Living like Jesus in front of our kids
Jesus called Levi from his tax booth to follow Him. Levi not only left everything to follow Him, but then made a great feast for his new Master at which was "a large company of tax collectors" (Lk 5:29) Not surprisingly, this offended the religious Jews, who perceived holiness as keeping away from the dirty ones. Jesus responded:
"Those who are well have no need for a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance" (Luke 5:31-32).Do we imitate Jesus in this? Do we live among the 'sick', the despised tax collectors 'and sinners' - not because we embrace their sin, but to call sinners to repentance? Or do our kids see parents who simply keep their noses clean, and look down on the sinful folk? Or do they see parents who are among the sinners, but aren't calling anyone to repentance?
If our kids are to grow up in the holiness of the Son of God that is neither stuffy nor indulgent, we must model the way of socializing with the 'sick', and calling them out of sickness and into repentance.
Subscribe to posts
4 comments:
Thanks for that reminder Graham. You have been a great example to me of one who cares for the poor for Christ's sake. I have been thinking myself about the need to not only care for the sick, but call them to repentance. It is the same conversation we've had before about what do we offer the needy which Jeffrey Sachs or other secular humanitarians do not?
How important it is to show both care and call to our children, lest our faith degenerate to works in our children's generation.
Mike, I think you've identified a third danger. I saw:
1. Isolation
2. Immersion, but without the call
You rightly pointed out that there is a third danger:
3. Caring, but without the call
And you're exactly right; our kids have to see faith behind love that believes that only Christ saves, heals and gives hope
i just read an article which made a related point that instead of either consuming or condemning (in this case, popular culture), we should be engaging the culture:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/music/news/2005/christiancolleges-0305.html
The Christianity Today article was interesting (particularly as I attended a Christian college). Thanks for sharing it with us.
However (as you might have gathered from my post) I think the critical issue is not engagement with culture in the sense of what movies we watch, games we play, or music to which we listen.
Rather, it was the people with whom we associate, and the intention with which we do it: the loving call to repentance. My experience has been that there are many more Christians who are willing to 'engage culture' (as the CT article demonstrates) than are willing to spend their Saturdays in the projects, loving the people there, and calling them to repentance.
Post a Comment