Mentoring Minutes

(Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Colossians 3:18-21)

As we continue to explore parenting (discipling) our children according to God’s design, let’s look at three opportunities for parents to disciple and train their children in line with God’s Word. These are not exhaustive or all-inclusive but they will give you some direction and ideas to implement in your family and parenting.

1) “Family Time” (“when you sit around the table, when you lie down and when you rise up”) – meals together, devotionals, family worship, etc. – all of these offer excellent times for stories, family history, recaps of the day, and provide great chances to go deeper in laughter, tears and emotion and especially in teaching and building character and relationships.

Don’t miss or take for granted these times when you can set aside the pressures and stresses of your day and the world and talk, listen to, enjoy and encourage each other through laughter and tears in serious and fun conversations.

2) “Along the Road” – school/team trips, road trips, vacations, drive time, appointments, other – more opportunities to focus the conversation through updates on school events, friends, teams, etc., and include character and relationship development.

Take the times to engage in and be intentional and involved as you can in as many of the activities that are going on in your children’s lives. Also, be careful not to live your life through them and/or sign them up for every sport, activity or event on the calendar, as the enemy will use this to destroy your family as well. Balance your time and be intentional about being present with them.

3) “Milestones” – special times and events, Rites of Passage, Passing on a Blessing, others – Focus on God’s design and order, including Jewish culture of Biblical times and young adulthood at 12 (female) and 13 (male) years of age (Jewish bat or bar mitzvah) with mature adulthood at 30 years of age (Jesus honored this in launching His Public Ministry at age 30 – Sermon on the Mount)…even though He stumped the religious leaders at age 12 prior to being recognized as a young adult. 

a. Rites of Passage – Family Crest or Symbol captured and given in some way to children along with family and friends’ letters of encouragement and challenge for each child at young adulthood

b. Ongoing discussions at age-appropriate times (beginning as early as age 3 with respect for body parts, etc.) about bodies, sexuality and relationships…again don’t let your past guilt or shame stop you from sowing seeds of righteousness, integrity and purity into their lives. Let His forgiveness, freedom, Truth and Love shine through you as parents and be passed onto their children.

c. Letters or encouragement of some kind from you as parents as they move on through life… graduations, jobs, successes, moving out on their own, engagement, marriage, etc.

Discipling Our Children in The Lord – Some Insights

In order to do all of this effectively and with God’s blessing we need to develop disciplines (guidelines and boundaries) in line with God’s Word. Punishment, as we discussed in last week’s article (https://loveandlordship.com/blog/biblical-discipleship-in-parenting-proverbs-226-ephesians-64/), and whenever possible, comes after talking with your children as to the motives and heart issues. Children will often come up with a harsher punishment than you will because they have to talk and think through the state of their heart that led to their disobedience or sinful actions.

As parents you can then encourage them to receive the loving punishment without grumbling or complaining (Philippians 2:14-15…this is good for all of us as adults throughout our life to shine His Light in a dark world). Remember, they have already recognized the sin in their heart and come up with their own punishment, at least to some degree so they are able to better accept what is taking place and why this loving action is needed in their life. As appropriate you can then show them “grace” by giving back or reducing the punishment before the time frame that they had set on themselves—helping them to see and experience truth (disciplines and punishment) and grace (receiving something back or reducing their punishment “before” they deserved it).

One other thing you can do that our children told us was very powerful in their growth as young adults and in Christ. We recognized significant moments in their lives (birthdays, graduations, special awards, moving out on their own, etc.) with special celebrations with just that child which would include a letter outlining what we had observed in them on their path to that moment, encouragement for the next phase of their life and Godly wisdom to help guide them.

I hope these will help you as you continue to disciple your children in and for The Lord to shine His Light for His Glory (Ephesians 6:4; Colossians 3:21).

Special Milestone

One of the most impactful special moments took place for each of our children upon the occasion of their 13th birthday. We developed a ring that included the Williams Family Crest. When I played basketball in Ireland someone in the Tourism department researched our family name. They presented me with a silver platter with our crest and motto related to our name – Williams in Gaelic means “Wisdom in Strength.” How daunting…and awesome is that?

The crest on the ring was the centerpiece and on each side we had engraved a Scripture; on one side was “Proverbs 9:10” which states, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” On the other side was “Philippians 4:13” which reads, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” “Wisdom in Strength.” That event laid a path before them to both encourage and challenge them to walk in the Wisdom and Strength that only comes from The Lord. I pray the same for you and your children. What will you do to help them grow in Him?

Love and Lordship…Food for Thought – Parenting, i.e., discipling our children requires that we live our lives as disciples of Christ so that it aligns with what we are teaching them. They will catch much more by our example than by our teaching. 

Love and Lordship…Action Item(s) –

1. Read the Scriptures in this article. Ask The Holy Spirit to show you how to parent your children to be disciples of Christ.
2. Identify “Family Times,” “Road Times” and Milestones in your family and children’s lives.
3. Come up with ways to recognize how you can make the most of the opportunities in your list from 2) above.
4. Regardless of whether you’ve done this to date or not, now is a great day to start for the sake of your children and generational discipleship.

(Proverbs 22:6; Ephesians 6:4) This will not be easy for most parents in today’s culture, including most in modern church culture. My prayer is that we look to God and His Word and apply His Truth in Grace and Love as we parent and disciple our children for His Kingdom and Glory.

Loving Discipline & Punishment

Parenting is ultimately about discipling your children to know Christ as their Savior and Lord and to grow in Him. Discipleship includes teaching, training, Godly discipline, and loving punishment in line with Biblical values, training your children in righteousness according to God’s Word.

Biblical Discipline is not punishment as we are to desire discipline (Proverbs 12:1).  Disciplines are actually the boundaries, guidelines, and foundations on which you establish or build your life, marriage, family, parenting (all relationships for that matter): Love, Wisdom, Virtue, Purity, Integrity, Patience, Self-control, and many more all based on the foundation of God’s Word–Absolute Truth. Biblical Punishment is actually what occurs when we fail to stay ‘inside’ or intentionally move ‘outside’ the disciplines that have been established in order to guide someone back within those truths where they can most fully and freely grow–Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Proverbs 22:6; Ephesians 6:1-4; Hebrews 12:1-15.

Are you studying and applying God’s loving disciplines and, as needed, loving punishment to guide, train and disciple your children in The Lord? This is not easy but it is what God knows we need and it’s worth it!

Keys to Biblical (& Healthy) Discipline & Punishment (Hebrews 12:5-11)

The following is to help you establish disciplines and guidelines and administer loving punishment as needed according to God’s Word and our Heavenly Father’s example found in Hebrews 12:5-6, quoting Proverbs 3:11-12. The Greek word “paideia” and “paideuo” used in these verses, respectively, is most often translated as “discipline” but here it actually means, “to chastise.” Remember this is God so it is always done in love to correct us and draw us to Him and we are wise to follow His example in our parenting.

Guidelines for Biblical Disciplines and Punishment:

1) Discipline and punishment are both part of God’s Truth and Love toward us–His Word must be the source in establishing discipline and administering punishment.

2) Discipline is modeled first in our lives before applied in others–lessons are caught more than taught.

3) Be clear and consistent–both discipline and punishment should be clearly communicated and consistently applied in your life and parenting.

4) Three guidelines for punishment:

     A) Disrespect–ignorant or initial willfulness;

     B) Defiance–clear, continued rebellion toward your authority;

     C) Danger–to avoid immediate harm and teach lessons that protect from danger.

5) Never punish in anger or from pride–be sure to check your own motives and selfishness whenever applying punishment with your children–very difficult in tense and embarrassing moments (for us as parents), but punishment must be applied in Love.

6) Punishment and reward – Punishment fits the crime; give opportunities to reward for good behavior and heart as well as for good response to punishment (train the heart). Be sure to connect both punishment and reward with character rather than just accomplishment or performance.

7) Involve your children – allow them to help establish foundations and guidelines based on God’s Word as you craft and communicate disciplines and punishment. Allow them to define their own punishment to the extent they understand the heart issues and can apply it justly. You keep the final say!

I hope these will help you as you train up your children in The Lord. As we continue with this crucially important topic let’s look at what it takes to pass on a Godly generational legacy for His Glory!

This is not only a difficult topic for us to understand it is hard to receive as the culture has twisted this, as they do all things of the Lord and His Word, so that we have conformed in most things to the way of the world rather than being transformed by God’s Word and Spirit (Romans 12:2).

Earlier we looked at the Greek word that was interpreted as discipline for guiding and for chastising, both coming from the same root word. However, the writer of Hebrews, under the inspiration of The Holy Spirit uses the following Greek word, mastigoō, one time in Hebrews 12:6 and it is translated, “to scourge” or “to whip”… all those God receives as His child. Why? Because He loves to punish us? Absolutely not, as that makes no sense based on the rest of the story that Christ gave us culminating in The Cross. He then states in verse 8 that if we do not receive the correction, implying the punishment from v. 6, then we are actually not His children.

I don’t know about you but I think that you, as do I, want to be His child and I want the same for my children.  This means He will lovingly punish us…OUCH!

This is certainly not to advocate for child abuse of any kind, but it is to help us understand that punishment is part of God’s love and He knows that we will need it as sinful people in a fallen world. I say often, “God is willing to place the 1,000 volt fence before the 1,000 foot cliff. The shock may hurt but you have the chance to learn from it rather than walk off the cliff.”

Be firm and loving, just as God is, as you apply discipline and punishment with your children for there is great reward (see Hebrews 12:10-11)!

In closing this article I want to share a personal prayer and outcome that my wife, Ami, and I experienced as we applied these principles of God’s loving discipline and punishment with our children.

As we were raising our children our prayer and desire was for them to know all of God’s love, knowing that every bit of it, even the tough and sometimes painful parts, were for their good. Knowing that God is always true to His Word and that as His child, they would at some point receive His punishment out of His love, our prayer was that instead of them running from it and rebelling against Him we asked that they would see and recognize His love, even and especially in the punishment, and run toward Him. It’s easy to run to Him when He is giving us the pleasant things.  We wanted to be as faithful, firm, gentle and loving as we could by the indwelling presence of The Holy Spirit in our lives as parents.

As they have faced their own consequences and His loving, yet tough, punishment we have seen that prayer come to pass and are so excited about how He has drawn them to Him.  In so doing, He has grown them in Christ! What a faithful answer to our prayer that instead of running from God…they ran to Him! Praise The Lord!

Love and Lordship…Food for Thought – In God’s Love, because He knows what is best for us in every situation, He has clearly included His loving punishment for our good.  Accept it and turn to Him rather than running further away when He applies this to your life as His true son or daughter. 

Love and Lordship…Action Item(s) –

1. Read the Scriptures in this article. Ask The Holy Spirit to show you how you have interpreted and applied discipline/punishment in your children’s lives.
2. Accept and apply discipline with yourself and your children as foundations, boundaries and guidelines by which we live our lives most fully and freely.
3. Begin to accept punishment as part of God’s Love and apply it in love.

Ask for forgiveness where you have punished your children in anger or pride and strive to do better in the power of The Holy Spirit.

Family and Parenting in God’s Design…continued  (Deuteronomy 6:6-9)

As parents, we all desire to have a household of peace rooted in character. Scripture speaks to the importance of character over and over again and I want to share two of those passages to encourage you as to its importance and to be sure you’re walking in the character of Christ and His Word.

The first is from what many know as “The Prayer of Jabez” in 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 (NASB): “Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother named him Jabez saying, ‘Because I bore him with pain.’ Now Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, ‘Oh that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my border, and that Your hand might be with me, and that You would keep me from harm that it may not pain me!’ And God granted him what he requested.”  His mother literally named him, Pain!  How’s that for a moniker?

We find one simple note about character in the opening and closing statements of these two verses. We find that God granted Jabez’s request, but the writer of Chronicles under the guidance of The Holy Spirit wanted us to not miss that Jabez was honorable, which means “of noble character.” It is connected to God’s granting of his request.

That’s what we desire for our children and to pass it on we must live it, teach it, expect it and encourage it.

The second passage points to how character prompts us to act. In Acts 17:11, Paul and Silas had come to Berea from Thessalonica and the text reads, “Now the Berean Jews were of more ‘noble character’ than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Inner quotes mine and added for emphasis)

Notice what their character prompted them to do. They eagerly searched and studied for themselves. These are key attributes of the discipleship life and what we, as parents, desire to instill in our children.

As we model and develop character in our lives and in our children’s lives, the spiritual fruit is a seeking for Truth, ultimately a seeking for Christ!

Building Our Children’s Self-Worth

Every parent desires to have good children, although some may define “good” differently. For those of us who call Christ Lord and walk as His followers and disciples, this character is based on His life and God’s Word (Colossians 3:16). Hopefully you’ve been tracking along and are able to see that everything in these articles is founded on God’s Word.  The principles are for building our character that we, and our children, would form the character of Christ (Galatians 4:19).

One of the enemy’s greatest tricks common to all of us is to focus and reward one another based on accomplishment or performance only. While we need to be encouraged when we have done what is right or good and achieved successes, true development happens in our heart in the formation of character.

As parents we should be attentive to this and while we certainly can point out and reward accomplishment and performance, we must go deeper and find the issues of character so we can praise, reward, and help develop that inward compass in our children’s lives, pointing them to Christ in all things.

In order to do this, let Christ be formed first and always in me.

As we seek to mature in and have Christ formed in us so we can train our children up in His character and instruction, we will begin to see Christ in them as they learn to know and love Him with all they are and seek Him above all else. This is the core and foundation of them knowing who they are and recognizing that their identity, value and worth are in Him.

This is a blessing to them as they mature and it is also a tremendous blessing to us as parents to see the self-control and self-discipline so crucial to developing character in our children. This carries over into the peaceful home we all desire.

The world is mesmerized by self-esteem, but in reality that is just another word for pride that ultimately destroys. The real trophy, or jewel, that our children need is to know their self-worth, leading to self-love. Let me give you a simple yet profound equation that I pray will help you in developing this in yourself and your children:

Self-discipline/controlàself-respectàself-worthàself-love

Again this is not the self-love of the world but the sacrificial self-love of Christ! God, let them and us know that we are your masterpiece in Him (Ephesians 2:10)!

Think back over these articles and see how this aligns with the greatest commands in that it takes self-discipline/control to die to self and worship God above all. As we mature in our faith and praise, we grow to love Him with all that we are. This produces the self-respect that comes from knowing and loving who we are in Him, which gives us our self-worth and ability to love our self (who we are in Christ). Now we are able to love others.

Unless we are willing to practice the self-discipline/control that forms His character in our lives, we will never develop the self-respect and self-worth needed to go outside ourselves and love others fully.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Happy will that house be in which relations are formed from character.” We want our children to be blessed as we walk after The Lord and they grow to do the same (Proverbs 20:7). We all desire a home filled with happiness and peace and it is Godly character that makes it a reality (Proverbs 24:3-4; Psalm 127:1a).

You can be sure The Lord is building your family as you build on The Rock of Christ!

Character, Integrity & Legacy (Deuteronomy 6:7; Proverbs 20:7; 22:6; Ephesians 6:4)

Remember, whatever you invest into your children will become the legacy that you leave and they live out. You need to be intentional and willing to have candid discussions in teaching them about life, relationships, and sexuality, as these are what we were created for to build the loving relationships of Christ’s Kingdom. Don’t let fear, guilt or any other deterrents keep you from being the ones, as parents, to model this character and teach it your children.

Research shows over and over again that despite the Internet, media, peers, and other influencers, parents still have by far the greatest influence on their children. Good or bad, you will be the greatest molder of their life.  My question to you is, “What legacy will your influence leave?” Will it be one of character leading them to walk with Christ or will it be for the world?

The second greatest influence is their faith. How are you guiding and helping to shape their faith. Remember, it’s not the pastor or youth minister’s job, it’s yours. They will stand or fall based on how you model and instill that faith in them.

God is Faithful as we are doing these things with and for our children!

Love and Lordship…Food for Thought – We must be the first teachers and disciplers but we also are responsible to see that those “others” that impact our children’s lives are rooted in God’s Word as well. This includes involvement in a church family (Hebrews 10:24-25), pastors, schools and teachers, coaches and others. While they may not do everything we do as parents we desire that they are seeking after and following God’s Word and will and together we can impart that faith in Christ to our precious children.  When they are not, we can graciously counter that while teaching our children to respect and honor their authority.

Love and Lordship…Action Item(s) –

1. Read the Scriptures in this article. Ask The Holy Spirit to reveal how you are instilling character in your own life and in your children.
2. How are you developing self-worth/self-love in your children? How are you teaching them self-discipline?
3. How do you model the self-worth/self-love spectrum in your life? 
4. What will you do to ensure that you are leaving a Godly legacy of integrity for your children?