be adulterous sometimes, all kinds of things, right? And so what are we teaching about our kids so that they have a correct view on that? And there’s, of course, all kinds of other worst things in your mind probably you.

Can think of. Yeah. So I think that when you’re evaluating so some of you may be listening to this going, Oh man, this is a heavy hitting podcast, Isaac and Angie and where do I where do I even begin is probably where some people are thinking. I would say the first question you need to ask when it comes to confusion and evaluating the friendships, the the relationships that curriculums or teachers or influences or environment or culture that your kids are in. I’m talking activity school, all the things youth group, literally you need to evaluate all the things that you’ve decided as a family to commit your children to, because every time you put them somewhere, you’re putting your stamp of approval on that person that is influencing them and what is being taught, even if you disagree with it, because what are you doing when you’re sending them into school? You’re literally like, Do you got everything? You got your pencils, you got your journal. Pay attention. Take good notes. Did it like that is literally like you’re telling your child to learn from that person. Do you even know that person? Like you need to know them. And so so you can ask yourself this one question is this person confused themselves?

Hmm.

That is the first question that you need to ask. Is this person confused? Then I would say the next question is, is this person deceived? Because confusion leads to deception. Kay. Confusion can be deception, but it also leads to further deception. Sometimes this is interesting. I was looking up the definition of deception. Deception can happen by way of lying, but there are other forms of deception as well. Confusion, though, is the inability to think clearly or being bewildered. Right? So a person can think clearly about something and be open to having a good conversation and go, Oh, now I see. Oh, thank you so much for clearing up that confusion. But a deception is different. It’s when someone has been deceived and they are literally believing lies. That is their conviction. And if they are in a teaching or influential position, then what do they do? They turn around and they teach from their worldview, which is all muddled up by the deceptions that they believe in life about all the things. I’m not going to rattle them all off. Now, how do you how do you get to this place where as a parent, you go, okay, but how do you not get confused? How do you protect your kids from being confused? How do you protect your kids from being deceived? You have to teach them. They need Jesus. Yeah, you need Jesus. You need His Holy Spirit. Your kids need Jesus. They need His Holy Spirit. But you guys, you cannot underestimate the power of the Bible. The Bible is where our minds are renewed. Amen. In Romans 12 two, it says here, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed. How by the renewal of your mind.

And you get to help your kids have a renewing of their mind about any areas they’re confused about by other people. And how do you know if they got confused? You need to have an open, good dialogue relationship with your kids where you talk about anything and everything they need. You need to give make them feel comfortable talking to you about anything, even if it’s things you don’t want to hear. They need to feel that comfort from you by your reactions when they’ve talked to you about things before, do you overreact or you calm in a good listener and asking questions and not jumping to conclusions? That is vital if you actually want to know where a kid is being confused.

You know, it’s interesting too, because this concept of renewing your mind, I think that, you know, Isaac and I, when we were planning this podcast, we even talked about the scripture verse. It says, Your heart is deceitful above all things or deceived above all things, depending on your translation. And we are talking about the importance of this concept of understanding that in our humanity, our flesh can become deceived. In our humanity. We have blind spots and we don’t see sin in different areas of our life. That’s why we’re constantly saying, Hey, parents, take the rose tinted glasses off. Look at your child. In reality, look at yourself. In reality, look at the world. In reality, rose tinted glasses off. That’s the first starting point. Second starting point is being honest and being humble, understanding that you need to repent, understanding that your child is struggling with the sin so that you can actually help them. You have to be honest about that. And if you’re constantly hiding it, no progress will ever occur. But in this scripture that I just read to you about being transformed by the renewal of your mind, it’s for this reason. Listen that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Yeah, it’s all three things. What’s good, what’s acceptable by God, but also what’s perfect. And like this is this is how you teach your children like so many of you are going. But how do I teach my kids to know when they’re being taught something confusing? This by being renewed by their mind and then right.

And then not by when the renewed by their mind, they’re able to discern such a good word. And she’s very discerning, discern what’s happening with somebody they’re interacting with somebody that’s trying to influence them, someone that says something wayward that they thought they could trust.

Or if someone tempts them into sin and says, Hey, let’s go do this, this will be so cool. What if we were to post this on Tik Tok? We would get so many likes. I bet there’s conversations like this happening with some of the teenagers. Yeah.

I talk, by the.

Way, for sure. Well, yeah. We’ve never been on TikTok and we never would be because we don’t want China to own our faces. I’m just going to say it. But the reality is, is that we need to teach our kids to discern when someone is like so focused on what the world thinks and what is going to be popular and all these kinds of things that should be in your kids mind. It should be, oh, red flag, right? Teach your kids what are yellow flags? What are red flags? They should have red flags and yellow flags popping up, especially if they’re older. Understanding this isn’t biblical yellow flag. This isn’t biblical red flag. Like, you know what I mean? Like, our kids need to be able to discern that. And Romans eight six says for to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. So, parents, you have to read the Bible with your kids so that your kids have their minds set on the spirit, and there will be life and peace in your home. That’s what this is saying. Yeah, there’ll be life and there’ll be a peace about your parenting because your kids are walking in the spirit so important now.

Discernment. How do you discern? How do you know? What do you look for? Will you look for the fruit in their lives? God says over and over again in the Bible. Well, how will you know? You look for the fruit. Is the fruit good? Is it average? Is it great? Is it bad? You know, you’ve got to discern these things. Well, there’s lots of good fruit over here, but there’s just one little bad thing. Well, what happens when you put one bad piece of fruit in a basket full of good fruit? Yeah. See, having these agricultural conversations is powerful. Gardening with your kids could be incredibly important. You have a plant that fruitful conversation, bad fruit on it, and you have plant over here with good fruit on it. Well, let’s talk about why does this one have bad this one. Oh, there’s some over there’s there’s some problem with the dirt, the soil over here. There’s a, you know, some some pests that are getting to this one, but not this other one.

Or maybe the plant is diseased.

There’s disease and things, and you go.

Wait a minute beyond help, and then you need to pull it out. Otherwise it’s going to destroy the whole crop.

You go a little, Charlie. This is like human beings. Yeah, we’re like plants. And we got to look for people that have good fruit. And sometimes you can’t tell the fruit yet because it takes time to be around somebody. But once you start seeing that fruit, then you can start making judgments, not being judgmental, but judgments for yourself. On discerning is this someone I want to take wisdom from or not? Is this someone I want to spend more time with the same amount or less? They have to start to discern that if you’re working that discernment muscle as they get older and they understand this and they understand the Bible, that’s important. And Andrew was just talking about renewing your mind. So look at the fruit, but you can’t renew your mind without the Bible. I mean, there is an aspect of we do have the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit convicts us and it does help us renew our minds. So I’m not going to discount the power of God. Right. But in addition, he also gave us the word of God, which is so.

The sword of the spirit. It’s part of our armor. You know, I even think about like the helmet of salvation protecting us, like our if we’re setting our minds on the spirit, then we’re going to be thinking about things that God wants us to be thinking about. I even think about the passage in Philippians that talks about thinking on things that are noble and and peaceable and lovely and lovely and that are righteous and and it’s like, okay, that is a great practice. That’s a good thing that you can teach your kids to do. And we need to be doing that as parents. But we also don’t just ignore the realities that are not peaceful in the world. We don’t ignore them. Instead, we go, That’s not truth. I’m going to have my focus on the Lord, but I’m going to equip my children so that they don’t get confused and then deceived and start believing this lie that’s over here in society when you’re so focused on like, I need to protect myself, I can’t handle this. This is so overwhelming. And I know many moms feel this way. That’s why I’m bringing it up. So many moms are like, I’m just I’m going to just focus right here on my kids because the world is just way too overwhelming and I’m scared for my children.

Okay, can I just say something if you have fear like that or overwhelm. Ignoring the fact that you have fear and overwhelm is not going to make it go away. You actually need to repent and you need to grow in strength and in constitution and understanding that God has put you here for a purpose, that He will equip you as a saint because you are his royal priesthood. And he has called you to read his word, to grow in strength, to be able to see the truth and not be shocked by it and go. These are the days that we live in. I’m going to stand strong. I’m going to stand for righteousness. I’m going to point people to Jesus, especially my child. Do you see the difference in this like timidity and fear? What does that do? It literally disables and cripples people from doing the work they’re supposed to do. If we want our kids to stand firm in their generation for for goodness sake, we have to start doing it now.

And by the way, you start to feel so good when you take new action, when you take good action, when you start equipping your kids, when we don’t feel good is when we just coddle them and do everything to protect them because there’s no equipping happening. Actual equipping like you can give people food, but isn’t it better to teach them how to grow their own food? That’s what you’re doing. That’s what this whole ministry is about, is in empowering you to look to the scriptures. And from experience that we have and we share to to equip your children while they’re young so they go in the right direction when you launch them.

Lord willing.

Lord willing. Right. Only God can save. But you have so much influence in it, so you’re so important equipping. So we were just talking about teaching how to discern, look for the fruit, be in the word, teach them scripture, talk about it, dialogue with them. Scenarios. Don’t just give the answer. Well, what do you think about what they said? Let them wrestle with the themselves. You’ll find out where they’re at. And you know what? Usually you’ll grow in confidence about your kids intelligence. When you don’t just give them the answer, you let them wrestle it and talk about it. And then you go, Wow, that part right there is really sound. But what this part right here, I have a little wisdom for you. You mind if I share with you? Yeah. Okay, here it is. And they’re like, whew. I just grabbed on to that mom because you just valued the part that I came up with, and you made me feel smart. And then you gave me a little nugget, and I grabbed on to it like it was my own. I’m so excited to keep that forever. See, the way at which you equip is important. It needs to be a coach relationship honoring approach. It’s really important.

Grace So think about that way. You’re communicating to to teach them how to discern and equip them. And the final thing is to communicate with others. Sometimes you need to sometimes you need to communicate with other people who have influence in your family. And we want to do everything in a way that hopefully grows a stronger relationship. You know, sometimes when there’s some truth shared in a relationship and you go through something together and there’s forgiveness and there’s talking things out and so forth that you actually see more eye to eye than before you actually grew in relationship with them. So potentially our fear of hurting relationships is hurting relationships. Potentially. Our fear is is holding us back to decisions made in fear, usually the worst decisions possible. And right here in Proverbs 27 six, it says, Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Profuse are the kisses of an enemy. Kisses of an enemy is flattery. It is telling people what they want to hear. It’s making them making your words amicable for short term relationship. It’s to make them good for getting what you want. And maybe what you want is just no conflict. I just want peace. I just want no conflict.

But what they’re really doing, they’re not actually pursuing peace because peace is impossible to have without truth. What they’re actually just trying to create is tranquility. We talk way more about this in one of the podcast interviews that Isaac did with Pastor Steve Crain. You can go look that up. Very important.

Blessed be the peacemakers.

Yeah, that’s the name of the podcast. You guys have to go listen to that in conjunction with this. I definitely think that that would be an additional encouragement to you if you haven’t listened to that. But all in all, what this is saying is that if you love your friends and you’re a faithful friend, then you’re going to actually point out that sin when you see it because you love them and you don’t want them in bondage. And you know that sin, the wages of sin is death, that, you know, you understand, again, like teaching agriculture, this is something that I’ve taught the kids for many years. When you have weeds and weeds are smaller, they’re much easier to pull than when they grow into being these huge thistles that literally will break a blade on a tractor. It’s the same thing with sin when you let sin go. When it’s a little sin and you don’t. Correct. And over and over and over again. Because you’re just so fearful or you’re just so tired, or you don’t want to hurt the relationship. Guess what happens? That sin gets more and more control in that person’s life and it gets bigger just like that we did. And then it gets harder for them to let go. And then they love it so much that they’re willing to keep the sin and let go of the friendship. And you don’t want that. I know you don’t want that. A faithful friend wants their friends to be walking in the freedom that is in Christ.

Jesus in a faithful friend would understand that that little wound from hearing some truth is in love and would grow your friendship stronger. And you may discover who your real friends are as you do this, because some may disappear. And but we always have to do things in love. We have to pray beforehand. We have to find common ground. We have to talk about not just the challenges, but what you appreciate our people too, and mention and ask permission to share something with them. People are much more receptive when you go, Hey, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about and do you mind? Is this a good time? Do you mind if I share it with you? And just what happens from a psychological standpoint is they actually, even though tepidly in their mind, they’re like, Oh, what’s coming? They say, yeah, of worse. When someone vocalizes, their receptiveness just went way up. You also just gave them a little warning before you shared something so they can prepare the heart. They can be thoughtful for a second before they even found out what the thing is. So that is a really important coaching tip or relationship tip, whatever you want to call it, but you need to do that and then you share it and you wrap it in love and you hope for the best and you.

Continue to pray for them, too. And I think that, you know, hiding the truth of these kinds of situations from your kids is probably one of the most detrimental things that you can do for your children, especially if they’re older children, because this is actually something that they need to learn how to do. And if we’re going to teach our kids, you need to choose friends wisely and you need to confront your your friends when they’re in sin, too. If we’re teaching these biblical truths to our kids, if we’re just reading proverbs to our kids and saying, do proverbs, but they don’t see us doing proverbs and they don’t know the stories of what we’ve dealt with and the outcomes, both the good, victorious, God pleasing God magnifying stories as well as the ones where people have walked away and it hurt. But we live with no regret because we found out who they really were like. Our kids need to understand that. They need to see us living it out as well. And so just like Isaac and I have done podcast on living out life trials and being transparent with your children and how that can grow your family culture and grow their faith in God and grow their their belief in prayer and all of these awesome experiencing God elements. The truth is, is that if we ourselves as parents are not willing to share with our children and I’m talking about like age appropriateness, obviously, and you want to protect your kids from being able so that they can have respect for certain family members and different things like this.

I’m talking about like on a level of friendship, why are we not spending time with those people anymore? That is an opportunity where if you prayerfully think about it, pray about it, and God gives you permission to share that with them, you should. So what I’m posing before you is that after you have done biblically what God has called you to do to try to step in the gap and protect your child from becoming confused after you have confronted the person that is walking in deception. If you are at a crossroads and that person goes one way leaves or there’s victory, pray about if you can share this with your children, because that those kinds of testimonies are what your kids need to see to help them be equipped to know that we are the kind of people that love God enough to actually do what the Bible tells us to do. And we’re not just going to be mouth pleasers. We’re not just going to say these things, but we’re actually going to do.

Them deed and truth. And sometimes the question might come up, Do we always need to communicate with other people? No, actually, you need to discern, is this something I need to talk about or can I just correct this one thing with my children and equip them and that’s something for them to handle. We don’t need to handle everything for our kids. In fact, as they get older, them handling it themselves is more and far better in almost all situations. And so we don’t need to always be in the middle of every relationship or anything like that. We don’t need to always be communicating with others. The best thing in the world is. Is it you’re quipping your kids so they actually in real time share their disagreement with others that they even love and respect in a loving way. And that’s what you’re working up to. You’re working a muscle of them, seeing you talking to them about it. You’re doing it in your life and then they’re getting older and they grow into have worked that muscle, witnessed it, having the courage in the biblical understanding and the discernment of to go, you know what? I don’t think that’s something I want to participate in because the Bible says this. And what do you think about that?

Yeah. Sometimes just equipping your children with the ability to remember where Scripture is and to ask a question that’s like the best way for them to be able to confront friendships or situations, because usually it kind of flabbergasted the person, if you will, or it kind of like stuns them. It puts them in a posture of like, how can I argue with that? They just quoted scripture, oh, do you know what I’m saying? And so like, that is really, truly the best form of equipping. But when it comes to our hearts and our minds, I just want to wrap up reminding you what the first and greatest commandment is that Jesus said. He said to love the Lord, your God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength. Yes. And when we do that, when we love him with our whole mind, heart and strength, we’re going to pursue the Bible and our minds will be renewed. We’re going to be in tune with the Holy Spirit. And we, like Philippians, says, we can plead with Jesus to be the one who actually guards our minds and hearts in Christ Jesus.

Right? When He’s guarding our heart and our mind in Him, then we’re less likely to become deceived, right? And so we need to look at the word and go, Wow, God, thank you for this wisdom. Thank you for your warnings. Thank you for your guidance. Thank you for giving us such great equipping tools to help us in this process. We’re thankful for them. We’re thankful for them in our personal life. We’re also thankful for all the things that God’s taught us in our parenting, and we’re just sharing them with you guys. We would love to hear from from you how this podcast has impacted your life today. So please leave us a comment on iTunes or shout out on social media, tag us. We’d love to hear about it and we just so appreciate you guys. But more than anything, we want to hear the testimonies of how God is transforming your families, how your kids are standing up for truth and righteousness, and how you’re feeling more equipped to be standing and running the race with us as courageous parents who want to glorify God.

Amen. Thanks for joining us.

Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom. 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

The speed of change requires something different from parents today. It’s even more important to understand the trends that are influencing the future so that we can equip our kids today to handle those future challenges well. Have you thought about what jobs will no longer be available because of AI? How about the move towards transhumanism and authoritarianism? Just a few of many things that should cause us to adjust how we equip our children today. Tune in for the practical insights!

Scripture From This Episode:

• It’s vital to teach your kids public speaking, sales, and entrepreneurship.
• They need to be well-versed in knowledge about how the world works.
• Help your children grow in confidence communicating with adults.
• Encourage them to rely on the Lord when facing difficulties and glorify His name when He comes through.
• Equip them in Apologetics so that stand firm for their faith when it’s challenged.
• Prepare them to know when to defy authoritarian control.
• Help them understand the value of freedom and the dangers of socialism.
• Transhumanism is a big part of the world they will be living in. Make sure you help them understand what the Bible thinks about their body.
• It’s more important than ever they grow up in a home full of people who experience God in their lives. Where God is a daily topic, where prayer and bible teaching is vibrant.

Scripture From This Episode:

2 Timothy 3:12 – “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”

2 Timothy 4:3-4 – “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”

1 Corinthians 6:19 – “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?”

Titus 1:9 – “Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.”

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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. Hi. Welcome to the podcast, everyone. Isaac here. My wife Angie couldn’t make it today. We’re going to give her a little break. She’s doing so much and it’s so much more fun to have her with me. But I do have, I believe, a compelling topic that everybody will find interesting, practical and really helpful in your parenting today. It is thinking about the future a little bit. We have to consider the future to make sure we’re doing the right things today, not the future how we view today, but the future how things will be way down the road, right? So vision hearing, right being you don’t have to be a visionary, but vision is required if you’re a parent and we have to be thinking about these things. We can’t just have our heads stuck in the sand and equip our kids according to how, you know, normal Christian parenting has kind of always done it there. While biblical truth never changes, their world is changing. So there’s some things we need to, in our opinion, do even better than previous generations to equip our kids for the future they will be launching into, which is so much different than the present now, or how we were raised or grew up, even if it was awesome.

So it’s really important to think about these things. So we’re going to be talking about upgrading your parenting to overcome change. Change is inevitable. The speed of change is happening faster than ever. We all agree. We feel it every day, don’t we? We look out there, we see the news, we see the things happening and so forth, whether it’s technology in health, it’s in the kinds of work opportunities that are out there and what’s happening, the decrease in morality and all these things. Right. And hey, this isn’t a episode where the goal is to make you aware of things but not give you the practical. This is a little bit of both, and I think it’s really important to do both. And I think it’s important, too, that we have no fear about change. In fact, this episode is to help you fetter that fear away. Most important way is relying on God, trusting in the Lord and respecting His authority in control of our life in the world and so forth. Right. But at the same time, fear is a natural emotion, fear of things happening, fear for our kids. And while we’re not to fear, the Bible talks about that a lot. We still do at times. And but what I have experienced, obviously, my faith and trust in the Lord, but also the more I take action in doing things that equip my family to be able to handle and rise up, stand strong, thrive during and through whatever the challenge is and things that will be coming.

I feel energized inside. I feel excited about the world I’m living in. I feel excited about the future for my kids because I’m doing things. I’m doing what I can do to prepare them and I wouldn’t say everything. I, like many of you, probably feel like, Wow, there’s more I could be doing. There’s this thing I was hoping I was doing with my kids and it ended up not happening and so forth. Right? We all probably have that. I have that feeling inside too, and none of us are perfect. So let’s just let ourselves off of that perfection wagon for a second and just listen in and think about these things. So I think these are important points to think about as we go in. I’m going to talk about, you know, what does provision look like in the future? Like, how are our kids going to provide, what are the jobs look like and these kind of things? I’ll talk a little bit about that. What about the move? The world is the world’s moving towards authoritarianism, right? Versus liberty and freedom? A little bit. We’re seeing that. So we have to understand the trends of things to understand what’s going to be happening. We also have to understand the biblical truth of end times and what kind of things are going to be happening. And we see the alignment of these things, don’t we? We see things happening today that are moving in, alignment towards people, for example, potentially putting things in their bodies right or one world currency and these kinds of things.

We see signs of how, Oh, this is interesting, this cryptocurrency, perhaps that’s a way one world currency happens. And and now it seems more feasible that this thing happens. So it’s not to be fearful. It’s to be observant, understanding the trends and then practically equipping our kids to be able to do well in these environments and potentially maybe not be forced to put something in their body, for example, because of how we’ve equipped them and the directions we’ve kind of directed them in, in providing. So we’ll talk about authoritarianism, providing time, teaching, you know, educating our kids, the spiritual aspects, spiritual readiness and kind of some thoughts on that and church a little bit. And then transhumanism. What a weird word, right? That’s like a word out of a science fiction movie, but. Transhumanism is actually here. It’s talked about a lot. There’s billionaires planning for it. Building companies like Elon Musk. Neuralink is all about transhumanism. So this isn’t conspiracy theory. These aren’t just ideas. These are things we actually need to contemplate and think about as we’re equipping our kids while our kids are in our homes and they’re most receptive to our words and they really are hanging on those things. And over and over again, we need to educate them about certain things.

So we’re going to dive into it in a second. First of all, thanks for being part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. We’re so thrilled you’re on the journey with us. We really, Angi and I feel on our hearts to steward the ministry in a way that has an indelible impact on the families into the future and 10 million of those families and their legacies. How do you impact the world? Well, we really believe it starts with parenting. It starts with marriage and parenting so important, equipping the next generation, while it’s a long term vision and we may not see all of it happen quickly in in the next five years, for example. But I think it is possible we’re in it for the long haul, and we think this ministry could have an indelible impact. Even the people that come after us, whether it’s our kids or who knows what’s going to happen right down the road. So the podcast, the courses, the social media content, you know, the products and services that remind people to stand firm wearing a stand firm hat or the mugs, the coffee, the be courageous coffee coming very, very soon. All of these things are pretty exciting and we’re excited to be part of it with you guys and the Be Courageous Ministry. So anyways, let’s dive in. So things to be thinking about. So I wrote down time and teaching. It takes time to teach things right. And we have to think about as you think about this thing, do I need more time or do I just need to use my time better with my kids? I mean, when we’re driving, we have time with them, right? And we could be worshipping the Lord.

We can be listening to a podcast, but sometimes maybe we need to turn that stuff off even though it’s good and dig into deep conversations about some of these things and awareness about things and so forth. Age appropriate. You decide these things based on the age of your kids and maturity of your kids and so forth. But these are important things to be considering is who is teaching our kids. And there’s a big movement towards home schooling. You know, we do that and we’re big advocates for that. But I know that everybody’s situation is the same. Not maybe not everybody can do it quite the same. But regardless of where your kids are going to school, they we need to be the main educators. They need to look at us as the most important teachers. And so if we haven’t been working that muscle, we need to start working that muscle with our kids and teaching them things because that is so important. And maybe we need to think about too, how do I reorientate my life a little bit to be able to teach some of these things that are really important? I’ll come back to this in a second. Some practical ideas on what I really believe and I know Angie does, too, are some of the most important things that aren’t just academic that kids are being taught for the world are launching into provision.

Let’s talk about that for a second. As I think I mean, I have seven sons, you know, and one of them’s already launched and doing great, providing well for his family. Praise the Lord and my daughter providing well for herself. She’s also launched, which is awesome, but I think about provision in the future. Some of my younger kids, you know, it’s I have a one year old, right. So when he’s launching, it’s going to be 17 years from now, likely 16 or 17 years. What is all the change going to be like? You know, what have robotics and automation changed the landscape of work? For example, a lot of computer programming will be probably robots coding, you know, artificial intelligence, creating code. So you think about these amazing opportunities to make good income like that one and how that might be replaced in the future. So I think about that, you know, and it’s not that I wouldn’t want a kid that’s interested in it to learn coding, but I would have in my mindset like, okay, maybe he’s managing the robots or leading coders or or something like that, or building his own product. Even better idea is building his own technology because he understands that, or being able to manage people that build technology for his own business because he understands that side of the technology.

That’s just a small example, right, in the technology world. So but providing you have to think about what are the trends and what’s going to be automated and these kinds of things down into the future. And I really want my kids to be. Resourceful. I want them to know how to do lots of different things right. And one of the things that’s important to think about and we’ll come back to this, is that it used to be thought that entrepreneurship was more risky than getting a really good job at a really good company. I would say that it is far more risky today and into the future to work for a company in a really good job. Than it is to be an entrepreneur. And I know that everybody’s wired differently and everybody has the wiring for entrepreneurship. But I will also say due to technology advances and the Internet and all different things, there are ways for different personalities to actually entertain and move in those directions. And so I wouldn’t count it out for any of my kids, even if they’re wired differently, because I think it’s more necessary now, and even if they have a job, is to be able to have a side, something that they’re working on, to have multiple sources of income into the future. I know when COVID first hit, we did a podcast and generated podcast episode. Hey, it’s going to be really important that people are thinking about multiple sources of income and we recommend at least two, but three ideally so where, you know, sources of income coming through without neglecting your family, of course.

And that’s a challenge. But we encourage you to figure that out. And sure enough, lockdowns came all these things, people losing their jobs later. And that was, you know, what was that two years ago or something like that. So I think it’s so important that we’re thinking it’s even more important now as we think about our kids, what they might be faced with in the future. 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 have some key questions on it for your date night to 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 the lights to be leaders.

For the next generation. The next thing you think about, and I’ll give you some more practice in a little bit, but authoritarianism, the world is moving towards more of a authoritarianism approach and belief in things versus instilling liberty and freedom, personal freedoms. And we see that encroachment happening, right. So, you know, if that trend persists, which, you know, we know there’s going to be one global leader eventually from what the Bible says. So if we understand that where we’re at now and there’s this trend happening and we know what the Bible says about end times, then we can extrapolate that probably authoritarianism is here to stay and to get more difficult, more entrenched in our lives and so forth. Although we might have some pockets of freedom, I think in the United States, we might have a pocket of freedom for the next four years, depending on what happens in politics. But overall, I think the trend is towards more authoritarianism. So with that in mind, what comes to my mind for my kids and I hope you’re thinking about this, is how do I help my kids grow up and develop skills and ways of providing and so forth where they don’t get stuck in situations where the loss is so big if they stand their ground. I’ll give you an example of that. In Canada, churches were forced to shut down. But not only that, my understanding is in some places they can’t even say everything in the Bible.

And if they do, there’s a penalty for that. And just remember that churches are mostly, I think, almost always nonprofits. And if you lose the nonprofit status, that doesn’t enable the church to pay their bills because people give based on being able to write it off. In a lot of cases, that’s how people have been conditioned. And so because of that, if there’s an. Not right up there. A lot of people would stop giving and they wouldn’t be able to pay for the building and the pastor salary and these kinds of things. And so then they get stuck in this situation of, well, we’ll just preach what we can preach and we won’t preach those certain things on gender or marriage or whatever it is, and then we’ll be able to continue. You never want your kids to be in that situation. Whether it has to do with their job or has to do with some way that they’re living and and that kind of thing to be more entrenched in being controlled by an authoritarian control. And so just that’s just something I think about. I don’t know if you guys think about that, but it’s something to think about. We’ve seen some of that around the world for sure. And second, Timothy 312, such a great verse. It says, Indeed, all who desired to live a godly life in Christ, Jesus will be persecuted.

Interesting. And then it goes on to say, well, evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continuing what you have learned and have firmly believe, knowing from who you learned it and how, from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. And it goes on to talk about the power of Scripture. Right. And as you know, this is Paul talking to Timothy and this is in second. Timothy is the actual last epistle Paul wrote, and he was killed shortly after writing it. And so I kind of believe that he probably knew that his time on earth was ending and these were some of his last directions. So by the way, side note, I encourage you to read first and second. Timothy is the last two epistles before he died and they are so important. What would you write if you knew you were going to die soon and what would the direction be? Well, here you have Paul giving that direction for the church, how church should be done, how to interact in the world, what’s going to be happening in the world and these kinds of things. But that scripture right there, that if you are of Christ Jesus, you’re going to be persecuted now in some places around the world. You know this very well that my friends in America, we don’t know that as well.

We don’t know what it feels like to really be persecuted in most cases. Some of you do. And so I think we’re starting to get a little taste like we get cancelled maybe on Instagram or something like that. That’s very mild persecution compared to I think the persecution we see happening to Paul in the Bible and others and persecution we see happening around the world. Now, as authoritarianism increases, that’s not led by godly people, then you can extrapolate that persecution is going to increase to the trend towards persecution against believers. So it’s just something to think about how important it is. They’re entrenched in understanding the Bible, willing to stand firm for the Bible, which comes to the next topic, which is spiritual things to be thinking about to to upgrade your parenting for the change coming in the world and that we’re seeing that our kids are going to launch into a different future. Right. Second, Timothy four, three through four. So also in second, Timothy, such a great book says for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. We not only see that amongst the non believers, we see this amongst the Christians, amongst the believers in droves, right? You’ll see people not agreeing with biblical truth and they’ll leave a good Bible believing church.

In its literally prescriptive, clear in the Bible, biblical truth. Right. And so we have to be careful for the time is coming. When people not endure sound teaching but have itching ears, they will accumulate from themselves teachers to suit their own passions. So then they’ll go find a book or a teacher or another church or whatever it is that aligns, that is willing to skip over a part of Scripture, a part of biblical truth or something like that, to align with their passions. So just remember that it’s not just a nonbeliever issue. We’re going to see an increase of this. So what does that mean? It means that our kids, again, not trying to create fear or anything, it’s just we have to be sober minded in the realities. We have to deal in reality about what is the world going to be like our kids are going to launch into because we don’t want to be them to be another statistic that just falls away and gets trampled by worldliness as they launch from our homes. So it’s going to be a hostile environment. It already is in some cases, but that hostile environment towards Christianity is just going to grow. That persecution is just going to be. Gross So how important is it then that they know their Bibles? How important is that? They consistently were in a home where they saw their parents reading the word right.

These things are so important. Even Christians are going to be going against each other. You see on the Internet all the time. Right, is people saying this Christian is teaching the wrong things and this and arguments. And, you know, we don’t have to agree as believers on everything, but we are to try hard when we’re part of a body of Christ in church to be of one mind. And we can disagree on some things that aren’t the main things in the Bible. Right. The main thing is we do have to agree on because Christian means follower of Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins, right? So we could be right with God. We have to have one mind about that. Right? But in the future that’s going to there’s going to be more hostility, even believing exactly what the Bible believes. So now think about church. If what happened in Canada and happens around the world, happens in America and other places, where in this increasingly gets worse, where there’s more and more things that the the law of the land does not like, that’s in the Word of God. What’s going to happen to nonprofits is they’re going to be influenced to admit those things. And when you start to emit scripture from the pulpit, what starts in the Bible studies and everything, what starts to happen is that body of believers literally don’t understand that part of biblical truth and those parts of biblical truth actually are really important.

So what is going to happen when you’re when that happens in the future generations for our kids and their kids and so forth? Well, I think it’s really important, actually, that they understand how to teach the Bible. They don’t have to have the gift of teaching, but they should be versed and have experience teaching the Bible and searching for things in the Bible and understanding and memorizing all the books of the Bible and loving the word. And obviously, we hope the self, you know, they become saved. Right? The mystery of God and only God can do. But but we’re to stir up faith in our children that’s so strong and backed by biblical truth. And they they understand the arguments that they can make. Right. And then the final thing, I’m going to go back through and share some more tips on these things. But transhumanism, transhumanism is human evolution beyond limitations using science and technology. So that’s simply means that we can the idea is that we can improve ourselves beyond how God made us using science and technology. I don’t know. I believe in science and technology. I love technology when it’s used for good. I love using it for good. I’m using it right now using an awesome microphone and a camera and other technology.

My MacBook Pro over here and a mixer and scan cards and these lights and all this equipment and the stuff so that we can share good things. I like technology, but I don’t know. I don’t believe that God had in mind our Creator that we would be unhappy with His creation in us and we would try and improve it, like make our eyesight see father like eagles through technology. No, I think we’re we see exactly to the level we’re supposed to see. Do I believe in using technology to fix challenges in medicine and so forth, to get back and restore and be healthy in a normal level? Absolutely. But I think that there’s a danger when we try to be our own gods in a way, by making God’s creation. Even better than he made it. Right. So that’s transhumanism and it’s not an idea. This is Elon Musk building Neuralink. Right. This is Jeff Bezos talks about this. The idea of billionaires are talking about this, that eventually we’ll be able to upload our brains and live forever. The actual goal, there’s people working hard on this to be able to live forever. The problem is, is they don’t believe in God. They don’t believe. And they don’t have an understanding of our souls and heaven and these things. And so I don’t even think it’ll work. I don’t even think people will be able to upload their brains and be the same person because our brain isn’t our soul.

You know what I mean? That’s a whole nother topic. But this is something to think about because this stuff how about the World Economic Forum recently had an article talking about how they want to chip children, put microchips in children across the world, and how this right now is not looked upon favorably, but it will become widely accepted in the future, just like there was a time where buying things online and putting your credit card online was not looked at favorably, and now almost everybody feels comfortable with it. There will be a normalization of putting technology in our bodies, and that’s transhumanism and that’s being worked on and promoted and influenced and all these different things. By the way, I don’t want to get to make your name people upset and things like that, but the mRNA technology, it is called a technology and the mRNA COVID vaccines is an interesting topic because you could almost think that is transhumanism, right, is there’s technology being put inside people’s bodies to handle disease and potentially not a super expert, but I have read quite a bit be programmed to handle other difficulties in the future once it’s put inside a human being. Why was the push so strong to get mRNA in so many people? It’s a good question to ask. Perhaps that was the first step into transhumanism at a mass level.

Now you think about, Oh, nobody’s going to microchip their kids and things like that. Well, I don’t know. I mean, I think millions, maybe billions of people did have mRNA technology inside of them. If you disagree with me on that, no problem. We can still love each other. But these are things to think about, right? So what do we do about this? What do we do about these things as we’re raising our kids? Well, let’s go back to time and teaching. Here’s some things, homeschooling, if you can. I think it is so important right then. We have other episodes about that. We have a homeschooling blueprint you can get at courageous parenting that’s super helpful even if you’re already doing it. But regardless, you’re the most important teachers, as I talked about. But here’s a couple of things about that you want to educate them on, regardless of where their formal education is happening, is confidence and speaking to adults. This is often overlooked. And you want to spend time with people that will look your kids in the eyes, know their names and respect them just like they would respect a fellow adult. It is really important because that in itself draws people up, children up into maturity and experientially helps them understand how to communicate with adults. That is so important as they’re negotiating in the future, as they’re getting jobs in the future, as they’re building their businesses at a really young person and able to attract older clients and serve older clients and things like that, super important.

They have confidence speaking to adults, let your kids mature. At first I had allowed them or I had something else there, but letting them. I think a lot of times parents don’t actually let them mature because we want to hold on to them and we relish their young age and and time flies. And while look, they’re already older and we’re kind of like wanting to go back when they’re younger. Well, that, I think, is a normal feeling. I actually look at it the opposite. I actually get excited about another year. I get excited about them watching it in the world. I do miss them, but I’m excited about their progress. I understand the progress is so important and I think having a mindset shift towards that is really important to let them mature faster. I don’t want to have them mature faster than they should, but I don’t want to hold them back from maturing. I think society at large holds children back from maturing the way things are set up and so forth. So. How can you ask yourself the question? Have marriage meaning? How can we allow our kids to mature? And in a normal fashion, which is faster than what usually is happening. How can we do that? Another thing when it comes to spending time with your kids and teaching them things and equipping them is public speaking that is so important.

Not everybody needs to be a professional speaker, but everybody needs to be able to express their viewpoints with confidence in front of people and handle impromptu questions, criticism and so forth, and be able to handle that. If we want our kids to stand strong for their faith in a world where more persecution is going to exist down the road, they’d better have good public speaking experience. And about anything, it’s just the confidence to be able to orate and to express your point in a loving way, in a way different kinds of people will receive it well. And to be able to do that, I think it’s really important for entrepreneurship, too. Doesn’t matter what someone’s doing, they’re going to have to sell what they’re doing. They’re going to have to be able to do that. And that brings me to that next point, which is I think all kids need to know how to sell. I don’t know necessarily that they need a sales job, although that’s a great idea at some point. But they need to know how to sell and sell what they’re doing. I think that is really, really important. So a couple of last things and we’ll move on on teaching is experiencing God in difficulties. That means there needs to be challenges that happen. Of course, we’re never fabricating challenge, we’re never wishing challenge upon our kids.

But navigating and helping them have a spiritual experience when there’s challenges is important because the natural thing to do is to rely on our own strength and our own willpower and perseverance to get through something. Those things are fine, usually part of the equation, but we also need to be relying on God and pointing our kids to Jesus and to God and prayer and looking at how God and acknowledging how God’s coming through for them and glorifying the Father when He does, and helping Him experience God and difficulties. Because when they have their difficulties in the future, we want them relying on the Lord, not their own strength. If things are going to be harder, we, they, they their own strength, they going to work. It’s not going to be good enough, you know, and it’s not good enough today, is it? So like when we start offering our own strength, it’s not good enough. We need the Lord and that is building a real relationship. Now there’s a way for them to see God working in their life, in giving the Lord credit to. It’s okay that they take some credit for persevering. You give them atta boy and pat on the back for following through and these kinds of things, but also acknowledge how God is helping them to and help them experience that. Part of it is when we have hardships. You might have heard her say this before.

Don’t disclosed them from your own hardships and seeing that you walk through things with the Lord’s help and glorifying the father too, and then praying with you for things that you’re going through and the family’s going through. So that’s really important. Educate them about the world. So important, more important than ever to be talking about it not just one time to times, not just a special meeting, but it’s got to be in the part of your rhythm. When kids are old enough, obviously that’s really important, but for certain things. But you know what? Usually they can handle it younger than you think. And I really like to educate them on these things. I share stories about transhumanism, I share stories about persecution, I share stories about authoritarianism and the importance of liberty. We teach history about liberty and freedom and and what it took to create freedom and these kinds of things. Right? We talk about ideas about how to provide and experientially do entrepreneurship and these kinds of things. So super, super important. And the final thing under teaching is apologetics. Apologetics simply means arguments for something. So literally knowing how to argue something not in a negative way, but to stand firm for your faith. That’s what apologetics is, is the ability to actually have backing for the to the naysayers about Jesus dying the cross, about biblical marriage, about biblical gender, about what the Bible says about sex and these different things.

By the way, those three things I just said, them are the hot button issues of the day marriage, gender, sex. We need to be teaching our kids all about what the Bible says on this, while at the same time loving people. Well, that that aren’t believers. Right. And and understanding that. But knowing what the Bible says and knowing what’s right in the Bible is so important on those three issues. So that’s got to be really important. The enemy, it looks like, is going to use. Those three things into the future to create division amongst Christians and to really create weak points to make it look like there’s weak points in biblical truth. And there will be a lot of hostility increasing over these different things. Right. We know that. So if we know that, then those are areas we need to be educating our kids and they need to understand apologetics for the faith, but also these different hot button issues in the world, I would say also. Yeah, I think that’s good enough on that. So and then the next one, right, going back to authoritarianism. Is we need to teach the value of freedom over and over and over again how it is hard fought for. They need to understand the history on that. It’s super important that our kids understand capitalism, the difference between capitalism and socialism. These topics need to be talked about over and over again.

We need to show examples. While capitalism isn’t perfect, I’m always sharing that nothing’s perfect, right? But it is so much better than socialism. And I tell kids, I say, you’re going to see over and over again. What happens is socialism has been proven to be terrible country after country in history time and time again. And what you’re going to see is, oh, they just didn’t do it right. We’re going to do it better this time. And the leaders trying to make this thing happen again, you’re going to see that it’s a cycle. History repeats itself. So you’re going to see this. So don’t fall for that. Don’t fall for weaken. We can do it better. And this is a good path. No part of what helps children understand the evils of socialism in the goodness of free markets is that the spiritual of sowing and reaping. So look in the Bible where it talks about sowing and reaping. Teach your kids about these things so important to do. And we don’t want entitled kids, right? So don’t do things that creates entitlement in your kids. That could be a whole podcast episode. I think we’ve done that one, but it’s really important that people understand the value of a dollar or a pound, depending on where you live. Right? The value of currency, the value of what it takes to have that. And when you trade that for something, what the amount of work it takes to to do that and understanding that there is nothing that’s free.

Right? We all have to work and be productive and that’s the way God wanted it. And so that’s really important providing. So let’s talk back about that for a second. So I talked about entrepreneurship being less risky than a job. I stand by that. I believe that it doesn’t mean I look down on people for getting jobs. Not at all. Again, that’s awesome. But as we think 10 to 12 years from now, I think all of every kid needs to experience entrepreneurship, even if that’s not what they do right away or whatever. They need to have that confidence in the back of their mind that if I had to, I could figure out a way to provide for my family by bringing value in some way to others, selling it and supporting it. Well, so that’s a little business, right? Or it could become a big business. So I think one of the things that’s important before kids launch from our academy, from our house and so forth, our educational system and the open family leaving a legacy academy, Angie and I believe is really important. They learn how to make a profit, that they learn how to make, that they spend money on some expenses, whether it’s wood or whatever, to create something and they sell it and they experience making a profit. What the money left over after spending on making the thing that is so amazing.

I remember when I was eight or nine years old and I started making profit. I built little wooden boats. I set up a card table downtown. I lived in a little tiny town and people would walk by and every once in a while somebody would buy one of my boats. It wasn’t always rosy. I had high schoolers stop by and mock me, ridicule me, laugh at me in front of my table. And it was terrible, right? And I remember that. And I remember. Wow, maybe I should just pack it up, you know, maybe this is the wrong thing. Maybe. Maybe my stuff’s no good. You know, I stayed the course, and I’m so glad it did. Not too long after there was this thing called the Wooden Boat Festival, set up my card table, and I made. I made a lot of money in one day. I can’t quite remember. It was over 100 bucks, maybe $200. And I remember just this powerful experience that somebody had a $20 bill and they wanted change for it. And it was such a new experience for me that I didn’t even think I had the change for a $20 bill. And this other adult that was near me came over maybe at another selling something else near me. And he said, You actually do have change for that and helped me out. And I just remember that amazing feeling.

But most importantly, I remember the feeling of watching parents buy boats for their kids, with their kids, with them, and then going over to the water and watching them experience joy from using the little toy boats that I had built with my own hands. What an amazing experience it was. Such a win win experience. I made a profit. They love what they have. That is the most transformational experience I had as a child. Obviously, I didn’t become a believer till 23 other that would have been, but that was such an amazing, transformative experience. So get beyond the lemonade. Not that that’s not a good idea to do that for sure, but think about how they can build something, create something that they’re proud of, and then sell it and see people use it. I think that is so important. So stretch your minds on that a little bit. I think it’s important to learn entrepreneurship, and the only way to learn it really is to do it when they’re young. And it’s also the part of the process is so amazing in this is their ability to create value that wasn’t there before. So they created something that didn’t exist until they created it, at least their version of it, and somebody purchased it with their hard earned dollars and use it. They added value to the world. What is one of the epidemics is happening to kids, suicide and depression and all these things.

Entrepreneurship. Everybody needs to feel valued and like they have something to contribute into offer the world. And I think that is such an important experience. So there are some practicals on that. Teach entrepreneurship, learn about it yourself, get them involved, do something with them. Maybe they can be involved in your own side, hustle, you know, packaging up orders or doing something like that. Our kids have been very involved. They’re very involved in our ministry. Right. And so it’s really important to to do that. By the way, part of the reason we do the kids podcast is they’re getting public speaking experience and they’re creating value that didn’t exist until it was there. It’s in the Be Courageous app. There’s 4948 episodes this week. There’ll be 49 episodes already every week, every Friday that comes out to play for your kids. That’s just an example of one of the things we’re doing which people are loving. All right. So so let’s talk about the spiritual for a second. So spiritual. It is so important. We’re reading the word. It’s so important we’re doing Bible time with our kids. It’s so important they see us in a physical Bible, not our phones. It’s so important they see us loving the Lord. They so it’s so important they see us relying on the Lord, glorifying the father when he comes through, making lists together, maybe on a whiteboard. We do this of all the ways God showed up in the last week or the last month, reflecting on the goodness of God taking our kids to church.

If you ever listen to the episode, go to church. That was last week. And it’s just so important to do that and to to be raised up with other like minded believers and understand how to have biblical relationships and to go deep and to talk about things spiritual and to to love the Lord and to start to discover their own spiritual gifts and to teach them what spiritual gifts are and talk about these things. I mean, just spouting off the top of my head, folks. But I know one thing, dads, we need to be teaching the word, whether it’s a dinner or breakfast, we need to consistently do that. They need to see us doing that. And because we want them to model that in the future for their kids, for your grandkids, super, super important. So spiritually, though, remember marriage, gender, sex, make sure they know the arguments for those. Make sure they can stand on their two feet against five people around them saying they’re crazy for believing in Jesus and they have a loving way to respond to that. You know, it’s really important that they are ready to stand for persecution. Are do they understand the stories? Do you have books on the martyrs and the people standing for their faith? I think that that’s important to definitely be reading through so spiritual and then trans trans humanism.

We already kind of talked about this, but just a little bit. It is just to realize the God made each person exactly how he wanted to make them. You were perfectly knit. I knew you in the womb, right? These scriptures. I didn’t have it ready for you. But you can look him up where God perfectly makes each human being and to understand the value of life and that there’s not a need to live forever in this earth. And to tell them how that’s going to happen, it’s because they don’t believe in Jesus and that why would we want to live forever on earth when we can live forever in heaven? I think it’s a misunderstanding of the power and amazing how heaven is. Have you talked to your kids about how amazing heaven is? I would never want to live on Earth forever when I have the option of living in heaven forever with God. And Heaven is 1000 times better than Earth. But do our kids really believe heaven is 1000 times better than Earth Day? Or they just think it’s like this boring place, you know? Do we talk about heaven and these kinds of things? I think that’s important. So when these kinds of topics come up and also, how about, you know, that our bodies are the Holy Temple, right? First Corinthians 619 says first 3619.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God? You were not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. So we can’t just do whatever we want with our bodies. I think it’s vital that our kids are taught that over and over and over again. It is really important that that that our kids understand this so that when the time comes of, you know, keep your job or put a microchip in your body, that they stand for not putting a microchip in their body, that that is not something that’s going to happen in your legacy, that you’re instilling that today for the sake of good decision making in the future. Remember, in the old days, you could just you could kind of know what’s going to happen in the future because change didn’t happen as rapidly. So you could kind of just train them up on the normal things. But now you have to train them up in things that aren’t part of today’s reality but are likely to be part of their future reality. That’s what this is talking about. And it’s not to create fear in you. It’s to create intelligence about what’s happening, to be mindful about what how we need to equip our kids to to look at these things with sober eyes. And I hope this was helpful for you guys.

So, hey, dig in and learning. And if you’re overwhelmed by this, maybe we need to reorientate our life a little bit to spend more time with our kids teaching things. Or maybe we just need to utilize the time we have in a different way in the car and different things like that. But keep these things on your mind. How can I help the spiritual walk of my kids to a whole nother level, not over relying on youth group and these kinds of things, but to understand that we are the the dads. You’re the pastor of your family and moms. You’re an incredible spiritual leader in your family. So important and together, your spiritual leadership team that needs to raise up these kids. Right. And provision might look different in the future. So be careful of pointing them in a direction that might not be profitable for them in the future. Maybe you need to think through that a little bit more and be open to entrepreneurship. And if the world is going more towards authoritarianism and going to put pressure on people to believe in socialism, these things, maybe we should be preemptively teaching about capitalism and making sure they’re not entitled. And they understand the spiritual laws of sowing and reaping these things right, and transhumanism and understanding the basic direction of these things and how our bodies are the holy temple. And we shouldn’t do that. Hey, I hope this is helpful for you guys. If you love it, share it. Take care.

Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom 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

It’s not an attractive title, but a message helpful for everyone. We have a feeling this one will get shared a lot and want people to get a message regardless of if they listen. Please do listen though as we share the importance of going to church and give ideas of making church a more impactful experience without asking your elders to change anything. This isn’t a legalistic issue, it’s an obedience to God issue. Share it with others so they don’t fall into the pitfalls of so many these days.

Main takeaways from this episode:

• What are you sowing for future generations in your family?
• God loves the church and so should we.
• The purpose of the church.
• Church is not: a Bible study, streaming a sermon online, or a community group.
• This isn’t a legalistic message, it’s an obedience to God issue.
• Be a part of the solution.

Scripture From This Episode:

Hebrews 10:24-25 – “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”

Acts 2:42 – “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.”

Colossians 3:16 – “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

1 Corinthians 14:26 – How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.

John 14:15 – “If ye love me, keep my commandments.’

John 14:23 – “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

John 14:31 – “But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.”

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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 the following. Hi everyone. Welcome back to the podcast.

Hey, guys.

We’re so glad you’re here with us. We appreciate you being part of the movement. And today we’re talking about going to church. If you’ve made it this far, you weren’t turned off by the title. That’s a good thing.

You may be thinking, well, well, okay. So there’s a couple of things you can think. One thing you could think is, well, obviously that’s like obvious. Isaac and Angie, of course, we need to go to church. Yeah. And we’ll get into that. This is actually a very important conversation because of everything that we have all been exposed to and experience in the last three and a half years. But I would say that it’s is very important conversation that we need to be having regarding.

Why and even, let’s say there’s different situations. Let’s say you’re going to church every week and everything’s great there. Well, this is a really important episode, perhaps, for people. You know, we would love it if you shared this episode because church is very important to God and it’s important to the edification of families. And it’s just a vital, vital thing. And if you haven’t been going, you you have your reasons and so forth, let this be an encouragement and contemplation. Sometimes there’s marriages, too, where one is really committed and the other is not to being part of God’s church. And so I would just encourage you to listen through and and pray about how God would use this.

You know, I would say that a lot of people will listen to podcasts and and watch sermons on TV. And we’re going to talk a little about that, about that in a few minutes, more in depth. But if you’re listening to the podcast and you’re not going to church and you’re like, Well, I am, actually, because I listen to sermons and I listen to podcasts that have a lot of scripture in them and things like that.

I’m growing more than when I was going to church. Some people have that feeling inside.

Them, right? That’s true. We we hear that all the time, actually. But I would just encourage you to please listen to today’s full podcast. It is, I would say, an exhortation, which a lot of people don’t understand what that word means. You can look that up in your concordance and maybe look at some verses. You might be surprised to find out that it’s actually in the New Testament around 90 times. It’s actually a huge function of the body of Christ. And so as a brother and sister in Christ, Isaac and I feel compelled to exhort you to have a habit of going to church. And, you know, for us, this is a legacy movement. You guys know, we talk about the 10,000,000 million legacies movement all the time. Our heart and our passion above all else is that God would be glorified. We are partnering with him in the Great Commission and part of that great commission is disciple making. And so if you are not going to church and being disciples on a regular basis and walking in fellowship with people, that actually breaks our heart and this is a foundational message to leaving a godly legacy. A lot of people say, Oh, I’m raising my kids to be Christians and I want them to know Jesus and be known by him. But you cannot fully experience the body of Christ on Earth, which is a part of the experiencing God, unless you are going to a church on a regular basis.

I’m just.

Going to say.

That. Absolutely. And there’s so many things that have happened. The stats out there showing that people that prescribe to believing in the whole word of God is declining just in the last few years. And there’s probably because people less people are actually going to church that are Christians and COVID really messed that up and these kinds of things. But, you know, there’s future things coming, don’t you think, as you think forward for a second, your kids future. That’s what we should be thinking about your kids future in ten, 15 years from now when they’re making their own decisions outside of your home. Are things going to be easier for Christians or harder for Christians? It’s just something to think about. I think probably they’re going to be harder in a lot of ways. So, you know, and do we want our kids to go to church? It is really important. It’s super shortsighted, actually, if we’re not. And let’s just see what God says about a Hebrews 1024 through 25 and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. So this meeting together is referring to the church meeting.

Right. And so we’re in talk about for a second, we will be talking about what is the church. We’re going to get there in a minute. But this specific verse, what’s interesting to me is that it ends with as the day draws near right or the end is coming is another translation. And this guys look at the times that we’re living in. And is there not a devil scheming and evil scheming? To get people to be in isolation. Is there not the temptation to just sit cozy in your home watching a sermon on TV and not actually having to brush up against other Christians and be exhorted, be challenged, be held accountable? All the things that God calls us to that are part of the experience of being in the body of Christ and being a participant. And I just think that there’s this element where we need to be careful because this is warning us, do not neglect the gathering is a command that is a commanding declarative sentence. It’s not an interrogative sentence that says, Oh, if you don’t feel like it, then you can decide if you want to go to church. No, God is literally saying do not neglect the gathering.

Well, some people will say, well, I meet Wednesday with a group of guys or I meet on Saturdays and we go do this with the ladies. And I’m not neglecting the gathering. I’m very social, I’m very networked.

People are believing God and.

Yeah, well, no, there is a difference that is all wonderful. But there is an obedience thing about going to church. What does God think about church? He refers to the church as his bride, the bride of Christ.

And we are to love the bride. God wants the there’s another scripture that always comes to mind whenever I hear about or I’m talking to people about the body of Christ on Earth being referred to as the bride. There’s a scripture that says that God, Jesus wants His bride blemish free. He is the one who sanctifies us and makes us pure as white, white as snow. Right. We know this. But part of how God does it, how God does that, obviously it is finished. He died on the cross. But the sanctification, the daily, walking it out in life is dealing with our temptation to send our fleshly desires as we are walking in Christian fellowship with other believers. Because God put the Body of Christ here for the edification of the whole. And part of edification is the exhorting, is the accountability that happens when you’re walking in close fellowship and you’re rubbing up against each other and offense is happening, right? And so if you’re not experiencing that, there is an element of refinement that you are missing out on. Yeah, there’s an element of refinement your kids are missing out on. There’s an element of spiritual growth. Yes, I’m going to say it. Spiritual growth that you are missing out on by not being held accountable, by not being confronted with certain sins or issues that maybe you’re struggling with. And that is part of God’s process for making his bride blemish free. Yeah, that’s actually part of the process. And so if we love God’s bride, if we recognize that we are all part of God’s bride, then we need to try to do our best out of our love for him to obey what his word says regarding how to be a part of the bride.

Now, you might be saying, Well, I want to blemish free church like the Bible is talking about. I want a perfect church. Where is the perfect church? There isn’t one around me. And you are correct. There is no perfect church. And so God knows that. He knows that the people in the church aren’t perfect, but they are perfected by what Jesus did on the cross. And so we should not be looking for perfection, but we should be looking for some key things I also agree on. The other point is when you go to a church and you take your family to a church, you’re endorsing those leaders to your kids to have influence on your family. So I don’t take that lightly. You wouldn’t take that lightly. So you do need to align on the things that matter. It needs to be a biblically based church, but some of the other peripheral things shouldn’t matter as much like whether we love the sound of worship or not. Shouldn’t be the reason why we stay at a church or not stay at a church. There’s not going to be a church usually where every single thing is just how you want it.

It’s a professional, even like sounding like a professionally recorded worship service, right, that you would listen to on the radio or on a soundtrack or something. And so we just need to realize that like, so when you’re choosing a church or when you’re going to church, you know, what are the things that really are the close handed issues and then really realistically viewing the things that are open handed issues, treat them like open handed issues is what Isaac is saying. But I think that, you know, on this topic of going to church and we’re talking about God’s view of church, do you know God loves you? He loves you so much.

Amen.

That he sent his son to die and that he changed people’s lives in such a way that they would be. Motivated to want to obey Christ, that they would want to follow Christ and that they would understand the salvation that’s in Christ, that they would share it with you so that you too could be saved, so that you too could then go and share it with other people so that those people could come to the knowledge and understanding of Christ, Jesus and His Gospel, and find the free gift of eternal life. That is amazing. That is how much God loves you. Yeah. And the reality is, is that our kids don’t fully grasp the immense amount, sheer amount of love and sacrifice that God has given for us to send us his son, to rally all these people, to be the body of Christ on Earth. I just think it’s a beautiful thing that that the church is actually called the bride, but it’s also called the body of Christ and that they’re members of it. That’s just a beauty. Like when you think about that, that is like image bearing of Jesus Christ here with us. Right. And so if we are not being a part of it and exercising our spiritual gifts, the church is missing out. Right. But we are missing out. And we are not actually walking and obeying in what God has called us to, in his word, amen.

And we all believe in the spiritual principle of sowing and reaping, right? So what are we sowing? What are we sowing by streaming a sermon?

Yeah, but sowing in our children.

In our children and our legacy in the future where it’s really instant gratification. Oh, I like this sermon better. I get more out of this sermon. I stream from the super pastor than I get from my local pastor. And so it’s so hard to get all the kids together and everything. And so we make it once a month, but we really watch. We really love this pastor over in this other state. And I would just say that you’re sowing something that’s not good. And I personally, there’s not a legalistic thing here. This is my own opinion. I personally believe that it would be better for a husband who doesn’t have the gift of teaching to read Scripture and discuss it with their family. If there’s some reason they can’t go to church than to stream in in place of church. Another pastor now hey all good during the week midweek other days to stream in and listen to a sermon. It should be added.

For spiritual growth.

We shouldn’t be all the weight of being part of a church and going to church shouldn’t be on a sermon. And the quality of the oration, it shouldn’t be on the worship, in the pleasing ness, the quality of the worship right to our ears.

I mean, Paul even says that he came with with no eloquence in his speech. Yeah, that’s written in one of the epistles. And so we need to have an actually a realistic expectation of church and see human humanity right in our church. That’s actually encouraging for you. If you’re going to a church where maybe the pastor isn’t as eloquent or or your kids watch that. Right? And then they go, oh, maybe I could do this someday. But if you are constantly only going to the the the megachurch pastor that’s streamed on TV that has thousands of followers, and you’re watching them, you’re like, Oh, I could never be like that. And you’re discouraged. And that actually pushes you towards inaction with your family. Then how helpful is it really? Because the truth is, is that the the Bible talks about how we have the spiritual gifts dispersed among the members of the body for the edification of the whole. And in Deuteronomy, God commands parents to teach their children. So you should be teaching your children throughout the week, right? And so if you’re not edified and encouraged to actually be reading the word, when you listen to a pastor like Isaac puts a super pastor, then maybe what needs to happen is less listening to him and more going to a church service where you’re going to be encouraged and you’re going to go, You know what, I can do this.

But then the the question is probably why. So let’s go into that. 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 have some key questions on it for your date night to 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 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.

Steve and 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. And 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 the lights to be leaders for the next generation.

What is the purpose of the physical church? What is the purpose of a group of believers coming together on a weekly basis? So that is what we’re going to talk about.

And in Acts 242, it says and they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers. So this is pretty clear, like as far as like prescriptive of what some of the things are that we should be doing during the gathering time, which is one of the reasons why a sermon wouldn’t suffice.

Right, alone, because there’s more. It’s a multifaceted experience where humans are together. Do you know, I’m sure you know this, that when human beings get together there and they’re standing in front of each other, their hearts actually have an impact being in proximity to each other.

That’s pretty.

Cool. So there’s some really interesting things about the human body and just being near other humans that is helpful, that is encouraging and obviously encouraging one another. But the apostles teaching, yes, teaching is very important. There needs to be sound. Teaching sound doesn’t need to be eloquent, doesn’t need to be having an entertainment value necessarily, but it needs to be biblical and it needs to be sound on doctrine. So that’s really important. Breaking of bread. What does that quantitate?

I just even think when you’re talking about teaching, if I could just back up for a second and second. Timothy, chapter four, you preached on this this last Sunday. Verse three, it says, For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. So and this.

Is.

So much this problem, I believe, occurs more when people are out of fellowship because they can listen to someone who is eloquent, who’s claiming to be a Christian. Right. And maybe some things are true, but then there can be a little bit of progressive untruths or maybe some lies from the enemy mixed in with that. And that can be hard for Christians to discern, especially if they’re not walking in fellowship with other people where they’re able to discuss it, to judge it. And yes, I said judge it because the Bible does tell us in second Corinthians, Paul exhorts Christians and says, you are to judge within the church, just not outside the church. And so a lot of people get that mixed up. They miss that scripture. And so there is an element where we as Christians need to understand that it’s actually our job to test the spirits, to be on watch for false teachers. Specifically, if you’re listening to a courageous parenting podcast, you’re likely a parent. And if you’re a parent, then you need to be watching out for false teachers to protect your children from lies, from the enemy, or things that are not actual biblical truth. And so how do you do that? How do your kids learn how to discern that if you’re not walking within the fellowship with other people where there is an accountability for that pastor that’s standing on the stage because you’re actually walking with him in real life. And so there’s this element where we need to recognize that this is a temptation. The Bible is literally warning all of us in the New Testament that there is a warning when a time will come, when people won’t endure sound teaching.

So we should be doing communion together. Let me ask you, if you’re streaming a service, are you leading communion with just your family? Well, that would be good. Do that. But what is even better, what Jesus said is be with each other as often as you’re together. You know, breaking bread together is that you do communion. So I think that’s really, really important that we’re with other families, actually.

And I just think of when Jesus was talking about breaking the bread as far as. Being goes and doing this in remembrance of me and this practice of like constantly remembering what Jesus did on the cross and keeping the gospel the center of your relationship with him, that this is an important practice that we create as a habit, just not just for ourselves, but also that this is something that our kids grow up with so that they then have the habit when they’re older, remembering like, Oh wow, I am unworthy of the cross, but wow, Jesus did this for me and he gave me this free gift and how humbling that is. And having a habit of remembering God’s sacrifice is huge for the Christian, and we should be doing that on a regular basis so that we don’t get tempted to become arrogant or haughty or boastful so that we are in constant. Actually judgment of ourselves is what that specific scripture talks about. We need to judge ourselves before we take communion so that we are not experiencing sicknesses and all sorts of things. You can look that up later. It’s in First Corinthians, but there’s an element of that. Like when you’re taking communion on a regular basis and you teach your kids the importance of communion there, that is an accountability factor for us to make sure that we are in good fellowship with one another before we take it. And if you are walking in a body of Christ, a fellowship of people, not just watching a sermon online, for example, there is an element of that where you need to reflect and go, Hey, am I in? Have I been offended by anybody in this church? Do I need to reconcile with them before I take communion that holds you communion holds you accountable to getting right with your brother? That is a biblical concept.

I will tell you, the drive to church was really valuable. Every time we drive to church because we would go, I would always say, Hey, we’re going to do communion. Is there anybody in the car that you need to reconcile with before you take communion? And it was just a beautiful way of any last things from the week that didn’t get forgiven or apologized for talked about. We’re talked about on the way to church, and that is such a powerful thing. So I think that’s really important. And it’s one thing when you say it, but it’s another thing when the Bible says it and you’re going to a body of believers where you’re going to take communion together. And that’s just a beautiful thing. So, so, so breaking of bread, super important prayer is super important. You know, God listens to our prayers. But when multitudes are praying together, it is incredibly powerful, right? Colossians three, 16, says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Right? So here’s kind of what’s happening in the church mean there’s teaching admonishing one another, so there’s some correction and encouragement and a loving way in all wisdom, singing psalms. So worshiping the Lord together and hymns, right? Spiritual songs and thankfulness in your hearts to God. There’s something about the beauty of hearing other people’s voices and worshiping the Lord together. It is really powerful.

Well, it’s the. Yeah, it’s the saints. Right. And again, it doesn’t have to sound like a professional soundtrack because to God’s ears, it is like the sound of little kids voices. Raising a hallelujah is like sweet honeycomb to God’s ears. And to neglect church is to neglect your children, the opportunity to collectively praise Jesus amongst the body of Christ. How sad is that? Think about that for just a second. To neglect the gathering is to to neglect your children from the opportunity to praise Jesus collectively with the body of Christ, which is something that, by the way, he commands us to I even think of like we were talking about prayer as one of the purposes of gathering together. You know, you can easily be sitting in your home and be praying, right? But even in Matthew 1820, it says when two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them. And yes, that’s in the conflict and resolution portion of scripture where it talks about going to someone, a brother that has offended you. But this is the thing. Like if you’re not going to church and building friendships with other people, then you’re likely not rubbing up with people on deep hearted issues where there is potential for offence, for example for sharpening as iron sharpens iron Assam 2717 commands is to write like it literally says to be walking and fellowship with one another because that sharpening, that exhortation is what helps us to grow. And so we are missing out on a huge aspect of, again, how we become this blemish free bride, right? Which is the sanctification that life is. And it’s a beautiful, beautiful aspect.

I think sometimes pride can get in the way you start. Just think about the element of, well, I’m growing really well at home and my family’s fine. We don’t we can’t find a good church, so it’s not worth the hassle of going. It’s not really edifying, even though we visited several churches and so forth. If you if you’ve decided not to do church with other people, then there’s some pride that might be there. And what I mean by that is you might believe you are strong enough and you know, it will be fine without the fellowship, without being amongst believers. And I think that is a position of pride. I think that we should search our hearts on that. And because I actually don’t believe that anybody is strong enough not to be part of the church, we it’s very hard for us to see when we start to fall off the rails a little bit and we start getting tickling ears and we start finding new truth that’s extra biblical and we don’t even realize it. We start paying attention to the world a little bit more. There is a recalibration that happens when we’re accountable to a body of Christ, when we’re going to church together with other people. There’s that rubbing of elbows that you’re talking about.

Yeah, and I know that some of you listening go. Well, that doesn’t sound very happy. That’s not a feel good. Like encouragement, experience. Isn’t the church supposed to be encouraging and fanning each other’s flames? Well, I’m sorry that that is true. Yes, that is one aspect of it. But this concept of like having people love you and stick by your side through the hard trials and some of those hard trials are the refinement of your character. Some of those hard trials are circumstances that we walk through in life because life happens and life is not promised to us as being an easy journey, especially as Christians. But we need one another. We need one another. The Bible says to carry one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. How can we carry one another’s burdens as a body of Christ if we’re not even like seeing each other on a regular basis to build that trust to where someone who is burdened is willing to share with you what their burden is like. If you don’t know someone’s burden, you can’t carry it. Am I right? I mean, just think about that for a second, but if you do know someone’s burden, you have an opportunity to obey Christ and help carry their burden. However, God would call you to do that, whether that’s praying, actually meeting a need or just sitting and listening to them and meeting an emotional need. Right. There’s many different ways that that can look. But the reality is, is are we making time for those things, recognizing that those are of eternal value and they actually build treasures in heaven? Yeah, right. Like we need to understand there’s this element of choosing between just doing something. Like if you’re just watching a sermon online each week because you want to check something off the box, oh, we did church together. And that was the easier way. It was more time efficient. You can justify it any way you want to, but you’re actually not going to church.

Here’s the thing sometimes we orientate our life in a way to afford not going to church, meaning that we get so busy ramping up to Sunday because we know it’s an option in the back of our mind just to not go because we’re tired, we’ve worked really hard, all these kinds of things. And and so we don’t go, we’re just going to do church from home now. And while I would say there could be a unique situation when that happens, but we need to fight for going to church and we need to orientate our life in a way where we’re preparing to go to church, where we’re not overdoing it the night before. If that’s the if that’s the.

Case, we’re preparing the night before so that it makes Sunday a more pleasurable experience. Yeah. Like, for example, you guys, this, this podcast is not about home church, but right now we are currently doing home church. And so our family spends Saturday night preparing so that we’re not doing all of the cleaning of the bathrooms, mopping the floor like all of that stuff on Sunday morning. Literally, I think there have been maybe two or three times where we had to do some of those chores on Sunday morning and those days I’m way more exhausted. Everybody is.

So we say orientate our life to dedicating Sunday to being part of the believers and going to church and and then hanging out afterwards and so forth.

Worshiping together.

Fellowship, being together. We’re trying to experientially do what the Bible says to do when it comes to church. And I think we should do that. And you go, Well, my church has a sermon and we worship and it’s great. And then everybody leaves afterwards. Okay, that’s fine. But maybe you could cultivate with a group of people doing lunch at your house afterwards or games at the park afterwards with picnic. You know, it doesn’t have to be this. Just go hear sermon worship and then go home and everybody’s just doing their own thing.

Well and it actually create an incomplete experience. It’s just that.

You need to maybe rethink about how you create the experience. At the church you’re at without even demanding anything changes at.

Church, right?

You just you’d be the change within a group of people. Right? And watch what God does.

Using your gift of and desire for cultivating stronger, deeper, more biblical friendships where you’re at and use the gifts that God is giving you like your home to to bless other people, to edify the church.

And I guarantee you, if your pastors are listening to this, they would be like, amen, amen. Amen. They agree with all this, right? They believe in the Bible. And so the church part at the church is a part of it. But you need to help create the other parts of the if it’s missing.

Yes. And so, you know, I even think about the verse that we were just reading, which is first Corinthians 1426. It says, What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Other translations say a psalm and a teaching. Yeah, but this specific passage of Scripture, again, first Corinthians 14, 25, 26. You can go look at that. In fact, I would recommend reading all the way through verse 31 at least, or even longer, but it talks about like different aspects of the church and I am so encouraged by this and you guys should be too, because the concept of going to church, what it does is it enables you to actually participate in using the spiritual gifts that God has distributed to you. It gives other people the opportunity to use the gift that God has distributed to them. Why? For the edification of the whole, this is one other reason why God commands us to gather is so that we, the church, the people, not the building, are actually acting out what God has called us to. We’re we’re doing the purpose for which He created us. Right. And so the edification you think about, there are people who have an incredible gift of worship and they and praise and they can sing in amazing ways and lead people in worship in that way. That’s beautiful. There are other people who have other gifts, like exhortation, like teaching, different things like that. So here’s the thing. If you’re not going to church, you’re likely not exercising your spiritual gift. And what is God? Jesus literally warns us in the parable of the talents, what happens to people who’ve been given a gift and they don’t use it?

He takes it away.

He literally warns us. And so if we are not, this concept of going to church is so much bigger than just one verse in Hebrews ten, 24 and 25. Yeah, it is so much more you guys. There’s the concept of sowing and reaping with your kids. If you want a godly legacy, you need to be taking them to church on a regular basis, and you need to be a.

Habit of going. And you might wonder what your spiritual gifts are. Well, that’s the place to discover it. And yeah, you might not be standing up or the pastor’s giving a sermon and trying to do something that’s distracting. I hope you don’t do that. But. But you can do things around church with other people. Helping people.

Well, even thinking about like how church because it’s the people we’re talking about the gathering which is separate from like the church we just called it, go to church because I would say most people understand what that means. That means go on Sunday to church or whatever day that your family is worshipping in an exercise in the Sabbath. And I think that there’s this element, though, where we we do all understand that the church is God’s body, which is bigger than the building. And we gather multiple times throughout the week, whether that’s for like Bible study meetings, mentoring by elders to younger men or younger older women.

Or doing fun things.

Together and productive fellowship, like just even that concept of productive fellowship and walking in each other’s lives and you know that so-and-so has a need to put sprinklers in, right? And so people go over and they help put in the sprinklers and you have fellowship together. You’re talking you maybe you have worship music going while you’re working together. You get the job done faster. There’s so many elements of fellowship, it doesn’t have to look a cookie cutter way. God is a creative God, and he created unique people to be part of members of one another for for his glory. You guys like how amazing is it when an unbelieving neighbor sees church members going to help pack up and load and move a neighbor? How powerful is it when an unbelieving neighbor knows that their neighbor had a baby and they see a church just every day bring in the meal train? How powerful is that for the unbeliever? It’s massively powerful because what they’re witnessing is the body of Christ in action. It is the hands and feet of Jesus to day visible to people who don’t know God.

And that’s sharing the gospel to your kids, to their experientially, seeing what godly people do because they love the Lord and they love each other. And don’t we want that? We. I want them to experientially understand how to be part of the body of Christ. And, you know, that is really important by being part of this. Let’s talk about what church isn’t. I think we kind of did this, but real quick. It’s not a Bible study. Bible study. Great. Awesome. That’s not church.

Not going to church.

Not going to church. Right. We already talked about this using technology instead of going to church. Right. That’s not going to church. Community group. Right. Where it’s really social. And we may be reading a book together and these kinds of things.

That’s not.

Church. That’s that’s not church either, although that’s really a good thing. And so we just have to let’s get our priorities straight. Let’s make sure our life actually teaches our kids what going to church actually means. I remember when we were newlyweds, I was a new believer as of about a year, I believe, and I was working the hardest, actually, I’ve ever worked to this day, actually, on a weekly basis. In fact, unfortunately, I was working every single day for this first about 4 to 6 months of our marriage, and I shouldn’t have been doing that. But as a new believer, I was trying to figure things out and I was trying to build a business. There was a real need to work and we never missed going to church. We never miss. You were puking and pregnant. I remember stopping the car so that Angie could puke on the side of the road. And you might be thinking, Isaac, you’re crazy. No, it wasn’t just me. It was Angie. Like, we were both committed. We’re going. It wasn’t me pulling Angie.

No, no, it was. It was never a question in my mind. There was never the iota of thought, I’m going to miss church because I have morning sickness. That was not something that the devil was going to have a foothold in. And let me just tell you, like I’ve had massively hard pregnancies, I’m talking with many, if not all of my pregnancies for a long period of time. And the truth is, is that I believe that God sustained me and he was glorified and he is being glorified in my kids lives and in their relationship with him. Because if I had nine kids, you guys, can you imagine how many years, sheer years our kids would have missed of church if I did not prioritize going to church and being willing to vomit in a bathroom at church? If I didn’t prioritize that over, oh, I don’t feel good. And so in my mind, like, there’s an element where we have to prioritize things and, and I just want to say, like, if you’re listening and you’re convicted and, and your spirit is going well, that Oh, legalism, that that makes me feel better to say, Oh, that’s a legalistic thought, Angie, that makes me feel better. I’m going to call that out as a lie from the devil. That is literally a lie from the devil because the devil wants you isolated. He doesn’t want you walking with believers.

You’re easier to.

Destroy, you’re easier to destroy. God’s Word over and over again talks about the importance of fellowship and being in each other’s lives and not hiding and walking in the light as he is in the light. What it was for me, you guys, my heart in wanting to go to church, was that just simply that I wanted to I wanted to be among believers. I wanted to sing worship songs to God. I wanted to pray. I wanted to do communion. I wanted to take my Bible and my journal and take notes and learn from an apostles teaching. I wanted it. Why did I want it? Because I loved.

Jesus. Amen.

And that’s really what it comes down to. It’s a matter of not being legalistic, but it’s pure obedience out of love.

Amen. And there were times I would just say, I don’t think you mind me sharing. There were seasons where we’d be driving home in the car and you’d be a little bit sad because it was hard to find women to connect with. And you had a difficult time during certain seasons of finding those people. But that wasn’t a black mark on God’s church. No, that didn’t sway our belief in going to church. Have we ever changed churches before? Yeah. With. With serious prayer and prayer and fasting. Not just a knee jerk reaction, not based on our feelings. Yeah, but if there’s a real valid reason that it’s not good for my family to go somewhere and that’s validated. It’s not just a feeling or something to do with my own pride or something like that then yeah, we’ve we’ve had to do that sometimes. And have we gone a year before visiting different churches? We’ve gone as much of a year as a year before visiting different churches, but we had a really joyful experience and we kind.

Of it’s all about perspective.

It was perspective. And we we met a lot of wonderful people and and we really try not to be too judgy about the churches because always knowing that this is the bride of Christ, right? And there is no perfect church. But we do need to find a place for us and we need to persevere and we need to demonstrate perseverance. And if we can’t find a church that’s Bible. Leaving near us that we want to do. Well, you know, what they do in China and Iran and these other countries, they sacrifice losing their lives to secretly do church in their homes. Praise the Lord. If you’re in America, you don’t have to do that. There could be people listening. We have people all over the world, even in China, listening to this somehow and praise God for you guys. Your example of putting church as a priority, even at the sake of losing your not only your life, but your children’s lives.

And so that’s how much Jesus means to them and that’s how much Jesus is supposed to mean to all of us. And I think that, you know, versus chapters in the Bible, like John 14 is one of my favorite chapters. It has been for a long time. But some of the verses in there that just call us to radical obedience in Christ, I just want to share with you in John 1415, it says, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. And again, in verse 21, it says, Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and manifest myself to him. I want Jesus to manifest himself to me. Do you want that? For sure. So how does that happen? It happens by loving him enough to obey what his word says and not ignoring scriptures like Hebrews 1025 and 24 and 25 that say, do not neglect the gathering together. Amen. And then I even think of like, you guys have to go read John 14, because there’s two other spots in this one chapter where he literally just says, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love him. And we will come we will come to him and make our home with him.

So to circle back on the point is, if you can’t find a church where you are, think about what’s happening in other countries and what they’re doing. And then maybe in the freedom of speech that we do have in most places, we open up our homes and we we pray to God that we were part of starting a church. And, you know, I think that there’s always a way to do church. And so if we’re not maybe we’re just not willing to break out of our comfort zone, maybe we’re just giving in to our fears. Maybe we’re being too judgmental, maybe we’re being too prideful. Maybe we’re thinking we’re too shortsighted and we’re just exhausted. It takes a lot to get four kids ready. I go there and, you know, I don’t get a ton because I’m bouncing a baby and I hear.

The sermon because there’s not a nursing room.

I heard that many times from Angie.

And I mean, there’s other reasons, too. Like, I even think of people saying, I’m not going to go because I’m not really going to get anything out of it anyway, or my kids are going to get sick if we go because maybe they get sick every Tuesday. There was a season where that happened right when we put our kids in Sunday school back in the day when our kids were really little and it was like every Tuesday they were sick and I’m like, Are you kidding me? You know? I mean, there’s so many things that can be a temptation to pull you away from the habit that God has designed for us, to help us to be walking in the way that He wants us to basic Christian living. We need that kind of accountability on a regular basis in our lives. And I’m just going to tell you that sometimes it is pride, like Isaac was saying, but sometimes, too, it’s maybe that we’re hiding, we’re in sin and we’re hiding. And we don’t want people to know about the problem that we’re having in our marriage. Or maybe we don’t want people to know how disobedient that three year old is, or we don’t want people to know how cluttered our home is and how we’re not a very good homemaker.

Or maybe we have an idol or something extra biblical that we’re hanging on to so tightly, and the people at church are just trying to stay biblical and they don’t quite agree with the thing you’re holding on to tightly. Yeah. And so maybe we need to open our hand and join the Brethren. We don’t have to agree on everything. That’s never going to happen where you agree on everything. But we do need unity of mind on the things that matter.

And we do need to all agree that we want to be biblical Christians and we want to be obeying God’s commands because we love Him and we need to open ourselves up to be used by God to encourage other people to obey His Word better. And we need to be humble enough to receive it when others come to us with Scripture that might exhort us to live better also.

So your legacy is worth it and worth fighting for and being an example for. Even if in that one week it wasn’t a great experience for you, you’re doing something that will echo into the future and echo into eternity.

Thanks for joining us, you guys. See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom. 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