Not a Borrowed Love

Last week I did a personal five day devotional by Louie Giglio, about worship. It was fitting for a lot of other things in my life, one being Bible memory with my students. 

Last week we memorized Psalm 119 verse 99...
99 I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. They got a pretty big kick out of that 
being students. And I got a pretty big kick out of it being a teacher.

 It was a great learning moment together when I told them it wasn't good enough to trust their teachers because teachers are human and make mistakes and worse yet, are sometimes just plain wrong. I encouraged them to make sure they know their Bibles so well they are able to recognize when one of their teachers in life are not giving sound advice...A mantra I have adopted since my own childhood.

Do you know? I think that was a strange thought for some of them...On one hand they have been told since babies, they can trust the adults in their lives while on the other, their teacher tells them to double check things with the Word of God.

But I'm sticking to that mantra. Because... do we really want a bunch of little parrots that Pete and Repeat Christian values or do we want kids that accept living a life for Jesus because they have learned He is the Way and have hidden away Bible verses and tasted Truth and experienced Jesus in their own hearts?

Let's make sure our kids know that their own personal commitments to living a life for Jesus is theirs. They need to know their own personal walk cannot be handed down, that it is not inherited simply because Mom and Dad loved Jesus. They need to claim their own original and unique relationship with Jesus today to be able to be the next strong set of Christ followers in the future Bride of Christ.

Because we all automatically worship...God made it so...let us make sure we are leading our kids to the Words of God and that they see us worship God in our junk, in our sorrows, and in our failures. 

Kids are not easily fooled. They will more quickly embrace honesty and failures over hypocrisy and perfection. Be transparent, ever learning, ever humble at the foot of the cross. Stay broken with hands lifted to Jesus for constant strength and wisdom.

Then, we can have hope they will know they cannot borrow the love and forgiveness that comes through the blood of Jesus, and that they must get their own. May they be led to worship, to Jesus because of our example, but may their spirits be led to Jesus because they choose to claim the blood of Jesus on their own.