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"You cannot have holiness without sacrifice, righteousness without obedience, leadership without a servant heart, love without humility.
Sally Clarkson
In a performance-based society where we often measure ourselves by “test scores, degrees, power, money,” we are so busy trying to cover all that our children need to accomplish in life, that often, inadvertently we don’t invest enough time on cultivating virtue, faith, character, the issues of the heart and spirit.
Clay and I made specific goals for our children that had to do with heart, soul and spirit training beyond what we thought our children knew academically. We knew that unless they had internalized the vision of what it meant to be like Christ in their every day worlds, faith would just be something to know cognitively but without a foundation of the ways of thinking and walking in their adult lives.
Often, as believers, we live between two extremes, soul-killing legalism and rules and ensnaring tolerance and open-mindedness, under the auspices of grace. But only Biblical wisdom and truth can really prepare our children to emerge into their worlds prepared to encounter the secularism and temptations presented at every turn in a secular culture, as well as offer the insight for making mature decisions. .
Discernment is the ability to judge well between truth and vanity is reflected in the life of a mature believer. Discernment between good and evil and the willingness to obey whatever God requires is an evidence of one walking in the power of the Holy Spirit and following God's word. However, many do not even know what the word of God says anymore, so they follow online wisdom.
God's word provides the wisdom, boundaries, and insight for each day of our lives. Boundaries and fences and hedges are established for the protection of a land or home, the definition of its realm and the measuring of it's place. When you remove fences and borders, all sorts of havoc reigns. Boundaries provide definition, stability and security. Our culture calls out daily for the compromise and moving of boundaries in our lives. Without a depth of training in the Word, so many are caught up in the seemingly alluring messages—either to legalism and judgment or to compromise and compliance with less than Biblical ideals.
As I have said many times, “in the absence of Biblical conviction, people go the way of culture.”
In the weeks ahead, I will be hosting a podcast series from my book, 10 Gifts of Heart, a book Clay and I wrote to focus on the wisdom habits and principles we wanted our children to have before they left our home and entered into the world as young adults. Be sure to get your copy and follow along with me.
Today, I talk with my friend, Dr. Michael Ward, about his book, After Humanity, his newest book about C.S. Lewis, where we discuss the role virtue plays in the shaping of character. Be inspired.
(You can order his book through https://www.wordonfire.org/humanity/ and by ordering at this venue, you will receive a free copy of The Abolition of Man, only through this publisher.)
