BOOK
Children of
Fire:
by
Mel W. Coddington, Ph.D.,
M.A.B.C.
www.BelieverAssist.com
Copyrights:
Scriptures taken from Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc®
Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Copyright © 2003, 2015, 2021 Mel W. Coddington, and permission is hereby granted that this document may be used, copied, and distributed non-commercially to non-profit organizations, individuals, churches, ministries, and schools worldwide, provided the copies are distributed at no charge and retain this sources documentation as supplied herein. This document is not for sale, resale, or for use as a gift or premium to be offered in connection with solicitations or contributions.
Table of Contents
I.
Analyzing the Problem
Chapter 1:
Ineffective Modern Solution Attempts
II.
Plugging In To More Power
Chapter 3: Gaining
Access to God and His Power
Chapter 4: Drawing
Upon God's Power
III.
Getting to the Heart of The Problem
Chapter 5:
Objectives and Influences of Strongholds
Chapter 6: Origins
and Treatment of Strongholds
IV.
Christ-like Parenting
Chapter 7:
Modeling Christ-likeness
Chapter 8:
Interacting With Love
Chapter 9:
Balanced Discipline
Chapter 10:
Reconciling With Your Child
V.
Facilitating Reconciliation With God
Chapter 12:
Biblical Counseling
Appendix A: List of Strongholds
Appendix B: Quick Reference List
GRK
= English definition of a Greek word taken from the original Greek version of
the New Testament of the Bible
HBR
= English definition of a Hebrew word taken from the original Hebrew version of
the Old Testament of the Bible
KJV
= the King James Version translation of the Bible
NIV
= the New International Version translation of the Bible
Strong’s
#____ = Strong’s reference number for the Greek words in the New Testament and
the Hebrew words in the Old Testament of the Bible
v.__
= verse number
vv.__
= verses numbers
Scripture
taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. (c) Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 International
Bible Society. Used by permission of
Zondervan Bible Publishers.
Quotations
from the King James Version Bible and Strong's Greek Dictionary
used by permission of Ellis Enterprises, Inc., 4205 McAuley Blvd., Suite 385,
Oklahoma City, OK 73120. (c) Copyright 1988 - 1998. All Rights Reserved.
Among the many activities I have been
involved in since starting in ministry in 1992, I have naturally been drawn to
ministering to troubled children, teenagers, and adults. In this regard, initially I worked with
street kids, and then added ministering to incarcerated men and juveniles. Then in 1996, I (along with my wife) took a
job as a live-in houseparent for troubled teenage girls in a Community II residential
treatment group home facility specifically designed to teach to their serious
behavior disorders, which were due mainly to sexual abuse, physical abuse,
substance abuse, gang involvement, and/or abandonment. For 4 years, I researched and tested various
treatment and counseling approaches and techniques to determined their
effectiveness on the extreme psychological and behavioral conditions the girls
in my group home exhibited. From the
combined experiences of ministering to troubled youth in these various ways
over the years, my three academic degrees (Doctor of Philosophy in Pastoral
Ministry, Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling, Bachelor of Arts in
Evangelism/Discipleship), and my 10 years of experience as a professional
marriage and family Biblical counselor has come the forging of the approach and
principles for this book, Children Of Fire, which is designed to help average parents, adoptive
parents, foster parents, and house parents facilitate positive lasting change
in the life of their troubled youth, who has major psychological and/or behavior
problems.
"My kid is out of control! He does exactly what he wants and completely ignores everything I
tell him. He's running me ragged and I think
I'm going to have a nervous breakdown because of how my kid is behaving and
what he's putting me through. I've
tried everything and I'm desperate for help. I just don't know what to do
anymore."
Have you been thinking this way about
your child or teenager? Has your
situation with your child been progressively deteriorating to the point where
you feel you have lost control over him or her? Are your child's behaviors severe or destructive? Is your child or teenager putting you
through the fires of frustration, anguish, hopelessness, distress, and despair?
There is a healthy way to facilitate
positive lasting personality and behavior change in the life of your troubled
youth. This book, Children of Fire,
is designed to help average Christian parents, adoptive parents, foster
parents, and house parents accomplish this goal. Utilizing a balanced combination of evangelism, discipleship, and
biblical counseling, the unique approach offered in this book provides concrete
action steps for parents to implement in creating fertile conditions and
environment which are favorable for their youth to sprout and grow
spiritually. The key to this approach
is to proceed in a manner that pleases the Lord, collaborates with Him, and is
thereby conducive for Him to release His power in the life of the troubled
youth. Gradually, biblical principles
and truth are increasingly applied into every aspect of the youth's life, daily
living, the family, and social relationships to bring about actual personality
transformation.
Most approaches on this subject are
theoretically written from the normal perspective and experiences of being a
pastor, or a youth worker, or a clinical counselor who has significant but
limited exposure to youths in turmoil.
The approach in Children of Fire was forged from the unusual
tribulation-al furnace atmosphere of a treatment group home where I, together
with my wife, lived with 8-9 extremely troubled teenage girls at a time. These girls exhibited serious behavior
disorders and were thereby classified as being unsuitable for living in normal
homes or foster homes. In the fires of
daily turmoil and distress, we were able to discover, test, and refine an
approach through which dramatic personality changes were occurring in even the most
hardcore of street gangbangers. Living
so closely with and ministering to these group home girls for 5 years has
yielded a wealth of insight about how to effect positive lasting change in
troubled youths who have problems or behaviors ranging from mild to
severe. Understanding also was gained
from their variety of backgrounds - most of whom either: had lived on the
streets; were from broken homes; had been severely neglected, abandoned, or
abused by one or both of their parents; were delinquents with the law and/or
school; were in juvenile detention for serious or grievous crimes; had
regularly used mild and/or hard drugs; had been adopted; or were from normal,
properly functioning homes. Gleaned
from this environment and from 11 years of doing ministry with at-risk youths, Children
of Fire offers a practical, workable way for parents to effectively deal
with their troubled youth, even if the youth is exhibiting extreme behaviors.
There is hope for your unbearable
situation with your youth. The Lord
wants to transform him/her (Rom. 12:2).
"In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for
help. From his temple he heard my
voice; my cry came before him, into his ears... he rescued me... O LORD, my
strength... my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; in whom I take refuge"
(from Psalm 18:6,19,1,2). Children
of Fire will teach you how to call upon the Lord for His help and power in
dealing with and changing your troubled youth.
Section I: Analyzing the
Problem
In this day and age, there seems to be an
increasing number of children and teenagers who are uncontrollable. These youths have developed major behavior
problems and have become difficult or impossible to manage. Their unpleasant dispositions are
characterized by such negative qualities as being: defiant, rebellious, destructive, hurtful, anti‑social, or
unstable. The reasons for the
development of these behavior problems vary widely and are dependent upon
circumstances unique to each particular youth.
Even though the origins of some behavioral problems are readily
identifiable, many are interrelated and have no easily determinable
source. Present behavior problems can
be generated both intentionally and unintentionally by past experiences,
present situations, and future anticipations.
Some negative behaviors can be successfully averted by ordinary means,
but many cannot.
As you know, youths with major behavior
problems put their homes through fires of trials and tribulations. Everyone in the home is adversely affected
by their negative attitudes and actions.
Due to the complexity and concealed sources of the youths' behavior
problems, parents are typically mystified as to the causes for their youths'
deviant behaviors, and their efforts at getting their child to change become
thwarted. The youths seem to enjoy
their hurtful ways and have no apparent sufficient motivations to improve. In desperation, the parents try every
credible method they can find to alleviate their youths' problems.
Popular Methods for Trying
to Effect Change
REWARDS AND CONSEQUENCES: A common approach for parents to employ in
trying to bring their youths under control is to compel and coerce compliance
through ample use of discipline. This
discipline tends to increase in intensity to match the frequency or severity of
the offense. Forced compliance through
overly strong disciplining with strict authority usually backfires, leads to
power struggles, and generates long-term psychological damage in the
youth. Ideally, balance is sought so
that not only are negative behaviors being disciplined, but positive behaviors
are rewarded as well.
To accomplish this balance, a consequence
system is usually devised in which specific consequences are predetermined and
assigned to particular behaviors. When
a child engages in a negative behavior, he earns a deterring negative
consequence usually consisting of a time-out or a maintenance task such as
vacuuming the living room, washing the windows, or etc. Positive behaviors are reinforced with
positive rewards or benefits, such as extra sweet snacks, more television time,
and etc.
Most likely you have tried this approach
countless times, and have determined that this system does supply motivation
for positive behaviors, but it is only temporarily effective for as long as the
system is being adequately enforced.
Also, you may have discovered that children with major behavior problems
strive to circumvent the negative consequences and to secure additional
positive rewards by manipulating the system.
Moreover, even though youths are repeatedly practicing positive
behaviors, their core personalities and character qualities remain unchanged. An accurate appraisal of this approach
necessitates the conclusion that any apparent behavioral change is, in reality,
temporary and superficial.
APPEASEMENT: Appeasement or giving the person what he wants is another popular
approach for changing behaviors that likewise produces insufficient results. Doing such things as taking the child to an
amusement park, giving him candy, or buying him a toy are incentives to change
behaviors. These inducements may bring
momentary peace and compliance, but this kind of appeasement also yields
temporary results that lasts only as long as the youth is being given what he
wants. When placation is terminated,
the child will usually then go into another negative behavior to get more of
what he wants. Therefore, appeasement
in effect spoils the child by supplying motivation for the child to threaten
further hostility and demand more placation rather than to bring about positive
lasting behavior change.
As an example, suppose a mother takes her
child along with her to go shopping in the grocery store. After he persistently whines for her to buy
him something, she purchases him a candy bar as a motivation to change his
behavior and be good - which he does on that occasion. But the next time they go to the store, the
child throws a fit again if he does not again get a candy bar. If the mother holds her ground this time and
refuses to buy him a candy bar, then the child goes into a louder or more
destructive rage until she capitulates.
Hence, the child really has not changed his behavior positively, but is
instead using negative behavior as manipulation to get what he wants. So in the long‑term, appeasement
actually encourages negative behavior
- not reduces it. Do your experiences
with your troubled youth confirm that giving him everything he wants only
encourages him to demand more?
WILL GROW OUT OF IT: An idealistic theory that has gained much
popularity in recent years is the assumption that the youth will grow out of
his negative behavior as he grows older.
It is presumed that every person has innate goodness that will one day
be released. Through experiencing
situations in life, stimuli are activated which influence the person to make
better choices for himself. As the
person discovers the benefits of better choices, he will then make more correct
choices until the negative behavior is eventually extinguished. So, the recommended course of action for
this approach is: to be patient; encourage the child to work on his behaviors;
give him plenty of time; and eventually everything will get better as the child
grows out of this phase or stage in his life.
Accept him as he is and do not expect him to change until this phase has
run its course.
Without a doubt many people do grow out
of specific behaviors, but frequently they just change the form or implementation
of the behavior. For example, if a boy
consistently hits others to resolve problems, he may reshape and implement this
behavior in a slightly different manner later in life by resorting to
stealthily beating his wife or child as a way to express his displeasure. Even though the original behavior seemed to
be extinguished at one point in time, in fact it had only gone into a short
remission and then resurfaced years later in a slightly different form.
Another deficiency with this theory is all
of the damage and hurt that are being done while everyone is waiting for this
person to grow out of a negative behavior.
There are no guarantees that change will ever occur, and years of hurt,
pain, suffering, and distress may be inflicted before any relief finally does
come. Furthermore, if the person likes
or enjoys doing the negative behavior, then the damage may increase and
intensify, with relief never coming.
Waiting until a person grows out of a behavior is not practical nor
beneficial. Do you want to endure more
years of what your troubled youth is doing now?
MINIMIZING: The minimizing theory is characterized by idealistic, blind, and
naive thinking that a person's major negative behavior is just a behavior and
is not genuinely meant to inflict damage to others nor is it an intentional act
of the will. Each hurtful behavior is
simply an instinctive response over which the person has little or no ability
to control, and is something he would not normally do in his right mind. Therefore, the proper response to negative
behavior is to not take it personally.
Bear with and endure the behavior because it is not that bad nor is it
meant to hurt you specifically.
The minimizing theory is correct that
negative behavior certainly is difficult or at times impossible to self‑control. But this theory detaches any personal
responsibility for one's actions - which is contrary to the governing,
judicial, and moral systems of human society.
Most negative behaviors result from intentional rational choices. The reason the person is acting upon his
choices is for the purpose of deliberately inflict pain upon someone, or of
getting what he wants with no regard for how it effects others. Either way though, the person should still
be held responsible for his hurtful actions.
Even if a hurtful action occurs as a quick natural reflex,
responsibility should still be taken because this action has been conditioned
as a result of an original rational cognitive choice. Minimizing negative behaviors removes personal responsibility and
only provides an excuse to engage in more negative behaviors. If you minimize your daughter's shoplifting
of a pair of earrings during a recent trip to the mall by telling her that she really
did not mean to do it, what would you reasonably expect to her to do the next
time she goes to the mall?
JUST TALKING ABOUT IT: A frequently effective approach for dealing
with behaviors centers on interaction in which the person talks about his
problems with another person. Just by
talking about the problems, stress is reduced and the person is able to see the
reality of the situation more clearly.
As the person discovers alternative appropriate ways for handling the
problem and takes ownership in good reasons why he should change, then he will
incorporate these rationales into his thinking, and thereupon change as a
result.
Under normal circumstances with normal
people working on mild issues, this approach can accomplish the desired results
of changing behaviors. However, close
follow-up examination and analysis of situations involving more serious issues
reveals that by just talking about one's behavioral or emotional problems
usually does not eliminate their negative influences upon the person, but
merely momentarily soothes the person by getting out the issues and by
eliciting a sympathetic response from the listener. The problem has not necessarily been resolved completely nor has
its influences been extinguished totally.
Take for an example, a discussion with a
parent in which the teenager realizes good reasons for terminating a
behavior. He even acknowledges
agreement with the rationales. But
secretly he harbors a disdain and repulsion for the corresponding choices to
change his behavior. Consequently, to
avoid further direct confrontation and risking exposure, he then resorts to
planning and executing his behaviors in a more calculating, resourceful,
cunning, deceptive, scheming, and covert manner thereafter. Just talking about the problem does not get
rid of its hidden effects. Troubled
youths commonly have fairly serious problems that need more than just talk to
be resolved. Having spent a countless
number of hours, you can attest to the fruitlessness and inadequacy of just
talking about problems with your troubled youth.
ABUSE:
One method for changing behaviors revolves around the credible and
easily verifiable assertion that some present negative behaviors have as their
root a past abuse. When an abuse is
perpetrated upon a person, his cognitive processes become scarred, damaged, and
altered. The more the abuse is
traumatic, the more the resulting behaviors are intense. The younger the person is, the more
ill-equipped he is to cope and process it healthfully. [Author's note: I will discuss in more depth
and incorporate aspects of this theory later in this book.] Countless numbers of sincere and dedicated
people in the counseling field incorporate this theory in their counseling
efforts to facilitate psychological healing from abuse. Their frontline tool is to implement the
following counseling procedure of steps: 1. listen to the person describe his
problem or experience, 2. validate the problem or experience, 3. provide
reasoning options to cope with the problem or experience, and 4. encourage the person
to move on with his life.
Even though this counseling procedure is
based upon a valid theory that there is a link between present behaviors and
past abuse, this procedure is nevertheless identical to the above described
method of 'just talking about it'.
Furthermore, it generates the same ineffective results when dealing with
serious abuse issues. Just talking
about a past abuse does not contain enough intrinsic power to cure all of its
ongoing negative intellectual effects.
PRETEND NOTHING EVER HAPPENED: One of the most unthinkable approaches that
some well-meaning counselors utilize is what could be called the "Pretend
Nothing Ever Happened" approach.
This strategy counsels the person to avoid talking about the past, leave
it in the past, ignore it, stop thinking about or dwelling on it, and it will
go away and not effect you anymore.
Regurgitating past problems does not accomplish anything. Besides, there were probably only a few
instances of abuse and any additional accounts of abuse that are disclosed are
probably fabricated or significantly altered in the person's mind as a way of
getting attention. So, concentrate on
the present in order that better choices can be made for the future. Efforts should focus on making the person feel
better about himself and feel good about life.
Involve the person in plenty of activities to take his mind off the
past. If the person has any ongoing
problems, then he should institute a coping mechanism such as: writing in a
diary; hitting his fist against a pillow; going for a walk; telling the other
person how he feels; or bringing up his concern appropriately with the
legitimate right to stay angry.
A motivation for counselors to use this
approach is a fear of finding out details and comprehensive information about
what horrific abuse actually happened to the person. There is also a justified fear that if the person starts to
recount extremely traumatic events, then he may go berserk and there will be no
good way to control his fit of rage once he gets started.
This counseling concern is warranted
because no person has adequate power to psychologically control another
person's fit of rage. Recalling a
traumatic abuse frequently does incite a strong reaction from the victim, but
ignoring the problem does not solve the problem. Instead, it allows the memories to continue to torment the
person. The converse of having the
abused person repeatedly revisit the abuse over time does not help either,
because the person is not able to gradually adjust to the traumatic event due
to the intensity and vividness of the memories. Furthermore, repeatedly re-living the traumatic event through the
vivid memories is not only fruitless but also abusive in its own rights.
PSYCHOTROPIC MEDICATIONS: An approach that has skyrocketed in
popularity in recent years is the use of medications, which target a person's
brain and thus (supposedly) affect their cognitive processes. These drugs are designed to have an altering
effect on perception or behavior for the purposes of managing a serious
behavior or easing its symptoms. In
particular cases where a child is having severe or destructive behavior
problems, adult caregivers urgently seek anything that will help bring the
child under control so that he is socially safe or tolerable. Thus, psychotropic medications are employed
as a 'quick fix' solution to straighten out a child's severe behavior
problems. If the medications are not
producing the desired results, then the natural tendency is to increase the dosage
and/or add another medication.
From my 5 years of field experience
observing the usage of numerous psychotropic medications on countless
behavior-disordered teenagers in group homes, I have yet to see any of these
medications have any positive effect other than to make the youth sleepy or
drowsy. But even if evidence is
ascertainable to prove that psychotropic medications help to manage symptoms, they certainly do not change behaviors nor do they resolve the
internal empowering that is driving the person to exert hurtful behaviors. In powerful dosages, psychotropic
medications can mellow a person and relieve symptoms somewhat, but they do not
and cannot cure non-medically-related intellectual issues, thinking processes,
and choices people make.
Results of Modern Methods
CASE STUDY OF AN INSTITUTION: At this point in our discussion of modern
methods, it might be beneficial to test and consider their effectiveness in an
environment where negative behaviors abound in both quantity and range of
severity - such as a residential group home facility located in northern
Illinois. The specific purpose of this
facility is to treat behavior-disordered teenage boys and girls. I, together with my wife, were employed
there as girls house parents for 4 years during the late 1990's. On this rural campus, there were 2 girls
homes and 2 boys homes. The campus's
maximum bed capacity was 20 boys and 20 girls, with the total population
averaging about 35 youths. Because this
is a treatment facility that was being paid $175 per day per youth, there were
employed approximately 30 adult staff who worked directly with the youths in
the homes. The adult staff's sole
function was to teach to the youths' behaviors - but not to their schooling,
which was done separately in a different building by school teachers. The youths' length of stay on the campus
ranged anywhere from a few weeks to 5 years, with the average being about 1 1/2
years. Troubled teenagers were brought
there due to having committed crimes and/or being unsuitable for placement in a
foster or relative's home.
The adult staff were extensively trained
in handling the physical, verbal, social, and psychological aspects of serious
negative behaviors. They were required
to utilize a sophisticated model for behavior modification, which primarily
incorporated a point system to: record behaviors; reward positive behaviors
with increased privileges; and discipline negative behaviors with a loss of
privileges. But, all of the popular
methods for trying to effect change (as described in this chapter) were used to
varying degrees. At least 60 minutes of
behavior-corrective teaching were required every day for each youth. The average adult-to-youth ratio was about 1
adult on shift for every 3 youths.
The psychological treatment for each youth was conducted by 2
professional therapists and consisted of: weekly individual counseling
sessions, weekly group counseling sessions; extensive use of psychotropic medications
as prescribed by a psychiatrist; and crisis intervention by the therapists or
psychiatric hospitals as needed.
Treatment also included plentiful activity budgets, and attendance at a
private on‑campus Learning Disabilities / Behavior Disorders school, with
staffing of about 1 teacher for every 2 youths.
From my normal observations on this
campus during a 4 year period between 1996‑2000, hundreds of boys and
hundreds of girls went through their treatment program, but only four of them
were known to be appropriately successful after leaving the program and
facility. Further investigation
revealed that during the 9 1/2 years prior to this period, only one other youth
had become appropriately successful after leaving. The remaining 99 plus percent of the hundreds of these boys and
girls who had gone through this state‑of‑the‑art treatment
facility all self‑destructed after leaving, by doing such things as:
running away; committing crimes; going to jail; doing drugs; engaging in
prostitution or gangbanging; living on the streets or in cars; dropping out of
school; being unable or unwilling to hold a job as an adult; and etc. Apparently, dismal results like this are
common across the secular childcare treatment industry.
All of those four teenagers that became successful
after leaving this institution came from my girls home. What distinguishes them as becoming uniquely
successful is the fact that they had additionally participated voluntarily in
the Bible-oriented treatment approach, which I am advocating in Children of
Fire. All of my girls who accepted
the Bible-oriented treatment approach experienced significant lasting
personality change. The amount of
change they experienced directly correlated to their willingness to participate
in this treatment approach and the length of time they stayed in our home
undergoing this treatment. A few of the
girls in my home experienced little or no personality change due to:
superficially participating in the Bible-oriented treatment; wavering
disinterest in biblical matters; guardedness in dealing with their past; being
removed from our home too quickly; and/or outright rejecting the biblical
aspects of this approach.
The obvious conclusion that can be
rightly ascertained from this institution's results is that youths can be
compelled to be compliant through a rigorous monitoring program, but the minute
the program is removed, they revert back to being incorrigible. One of the best modern treatment programs
that money can buy could not effect positive lasting change in behaviors and
personality of seriously troubled youths.
Compelling compliance lacks the power to change personality.
PARENTAL BURNOUT: Distraught and desperate parents try various
modern methods for bringing change in their troubled youth, but they too
achieve little or no lasting change in behaviors and personality. After long periods of time of enduring the
antics of their children, the parents become perplexed, distressed, and
disheartened. With the growing
realization that they are essentially powerless to remedy the downward spiral,
the parents succumb and give up in hopelessness and despair. Changing their youth seems an impossible
task, and relief appears unattainable.
Their only apparent feasible recourse is to remove the youth from their
home, either by placing him in a group home or else waiting until he is old
enough to survive on his own and then kicking him out of the home.
Perhaps you have reached this point of
total despair. Before resorting to the
extreme of removing your youth from your home, let me suggest that you take a
new, fresh look at the problem from a perspective that you may not have
considered in quite this way before.
Section I: Analyzing the Problem (cont.)
Modern solution approaches to effecting
change operate from humanistic presuppositions and philosophies. From the brief analyses in the previous
chapter, it is apparent these humanistic approaches are virtually devoid of any
theological content or perspective. The
humanistic approaches presume that behaviors are solely the product of
thinking; and that thinking or cognitive processes are purely a function of the
mind within the brain organ. No
spiritual dynamics are recognized, given credence, or taken into account. Perhaps this strikes a bull's-eye as to why
modern solution approaches eventually prove to be essentially ineffective -
they outright ignore humankind's spiritual component and dynamics.
Christianity has much to say about the
problem of how to effect behavior and thinking change. As you will discover below, an appraisal of
the problem from a biblical perspective will prove not only reasonable, but
also plausible, applicable, useful, and potentially highly beneficial.
Appraisal of the Problem
From a Biblical Perspective
God, the supreme spiritual being in the
universe, is very concerned about the thinking and actions of humans. A long time ago, He instituted a spiritual
solution to humankind's negative behavioral problems and documented His solution
in a book, the Holy Bible, for everyone to read and follow. God spiritually orchestrated the writing of
the Bible and He designed it to specifically address humankind's thinking and
behaviors, as He clearly states in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is God‑breathed
and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness". [Note: the New
International Version (NIV) of the Bible will always be used in Children of
Fire unless otherwise designated.]
Hence, from the hand of the One who created us, we humans do have a
detailed instruction book on how to deal with and change negative behaviors.
SIN:
Contrary to popular conceptions, God identifies negative behaviors as
being 'sins'. Briefly summarized, sins
are anything that a person does or mentally dwells on which transgresses God's
character, will, commands, decrees, or laws.
Sin is failing to do the good which one knows he should be doing (Jam.
4:17). Sin causes us to miss the mark
and "fall short" of God's requirements for perfect righteousness
(Rom. 3:23). God says that your child,
along with the rest of us, sins when he thinks or behaves inappropriately. Therefore, all negative behaviors should
rightly be regarded as sins.
Sin comes naturally to us humans. We are born with a sinful nature - a natural
desire to do and be sinful (Eph. 2:1-3).
Our lives are characterized by "gratifying the cravings of our
sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts" (v.3). As such, God determines us to be spiritually
dead and unable to counter sin's adverse effects (vv.1,5). We follow sinful ways whether we want to or
not. We "offer" ourselves
"in slavery to impurity and to ever‑increasing wickedness"
(Rom. 6:19). In our natural state of
depravity (or moral corruption), we are not content with merely doing a few
evil things. "Although [we] know
God's righteous decree that those who do such [wicked] things deserve death,
[we] not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who
practice them" (Rom. 1:32).
Moreover, we "invent ways of doing evil" (Rom. 1:30). All sinful acts and our desires for them are
a source of friction, conflict, and separation between God and we humans. Consequently, God gives us over to freely
indulge in the sinful desires of our hearts (Rom. 1:24). Is this exposition on our propensity to do
evil describing the condition of your troubled youth?
Sin is so powerful that as a whole we
have no control over it nor sufficient power to completely eliminate it. We are born with an intrinsic enslavement to
sin and are powerless to break its grip (Rom. 6:5-7). Most of the time, we do not care that we have insufficient
control over our doing evil, because we like the evil and are busy scheming up
ways to gratify our cravings for more (Eph. 2:3). As slaves to sin, we are thereby "free from the control of
righteousness" (Rom. 6:20) - meaning that we humans essentially have
little or no desire or compulsion to engage in righteous living and abstain
from evildoing.
This brings up an interesting point to
ponder: How can you as a parent justifiably expect and require your youth to
engage in righteous living when he lacks innate restraint to do good and
instead possesses an overpowering urge to do evil? Judging from these Bible passages such as Romans 6 and Ephesians
2, I would contend that in his current state of being, it is virtually
impossible for your troubled youth to be consistently good even if he/she wants
to. For various reasons, God has
allowed sinful passions to overwhelm and comprehensively dominate your youth.
BONDAGE TO SIN: Our cultural thinking today is replete with wise-sounding
remedies and recommendations to focus on positive thinking, to let one's inner
goodness blossom, and to draw on one's own inherent power to successfully
overcome destructive negative desires and behaviors. While being well-intentioned and yet limited in effectiveness,
these remedies ignore the reality that we are entrapped in our bondage to serve
sin. A key biblical passage for this
concept that also fittingly summarizes the thesis, intent, and approach of Children
of Fire is in 2 Timothy 2:19-26.
Focusing here on just the end of this passage within verses 25-26:
25. "Those who oppose him [the
Lord's servant (v.24)] he must gently instruct, in the hope that God
will grant them repentance
leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26. and that they will come to
their senses and escape from the
trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will."
From
these verses, notice that bondage to sin is an intentional tactic of the
kingdom of darkness (the devil) to take us humans "captive"
(v.26). The kingdom of darkness
constructs "traps" specifically designed to ensnare humans in sinful
thinking and behaviors. Its purpose is
to control humans and get them to do its "will" - evil (v.26). Regrettably, we humans cannot escape this
trap on our own because it takes an action of God to "grant" us
deliverance from the trap (v.25).
The kingdom of darkness uses lies, which
are the opposite of the "truth", as a means of tricking or seducing
its human prey into engaging in sin and thereby entering its trap (v.25). This deception and corresponding sinful
indulgence produce a blinding or numbing effect, which displaces the human prey
out of clearly thinking in our normal "senses" (v.26). Being somewhat incapacitated
psychologically, we are then exploited to do evil things. Normally we would not participate in doing
this evil when we are thinking clearly, have sufficient knowledge of the truth,
and are free from the kingdom of darkness's influences (vv.25-26). But, we are tightly held captive by lies of
the kingdom of darkness to do as it pleases.
By believing lies and by acting from an
ignorance of the truth, your troubled youth has entered the kingdom of
darkness' trap of depravity, and is in enslavement to doing its will. Moreover, Ephesians 2:2-3 state that the
kingdom of darkness entices its prey into "following the ways of this
world" through which it is actively working in the desires, thoughts, and
actions of disobedient humans. Through
cultural influences, your troubled youth is being manipulated as a puppet,
pawn, and slave of the kingdom of darkness.
As a result, fortified enslaving "strongholds" of sin have
been established to effectively control your son or daughter, who has become
unmotivated and, in reality, incapable of removing the strongholds (2 Cor.
10:4).
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCES: As you have already learned, insisting,
pleading, bribing, demanding, or forcing your troubled child to change has
proven to be futile and utterly unproductive.
Not only is your child powerless to control and change his bondages to
sin, but you are equally powerless to convince or incite him to change. A reason that this is humanly impossible is
because the strongholds have been established and fortified by supernatural
spiritual power from the spiritual kingdom of darkness. Ephesians 2:2 clearly proclaims that the
influence and power of the kingdom of darkness is "now at work in those
who are disobedient". There is
occurring in the life of your troubled youth a concentrated, intentional
exertion of supernatural power to carry out destructive schemes, purposes, and
activities of the kingdom of darkness (Eph. 6:11-12). Your struggles with the behaviors of your child are "not
against flesh and blood" - not on a level of human against human
(v.12). Rather, your struggles are on a
spiritual level - a spiritual battle against the power-filled activities of the
kingdom of darkness, which employs a supra-human power that supersedes or goes
beyond the abilities of humans (v.12).
This would explain why your sincere and
strenuous efforts to prevail over your child's behaviors have failed. You do not possess the supra-human power to
subdue the spiritual activities going on in the mind of your child. If any of us had this ability, then we would
successfully use it on ourselves and others to bring about complete
psychological healing and utopia-like happiness to everyone. There would be no more hurting victims in
this world, no more behavior-disordered children, no more juvenile delinquents,
no more battered wives, no more paranoid or manic-depressive psychiatric
patients, no more suicide attempts, no more revenge violence, and etc. But the reality is that neither you, nor any
of us humans, intrinsically possess the type of power necessary to effectively
counteract this supra-human negative power coming from the kingdom of darkness. We have been vainly using our humanistic
tools when spiritual tools are required.
Humanistic approaches usually do not effect positive lasting change
because most of our psychological problems reside on a spiritual level, which
require spiritual, supra-human power to control and subdue them.
Determining a Biblical
Solution
THE OBJECTIVE: With an accurate understanding of the true nature of the sin
problem plaguing your troubled youth, you can now proceed to formulate a new
strategy from the necessary spiritual perspective. In order to construct a strategy though, it is crucial to first
identify the objective. Up until now,
your objective most likely has been to bring about acceptable compliance and
age-appropriate behaviors according to your moral standard. While being noble, this objective falls
short of God's purposes. God is seeking
"godly offspring" - for you to bring your child up "in the
training and instruction of the Lord" (Mal. 2:15; Eph. 6:4). God desires for children to be
"nurtured" and "reared up to maturity" using "disciplinary
correction, warning, admonition, tutoring, education, and training" in His
Word (Eph. 6:4 GRK; Strong's #1625, #3809).
Unquestionably, God is prescribing spiritual training from a spiritual
curriculum, the Bible, about His moral standard contained therein. Being "reared up to maturity"
suggests that this is a long-term project to be consistently instituted by
parents. To align with these biblical
truths, your objective should now be modified to ultimately bring about
age-appropriate compliance with the Word of God through long-term training from
it. Remember that it is necessity for
this objective to be pursued on a spiritual level rather than on a humanistic
level.
Obviously your youth is nowhere near ready
to accept and comply to this kind of authority in his life. Realistically, he is probably quite repulsed
by religion - especially conservative evangelical Christianity. Your child's rebellion has collaborated with
the kingdom of darkness to establish a stronghold of resistance to and
rejection of the things of God (Heb. 3:8).
Your youth has become "darkened in [his] understanding and
separated from the life of God because of the [spiritual] ignorance that is in
[him] due to the hardening of [his] heart.
Having lost all sensitivity, [he has] given [himself] over to sensuality
so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for
more" (Eph. 4:18-19). Such
hostility to the things of God will unquestionably present a formidable barrier
to breach. But again, spiritual
problems require spiritual solutions, and because we humans lack sufficient
spiritual power, the direct actions of God are required to soften your youth's
heart toward the things of God.
DIVINE POWER: Divine power is needed not only to break down resistance and win
your youth over to the things of God, but it is also needed to deliver him from
the various strongholds of enslavement to sin.
Divine power must be accessed in order to "demolish
strongholds", reasonings, and lofty arguments "that set [themselves]
up against the knowledge of God" (2 Cor. 10:4-5, NIV, GRK; Strong's #3053,
#5313). Power from the Lord is required
to "thwart the craving of the wicked" (Prov. 10:3). Your approach to achieving your objective will
necessitate the activity of divine power in the life of your youth to correct
his stubborn defective thinking and to terminate his pleasurable destructive
behaviors and habits.
Your approach should also include God's
intervention in the life of your child to change the direction in his life away
from sinfulness and towards righteous living.
God must "grant [him] repentance leading [him] to a knowledge of
the truth" (2 Tim. 2:25). God has
to enlighten the mind of your child and help him to want to stop sinning (Eph.
1:18). To no avail, you have repeatedly
tried to convince your wayward child to stop his negative behaviors
(repent). But both the desire to repent
and the actual accomplishing of repentance require the intervention of God's
divine power.
TRANSFORMATION: Breaking down strongholds and repenting are two essential
ingredients in the transformation process.
God says in Romans 12:2 that there is another essential ingredient -
"be transformed by the renewing of your mind". Your child's nature must be changed, molded,
and remade into something new and better.
This kind of personality change must come from God because we humans can
be only what we are. We might be able
to make minor adjustments, but to make major fundamental positive lasting
personality changes that are contrary to our sinful enslavements is beyond our
humanistic abilities.
In Galatians 5:22‑24, God identifies that the source of
transforming power for producing positive behaviors and attitudes is His
Spirit:
22. "But the
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness,
23. gentleness and self‑control. Against such things there is no law.
24. Those who belong to Christ Jesus
have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires".
This
Scripture passage does not say that these positive behaviors, attitudes, or
states of mind as listed in verses 22-23 are the fruit of a good person or a
devoted religious person. No, these are
"fruit" - the handiwork, the produce of His Spirit working in a
person who belongs to Christ. By
declaring these qualities as being "the fruit of the Spirit", God is
stating that we humans do not have sufficient power to manifest these qualities
to their fullness as God does (v.22).
Here, God is saying that it takes the working power of His Spirit to
produce positive behaviors in a way that pleases Him.
This passage also pronounces that God
provides those who belong to Christ with the ability to subdue, mortify, or
crucify their sinful desires and passions (v.24). Galatians 5:17 explains that: "the sinful nature desires
what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful
nature. They are in conflict with each
other, so that you do not do what you want". God's power is required to subdue overwhelming sinful desires,
bad habits, and negative behaviors. His
Spirit is actively engaged in countering sinful desires - which are too strong
for us humans to control even though we may want to do right. God utilizes His power in those who belong to
Christ to actively oppose the control of their negative desires, behaviors, and
passions, which have the capacity to burn out‑of‑control like a
fire within us humans.
When those who belong to Christ renew
their minds in daily fellowship with God and His Word, He brings about this
transformation from negative to positive behaviors and thinking. Unlike salvation, which efforts of good
works can never achieve (Eph. 2:8-9), those belonging to Christ have to work
with God at being transformed (or progressively sanctified). The choice to cooperate with God as He
changes their personality is theirs, for God will not force them to become a
new, different person. It is their
choice to pursue this or not. If they
do, it takes a continuous concentrated effort to "renew" their minds
daily, because the instruction in Romans 12:2 is to "be" transformed.
But even in a sincere and determined
desire to be transformed and to subsequently live righteously before God, by
nature we humans are too weak psychologically to sustain our efforts. God has to help us with this as well by
apportioning wisdom and power through His Word, the Bible, to overthrow our
foolish sinful thinking (Ps. 51:6; 1 Cor. 1:18). His words are power‑filled messages and communications that
purposefully target the human spiritual heart for belief and behavioral
changes. "For the word of God is
living and active. Sharper than any
double‑edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints
and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart" (Heb.
4:12). God's words are alive right now,
functioning with intelligence, guidance, wisdom, purpose, and determination. His words are not stopped by any barriers -
even in extremely hardened hearts (of troubled youths). His words reach the innermost depths of our
being and weigh upon our secret and guarded thinking, deliberations, desires,
reasonings, and moral guidelines in order to effect change. Indeed, His words go beyond being good moral
encouragement for changing behaviors, for they are a weapon of power - a
spiritual sword of God's Spirit to accomplish His "good, pleasing, and
perfect will" (or life plan) in our spiritual hearts (1 Cor. 1:18; Eph.
6:17; Rom. 12:2). God wields the
spiritual weapon of His Word to defeat our sinful thinking.
God not only apportions power through His
Word, He also grants believing humans access to this wisdom and life‑changing
power. He makes available has power
that extends beyond our comprehension, "Now to him who is able to do
immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at
work within us" (Eph. 3:20). In a
believer His power is present, ready, and waiting to be used to establish a
person's self‑control over his own evil desires, "For God did not
give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self‑discipline"
(2 Tim. 1:7). God grants believers
access to know, experience, and use "His incomparably great power"
for self‑control against negative desires and behaviors (Eph.
1:18-19). God wants His power to be
used to achieve a fundamental positive transformational change in personality,
which is characterized by a desire or motivation to pursue holy living,
"But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to
God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal
life" (Rom. 6:22). Notice that God
is the only one who has this power and is able to do all of these things. The challenge for us humans is to find out
how to access His power and then utilize it for the benefit of ourselves and
others around us.
God-induced personality transformation is
rarely an instantaneous event. A vast
majority of believers experience a slow, gradual, progressive transformation
that coincides with increasing spiritual maturity. This is not a charismatic experience, but an ongoing subtle
activity of God's power "at work within [them]" (Eph. 3:20). The more we believing humans live in
obedience to God, commune with Him, and feed upon His Word - the more our
thinking, behaviors, attitudes, and personality are being transformed by His
power through the renewal of our minds.
This suggests that your job as parent, house parent, or foster parent is
to do everything that you can to put and keep your child on the track to being
transformed by God, and then faithfully staying committed while this
transformation proceeds slowly.
MOTIVATIONS: You might be silently objecting right now that this all sounds
nice, but your troubled child has absolutely no motivation to become religious,
to be good, to do right, to be compliant, or to change for the better in any
way. To your dismay, your youth is
daily finding new ways of being defiant, rebellious, and delinquent.
Having been a houseparent for 9
incorrigible teenagers at a time, I can understand your predicament. But again, God has the answers and remedy
for motivating self-centered and sin-centered persons. He is in the business of "convicting
the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment" (Jn.
16:8). Frequently, I have seen
conviction from God serve to bring even the most hardened, defiant teenager to
her senses and to motivate her to start doing what is right.
God does supply many motivators to
change, one of which is the indwelling of His Spirit within a believing
person's heart or personality (2 Cor. 1:21‑22):
21. "Now it is God who makes both
us and you stand firm in Christ. He
anointed us, 22. set his seal
of ownership on us, and put his
Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come".
His
Spirit comes in to live within the body and spiritual heart of the believing
person (v.22). A function of His Spirit
is to assist the believer in persevering or standing firm in the faith (v.21).
God's Spirit also influences behavioral
and attitude changes by counseling, teaching, and reminding the believer how to
properly think and act according to God's standards. Before Jesus left this earth to return to heaven, he told his
disciples (Jn. 14:16‑17,26):
16. "And I will ask the Father,
and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever ‑ 17.
the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it
neither sees him nor knows him. But
you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 26. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I
have said to you".
God's
Spirit is actively and continuously consoling, influencing, and persuading the
believer's thinking in order to facilitate change (v.26, GRK; Strong's
#3875). Note that unlike the kingdom of
darkness that forces compliance (2 Tim. 2:26), God's Spirit gently persuades
compliance.
God supplies another motivator to change
in that He uses His power in a believing person's life to give that person a
new orientation, making him into a new creation spiritually. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he
is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Cor.
5:17). The original orientation of the
person changes to become something significantly different and new through the
Spirit's regenerating work in the life of the person. The person's whole attitude, direction, and propensity to do evil
are shifted away from evil and redirected towards righteousness. Instead of desiring or succumbing to evil
ways, the person now has a new God‑given desire and ability to do what is
right. God has provided the person with
a new inclination and capacity to behave positively. He plants within believers a new desire to be good and to do
right.
For everyone who belongs to Christ, God
also provides a compelling future reason to change behaviors. He promises to one day reward those who have
worked for or served Him.
"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for
the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from
the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord
Christ you are serving" (Col. 3:23‑24). Unquestionably, being motivated to live‑out positive
attitudes and actions in the hope of a future reward does take considerable
faith to believe that God will one day keep His promise. It also takes wisdom to prepare now for what
is expected in the future.
Nevertheless, this is a valid motivator and can be quite compelling to
youths when taught sufficiently.
PARENT'S INFLUENCE: As you may have surmised by now, conditions
of the entire situation regarding your troubled youth can greatly affect the
magnitude of God's working in his life.
Conditions can either hinder or facilitate God's activities. As the parent, God has given you authority
to exert premier influence over the conditions in your home and substantial
influence over other conditions in the life of your youth. Maximizing your influence to create fertile
spiritual conditions can lead to profound results in delivering your child from
sinful ways.
Even though He does not need to, God uses
humans to help bring deliverance to other humans. Take for example the biblical account in Luke 5:17-26 of some men
who were carrying a paralytic man on a mat to Jesus for healing. They could not get through the crowds into
the house where Jesus was, so they lowered the man through the roof right in
front of Jesus. Observe what Jesus'
reaction was to this in verse 20. Jesus
"saw their faith".
Jesus responded to the faith of the men and proceeded to heal the
paralytic man whom the men were carrying.
Also note that the men had to literally carry to Jesus their
companion who could not get there himself.
Moreover, the men had to place their paralytic companion right in front
of Jesus. Jesus did not balk or
hesitate at their bold actions. Most
likely, Jesus was thrilled about what the men had done and He delighted in
their faith in Him to heal their companion.
The paralytic man probably had no one else other than these men who were
close enough, strong enough, concerned enough, and committed enough to carry
him to Jesus. The conditions created by
these men facilitated God's deliverance activities in the life of their
companion.
I am thoroughly convinced that you, the
parent, are the best person most suited for influentially bringing your
troubled child before God for deliverance.
Potentially, you have daily extended contact with your child in his
natural home environment. You have a
commonality in your family roots or familial relationship that gives the child
a sense of belonging, self-worth, and identity through you. Over the years, your child has fulfilled his
built-in social need to bond with you, his parent. He has relied on you, the parent, as the primary source to meet
his survival needs of receiving guidance for safe living and preparation for
adulthood. In the past, he has looked
to you, the parent, for moral guidance.
No other adult in the community, school, or church holds the vast
potential for influencing your youth that you the parent have and do.
In addition to your influence, God has
given you the responsibility to raise your child in the training and
instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). As
the child's parent or substitute parent, you must be willing to carry your
child above and beyond the obstacles that hinder spiritual deliverance. You must expend every ounce of energy you
have to spiritually bring your child before the Lord. When you have done all that you can appropriately do to arrange a
face-to-face encounter with the Lord, then it is up to your child to decide how
he is going to respond to the Lord. You
cannot make the right decision for your child, but you can carry him to this
point. The Lord wants parents to do
this. The Lord expects parents to do
this.
A NEW APPROACH: Undoubtedly you have been exerting yourself to the fullest extent
possible to correct the ways of your troubled child. You have repeatedly brought your child to accountability. You have exhausted yourself and all
conceivable options possible in trying to ignite a change in his
character. You have burned yourself out
trying, but your child's hunger for moral corruption fiercely blazes with
relentless vigor and consumption. Your
soul has been thoroughly scorched in misery and grief. You have no energy left to battle the forest
fires of rebellion because your child of fire continues to ravage your
determination like wildfire. Granted,
you have put forth the best effort that you can. But I would suggest that your options have been limited to your
own reasoning and to what information has been available to you so far. Your approach could be modified to enhance
its effectiveness.
In the remaining chapters of Children
of Fire, I would like to offer you a practical, working model of how
to facilitate change, which has been derived from biblical principles. The goal of my approach is for you, the
parent, to comprehensively create conditions that collaborate with God to
unleash His transforming power in the life of your troubled youth. By adapting, adopting, modifying, and/or
fine-tuning every aspect of your approach to align with biblical principles,
you will be working in full accord with the Lord. This will certainly be a blessing for you, and it has the
potential to be an enormous blessing to your child. Your strength can be renewed when you rest in the power of the
Lord (Isa. 40:31). And, your hope can
be kindled because you know that you are doing everything within your abilities
to create an environment that is highly conducive for the Lord to grant your
desire (Prov. 10:24). In a sense, you
could consider your new biblically-aligned efforts to be a tangible and
credible request to and reliance upon the Lord to bless you, your family, and
your home (Prov. 3:33). "Do you
not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator
of the ends of the earth. He will not
grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases
the power of the weak. Even youths grow
tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength. They will
soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and
not be faint" (Isa. 40:28-31).
Section II. Plugging In To
More Power
The Need for Change in the
Parent
If you, the parent, are going to pursue
your new objective for your troubled youth of creating favorable conditions to
bring about age-appropriate compliance with the Word of God through long-term
training from it, then several preparations need to take place first so that
you do not inadvertently create or perpetuate any stumbling blocks which may
hinder the spiritual awakening and growth of your child. Romans 14:13 directs that you should
"make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your
brother's way". To "make up
your mind" denotes a conscious, determined decision (Rom. 14:13, GRK;
Strong's #2919). Therefore, you must
commit to doing everything that you can to identify, correct, and remove any
aspects within your life that have been or are causing your child to stumble.
WILLING TO CHANGE: Certainly, this commitment must encompass a
willingness to change. Some of your
attitudes will need to change, particularly those that relate to your child
both when he is absent and when he is present with you. Your old natural humanistic ways of thinking
about, responding to, and dealing with your child will need to be "put
off" or discarded and then replaced with (or "put on") new godly
attitudes and ways of treating your child (Eph. 4:22-24).
If you are being honest with yourself,
you will have to admit and face the truth that there are some things in your
life that will need to be changed. One
particularly crucial trait that must be eradicated is any and all
hypocrisy. Children, youths, and
especially teenagers are quite observant and easily able to spot
hypocrisy. Because they are at the
stage of development in which they are formulating or adopting their own moral
guidelines in life, teenagers are extremely sensitive to the hypocrisy of their
parents. Teenagers know that they are
expected to adopt the values of their parents.
They have been taught their parents' values for years. But, when they identify parental hypocrisy,
the teenagers completely discredited the parental values and comprehensively
dismiss them as being bogus. Denying,
excusing, rationalizing, or minimizing your hypocrisy strengthens your child's
rebellion against your values and lifestyle.
You must be willing to admit and change your hypocrisy. Within Matthew 7:1-5, Jesus exhorts, "You
hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see
clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye" - meaning that you
must clean up the numerous major sins in your own life first before you should
try to help or expect others to clean up their few minor sins.
At this point, I want to make it crystal
clear, though, that I am not trying to place blame or guilt on you, the parent,
for your child's problems. Nor am I
going to provide you with an easy escape either. My purpose is to resolve all of the problems that both you and
your child are having. From experience,
I know that at least half of troubled youths' problems stem from their parents
or substitute parents. This may or may
not be true in your case. Nevertheless,
because your parental contact, influence, and authority over your child have
been close and personal for years, whether you are aware of it or not your
potential to effect both good and bad in the life of your child has been
vast. Considering that no one (except
Jesus) is perfect, then over time you have inflicted both good and bad upon
your child. All of us parents
have. The older your child is, the more
you have inflicted. Your imperfection
as a parent is a reality that you must live with and be on guard against. It is not a matter of blame, but rather a
matter of accepting reality and then responding appropriately.
FACE THE TRUTH: Maybe the time has come for you to truthfully face reality about
yourself. Despite your good efforts and
noble intentions, you have personal problems that have generated some poor
parenting choices. On occasion perhaps
you have unnecessarily hurt your child - in a similar way that your child is now
hurting you. At times, your emotions
and desires and pride have carried you too far - just as your child's emotions
carry him too far. You have tried your
very best to be a good parent, but there still have been moments when you have
lost your composure and reasonableness.
The truth is your efforts at being a good parent have fallen
significantly short of the kind of parent you know you should be.
In response to this reality, take some
time right now and review your parental shortcomings and failings. As you recall them, record each on a list
and save the list, because you will be using it later in the reconciliation and
transformation processes described later in Children of Fire. In the next days and months, keep adding to
the list as they are remembered or realized.
This list is not to serve as a self-condemning reminder but rather as a
list of matters that potentially need to be dealt with or resolved. Even if you think that some of these matters
should be left buried or are no longer an issue, write them down anyhow because
(as we will learn) your perceptions are frequently quite different from your
troubled child's perceptions and from God's perceptions of the same
matter. What no longer bothers you may
still be a sore-spot for your child and affecting him in indistinguishable
ways. Likewise, the matter may not have
been sufficiently settled with God, either.
Also include on a separate page of this
list all of the personal problems that you have, or had, or have been told that
you have. These should be of a personal
nature, such as emotional problems, bad habits, poor choices, sinful problems,
inappropriate reactions, troubled relationships, ungodly attitudes, unhealthy
indulgences, unwholesome lifestyle, selfish inclinations, and etc. One reason for including these personal
problems is that your youth is watching you closely and taking note of every
little (or big) flaw. Troubled youths
love to find any justification for their negative behaviors, and your life just
might be conveniently supplying your child with the excuse(s) he needs. Another reason to identify and inventory all
of your personal problems is because they may (still) be adversely affecting
your spiritual well-being and your relationship with God - whose power you want
to access in your quest to effect change in your troubled youth.
NEED DIVINE POWER: As you compile this list, you may notice
that your list is getting long or overwhelming. Instead of letting this discourage you, view your list as a
tangible indicator that you are in need of an ongoing infusion of divine
power to transform and empower your personal life and parenting skills. Considering the aspects of this new
spiritual parenting approach you are now going to undertake should further
confirm your need of God's power in your life.
Turn this realistic self-inventory of inadequacies into motivation to
take corrective action. But, your
reliance to solve your problems must shift off from yourself and onto God,
because Christ's "power is made perfect in [our] weakness" (2 Cor.
12:9). He will release His power the
most when we are the weakest and fully dependent upon Him (2 Cor.
12:9-10). Let this list of shortcomings
and the daunting tasks confronting you drive you in determination to do
whatever it takes to access God's power to solve your personal problems,
enhance your parenting skills, and implement God's approach to reaching your
troubled youth. A neat part about
taking on God's approach to parenting is that you, the parent, get to
personally experience God's power too.
And after having experienced this transformation yourself, you will then
be ready to assist your troubled youth through the same transformational
process in his life.
God's Requisite for Gaining
Access to Him and His Power
As
will be describe next, there is a condition that must be met before a person
can even gain access to God's power for victory over personal problems. Like we all do, you the parent must met this
condition not only for transformational power in your life, but for power to
implement God's approach to parenting.
For your own benefit, you will want to be totally sure that you met this
condition. Additionally, you will need
to understand this requisite well enough to personally assist your troubled
child (and all your children) in meeting this condition.
BE 'IN CHRIST': To gain access to God and His power, God requires that a person
first be 'in Christ'. "Therefore,
if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has
come!" (2 Cor. 5:17). In order for
God's power to bring about a transformation from the "old" to the
"new", the "if" condition must be met that the person is
"in Christ". Note that the
conditional word "if" in the phrase "if any man is in
Christ" declares that not everyone is 'in Christ'. It also implies that those who are not 'in
Christ' do not have access to God's power and are not transformed. This coincides with my contention that
humanistic efforts to effect personality change are essentially fruitless. These humanistic efforts fail because they
do not place the person 'in Christ' and thereby are completely devoid of God's
direct power and transformational activities.
Of the hundreds of troubled teenagers
described in the institution case study in chapter one, most of the girls in my
group home were the only ones to achieve the condition of being 'in
Christ'. Every girl that became 'in
Christ' experienced and exhibited some genuine positive lasting personality
change. I did not observe any other girls
or boys on campus experience lasting personality change - probably because none
of them were motivated to become 'in Christ'.
I talked with many of them and they openly admitted that they were
hostile to the things of God and had no desire to learn how to become 'in
Christ'. In essence, they preferred to
remain enemies of God.
To be enemies of God sounds serious, and
it is. Those who are
"enemies" of God do not have access to Him and they will face His
wrath against them (Rom. 5:1-2, 9-10).
Conversely, those who are 'in Christ' have made "peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ", have been "saved" from God's
wrath, and have "gained access" into God's favor (Rom. 5:1-2,9).
FALL SHORT: Why must we be 'saved' from God's wrath? As we have already learned in chapter 2, all
of us humans are born with a sin problem that has an adverse separating effect
between the absolutely holy God and us sinful humans, "for all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). This sadly means that because we all have sinned, then we fall
short or miss the mark of sinless perfection that God requires for admittance
into heaven. Because of our sinfulness,
we humans cannot make it into heaven based upon our own goodness. We are born in a state of separation from
God, and remain so as His enemies who stand condemned - unless we become 'in
Christ' (Jn. 3:18).
ETERNAL PUNISHMENT: So if those who are not 'in Christ' cannot
make it into heaven on their own when they die, then what will happen to
them? Tragically, they will be
permanently placed in a very painful state of existence with no possibility of
escape, because "He [the Lord Jesus (v. 7)] will punish those who do not
know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting
destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of
his power..." (2 Thes. 1:8‑9).
This passage clearly states that those people who continue to be God's
enemies at the time of their death will be permanently denied access to God,
banished, and punished forever in a place isolated from God. Punishment is required because "God is
just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you..." (2 Thes. 1:6). He must punish sins to maintain fairness and
justice. Therefore, we humans must
suffer an eternal consequence for our sins.
Once we have entered into this punishment immediately upon our physical
death, we are completely powerless to halt its torturous effects and
everlasting duration. This state of
existence will remain this way forever.
There will be absolutely no way of escape, relief, reprieve, or pardon.
The Good News
This certainly is bad news, but there is
good news which will allow access to God, His power, and living forever with God
in heaven. Notice in 2 Thessalonians
1:8-9 that not everyone will face eternal punishment, because those who
"know God" and "obey the gospel" (or good message) of our
Lord Jesus are excluded or saved from this punishment. God has provided a way of escape that
involves obedience to the 'gospel' and knowing God through a personal
relationship with Him. He fortifies
this message of good news with power to save, because the 'gospel' "is the
power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes" (Rom. 1:16).
JESUS' DEATH: What exactly is this 'gospel' ‑ this message of good
news? A description of it is given in 1
Corinthians 15:2‑6, "By this gospel you are saved, if you hold
firmly to the word I preached to you.
Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that
he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he
appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve [Disciples]. After that, he appeared
to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time,...". In the New Testament part of the Bible,
there are numerous eyewitness accounts and passages testifying to this fact of
good news that Jesus died a torturous death on a cross to pay the penalty for
our sins, was sealed in a tomb, and came to life 3 days later by the power of
God.
Why is this fact of Jesus' death and
resurrection from the dead good news?
The reason Jesus died this agonizing death was to take upon himself the
punishment that we deserve for our sins.
"God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in
his blood. He did this to demonstrate
his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand
unpunished ‑‑ he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present
time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in
Jesus." (Rom. 3:25‑26). God
sacrificed Jesus on the cross to make amends for our sinful condition and to
satisfy His righteous requirement of justice.
Jesus gave His perfect life and blood to take the punishment in our
place ‑ as our substitute, for "God made him who had no sin to be
sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2
Cor. 5:21). Jesus, who had never sinned
because He is God, took upon Himself our sins so that God could give us Jesus'
righteousness or credit to us Jesus' absolute holiness and perfection (Jn. 1:1‑2,14). By making us righteous in His sight, God is
forgiving all of our past, present, and future sins forever in that instant
when we establish faith in Jesus and in what God accomplished through the
shedding of Jesus' blood. "In him
we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance
with the riches of God's grace" (Eph. 1:7). No matter what sins we have done nor when we have done them, God
forgives all of our sins because we have faith in Jesus, who redeemed us by
paying the price through His blood.
ETERNAL LIFE: Another reason that Jesus' death and resurrection from the dead
is good news is because we who believe in Him will enjoy eternal life or living
forever in heaven with God when we die, "For God so loved the world that
he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but
have eternal life" (Jn. 3:16). God
loves each one of us humans even though we have sinned. He does not want us to perish or suffer
eternal permanent punishment (2 Pet. 3:9).
He loves us so much that He sent Jesus to be sacrificed in payment for
our sins so that if we believe in Jesus, then we will escape eternal punishment
and instead possess eternal life. By
definition, the word 'eternal' means to be perpetual or continuing forever
without interruption or change.
Therefore, 'eternal' life is characterized as starting from that initial
moment of faith and proceeding unchanged forever thereafter.
There is more good news, however, because
one day in the future our dead bodies will be raised to life by the power of
God just as Jesus' body was raised from the dead. In 1 Corinthians 6:14 the Word of God promises, "By his
power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also".
Commonly, many well‑intending,
morally good people think that God will grant them eternal life if the good
things they have done in life outweigh the bad things done in life. Some further hypothesize that God is so
loving that He would never send anyone to 'eternal' permanent punishment but
rather to a temporary state of punishing correction until they self‑reform
or somehow work their way out of that punishment and into heaven. Tragically, this line of thinking is totally
erroneous because God says, "For it is by grace you have been saved,
through faith‑‑and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God‑‑not
by works, so that no one can boast" (Eph. 2:8‑9). There is no way
possible for us humans to get rid of our sin contamination on our own and be
good enough to deserve or earn our way into heaven. We do not have within ourselves sufficient intrinsic perfection
or power to do this. We miss the mark
and fall short every time without exception (see Rom. 3:9‑28). To our rescue though, God does offer to pour
out favor (grace) upon us in this life by giving us the free gift of salvation
- but only through faith and even though we will never deserve it based on our
own merit.
FAITH IN JESUS: Throughout this entire gospel message of good news, there
obviously is one repeated, irrevocable requirement to achieving access to God's
power for salvation and behavior change ‑ faith in Jesus Christ. Recalling John 3:16 again, "For God so
loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life."
We must believe in Jesus. There
is no other way to God except through faith in Jesus. As recorded in John 14:6, Jesus clearly declares, "I am the
way and the truth and the life. No one
comes to the Father except through me".
Access to God, His power, and heaven can only occur through
believing in Jesus Christ.
REPENTANCE: Truly believing in something dictates that we turn away from and
no longer believe in or agree with anything opposite to the new thing we are
now truly believing in. By conclusion
therefore, having faith in Jesus to save us mandates that we turn away from and
no longer have faith in ourselves, our goodness, our good deeds, other humans,
religious activities, religious institutions, religious ceremonies, or anything
else as a means to save us. It also
mandates that we must reverse our thinking in regard to our own sins, change
our hearts, and turn to following and obeying God's way towards holy
living. Jesus himself said,
""The kingdom of God is near.
Repent and believe the good news!"" (Mrk. 1:15). Repentance involves actively turning away
from worshiping ourselves through rebellious sinful living, and turning toward
worshiping God through obedient godly living.
Repentance takes more than an intellectual affirmation of intentions. It takes an ongoing determined commitment to
decisively carry out God's directives for holy living.
Gaining Access to God Right
Now
BELIEVING NOW: God loves each person in the world and He wants each of us to
repent and believe. Have you ever
responded to His love? Have you ever admitted
to God that you have sinned and need Jesus to save you from the eternal penalty
of your sins and to take you to heaven when you die? Do you believe without reservation that Jesus died on the cross,
was buried, and was raised from the dead on the third day according to the
Scriptures? Do you have faith that God
sacrificed Jesus to give His blood in payment for your sins? Is it your desire to have all of your sins
forgiven and to turn from your sinful actions and attitudes? Would you like to change your heart and turn
towards God through faith in Jesus right now?
If so, then you can tell God so with a prayer like this:
Dear God,
I want to believe in Jesus right now. I believe that You love me even though I
have sinned. I believe that You gave
your one and only sinless Son, Jesus, to shed His blood and die on the cross in
punishment for my sins. I believe that
Jesus was buried and was raised from the dead.
I do not want to perish in eternal punishment, so please forgive me of
my sins. I want Jesus to save me and
take me to heaven one day so that I will live there forever. I want to turn from my sinful ways this very
moment. I want to turn to You in
obedience. I want to know You through a
personal relationship with You, and I want to experience your power to change
my life. By faith, I believe that You
have now freely given me eternal life even though I do not deserve it. Thank you. Amen.
If
this prayer truthfully expresses your thinking, then take some time right now
to sincerely state this to God in prayer and commit your life to God through
faith in Jesus Christ.
If you are hesitant or unwilling to place
your faith in Jesus Christ, then I must caution you at this critical point that
all of the remaining information in Children of Fire will be entirely
useless to you and your troubled youth until you have placed your faith in
Jesus Christ. My whole model for you
the parent to collaborate with God in facilitating positive lasting change in
your troubled youth foundational-ly rests on God's condition that you are 'in
Christ'. You cannot collaborate with
God if in reality He regards you as His enemy and therefore your relationship
with Him does not exist. If you are not
sure what the status of your relationship with God is, then re-read this
chapter again, meditate on the Bible passages I have listed, and in prayer
reaffirm your faith in Jesus Christ to save you from the consequences of your
sins.
PERMANENT: Once you have sincerely place your faith in Jesus, He immediately
gives you eternal life by His irrevocable and unconquerable power. Jesus says of those who believe, "I
give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out
of my hand. My Father, who has given
them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's
hand" (Jn. 10:28‑29). There
is nothing in all of creation that has sufficient power to undo or cancel God's
gift to you of eternal life and the newly-founded relationship you now have
with Him through faith in Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:38-39).
Having now placed your faith in Jesus
Christ, God has made peace with you and has officially started you in a
relationship of 'knowing' Him on a personal level. You are no longer His enemy, but rather His permanently adopted
child (Rom. 5:1; Jn. 1:12-13). Along
with this, He has just opened the door for you to access His power to change
your life, and He expects you to change and be transformed towards righteous
living (Rom. 12:1-2). Unquestionably,
you will want to utilize this opportunity to the fullest extent so that you are
as supremely equipped as possible to collaborate with God in effecting change
in your troubled youth.
Section II. Plugging In To More Power (cont.)
SCENARIO: Acquiring a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus
Christ is the first step toward equipping you in your objective of
collaborating with God to reach your troubled youth. The next step is to learn how to draw upon His power. A picturesque way to discuss this topic is
with a scenario of having one of our country's most modern and high-powered
Army tanks sitting in your backyard.
The U.S. Army delivered the tank and gave you unrestricted authority to
use the tank whenever you please. The battle
is raging and you have been suffering many injuries and defeats. So hastily you climb into the tank, only to
quickly discover that you do not know how to even start the tank - let alone
utilize all of its capabilities and firepower to blast apart enemy
strongholds. When you jump into the
driver's seat, push the buttons and pull the levers, nothing happens. Your attempts at pushing the tank do not
work either. So, there in your backyard
the Army tank still sits - unused. And,
you assume it does not work.
Meanwhile, the enemy strongholds grow
stronger and your present arsenal of primitive stone-age weapons are frivolous
against their formidable weaponry and fortifications. You talk with some of your neighbors who also have an Army tank
in their backyard, and you learn that they have never been able to move theirs
either. The outlook becomes grim and
you give up hope. You prepare to
surrender.
Then one day you realize that you need to
read the Operator's Manual and operate the tank according to the manufacturer's
instructions in order to access and utilize its vast firepower potential. This will certainly take time,
self-discipline, commitment, studying, and practice, but "Wow!" - the
power that is available to you at your fingertips once you get the hang of
operating it in the prescribed way. You
quickly discover that this tank is exactly suited for your needs and it has
been awaiting your usage all this time.
You had to merely learn how to access its power and then put it to use.
Like this scenario of the Army tank, the
vast potential of God's "incomparably great power" is available to
all believers who have "faith in the Lord Jesus" (Eph. 1:19,15). Sadly, most believers live a life of defeat
to their sinful strongholds because they have never learned how to draw upon
God's power. Many assume that no power
is available to them - that God dramatically changes people only on rare
occasions. Consequently, they
unsuccessfully try to overcome strongholds exclusively by themselves through
their own humanistic willpower.
Spiritually, intellectually, and physically, we humans are too weak to
overcome spiritual sinful strongholds.
But, victory can be achieved through learning how to draw upon the
"all‑surpassing power [that] is from God and not from us" (2
Cor. 4:7).
GOD'S WAY: Obviously, God is not a mindless machine nor a mysterious force
(like gravity) that can be manipulated by us for our purposes. God is God, and we cannot just plug into His
outlet for power in whatever fashion we please. We must approach and do things His way in order to accomplish
anything of value to Him. The Word of
God instructs that we must do things (or "bear fruit") in and through
Christ as our source of spiritual strength (Jn. 15:4). "Apart from [Christ] [we] can do
nothing" (Jn. 15:5). This is quite
clear and highly restrictive. But God
has the right to demand that things be done His way. He is the Creator of all that exists - including us humans. God and His instructions are not open to
debate or compromise. We must work with
God, doing things His way through Christ, in order to obtain His empowering.
4 Levels of Maximizing One's
Relationship With God
In terms of subduing the seemingly
invincible sinful behaviors and attitudes of your troubled youth, you the
parent will wisely want to be able to use as much of God's power as He will
supply. This necessitates that you
maximize your relationship with God so that through firsthand experience, you
learn how to comprehensively draw on His "divine power to demolish
strongholds" within yourself and your child (2 Cor. 10:4).
PARABLE OF THE SOWER: Believers' relationship with God can be
generally categorized into 4 attainable levels of maximizing of one's
relationship with God. Even though the
Bible repeatedly exhorts believers to progress all the way into the top level
of utmost maximized relationship with God, most believers never make it past the
first level. I have derived the first 3
levels based upon the descriptions in the 'Parable of the Sower' in Matthew
13:3-9,18-23 (cf. Mark 4:1-20; Luke 8:4-15).
Take some time right now to read and study this parable before
continuing.
UNRESPONSIVE: The 'Parable of the Sower' is about the ways that people respond
when they hear the Word of God. In the
parable, Jesus first identifies one way as being anyone who hears the Word but
does not believe because he does not understand it (v.19). This is like seed that falls on the hardened
trampled path and never sprouts (v.19).
This person rejects God's Word and thereby rejects God. Despite God's love for this person, God is
not please with him and does not accept him.
Because no relationship with God is ever started, this response to God
in no way seeks a relationship with God, and thereby does not qualify as a
level.
Level
1 'Rocky Soil'
MARGINALLY RESPONSIVE: The next way of responding to hearing the
Word of God is identified as being like seed that falls on rocky soil. I would correlate this with my level 1 of
being the lowest level of maximizing one's relationship with God. The 'Rocky Soil' person "hears the word
and at once receives it with joy" (v.20).
This person becomes a believer with initial enthusiasm. But "when trouble or persecution comes
because of the word, he quickly falls away" (v.21). He initially experiences new life from his
new faith and his new relationship with God, but he then quickly fades away
from these because he has not become rooted or grounded in the faith
(v.6). To God's disapproval, he fails
to develop this new relationship and the spiritual disciplines necessary to
maintain a healthy faith. No sustained
attempt is made to maximize his relationship with God. Behaviors temporarily improve but then revert
back to previous states. No measurable
lasting behavioral and personality change have occurred. Because he personally lacks the power to
endure trials and he has not pursued how to draw power from God, he quickly
gives into sinful worldly indulgences that strangle his spiritual growth and
relationship with God.
Conceivably, new believers are
particularly vulnerable to succumbing to this hazard. I think that typically the problem arises from our natural
overriding desire to have the best of both worlds. We want the benefits that accompany our new life in Christ, but
we also want the enjoyment we derive from gratifying worldly pursuits and/or
from engaging in our strongholds of sin.
We want to go to heaven but we really do not want to give up our
sins. Many new believers hold to this
thinking and are shallow in their moral perseverance because, for whatever
reasons, they leave both feet firmly implanted in sinful worldliness.
Perhaps your life can be accurately
characterized in this manner as having quickly fallen away into sinful
indulgences shortly after believing in Christ.
You started your faith with good intentions, but your new spiritual life
just never blossomed. Not comprehending
why, you drifted back into sinful living.
A short distance out of the starting gate, you stumbled morally and
subsequently never recovered to continue the race in a God-honoring manner
(Phil. 3:14). You failed the "time
of testing" and your life has since been securely entrapped in moral
defeat (Lk. 8:13).
Maybe you have observed your troubled
youth take this same direction in his life.
If your youth is a recent believer, then there is a substantial looming
danger that he may derail his faith like this.
His old sinful way of living will be a strong allure for him to
return. If you, the parent, want your
child to achieve lasting change, you must reset yourself on track. By proceeding into all of the remaining
upper levels of maximizing your relationship with God, you will experience
victories over your strongholds and thus you will then be better equipped to
help your child into these upper levels too.
Level
2 'Green But Barren'
PREOCCUPIED RESPONSIVE: The next level of maximizing one's
relationship with God can aptly be entitled "Green But Barren". Again based upon the 'Parable of the Sower',
this level corresponds to the seed that lands among the thorns (Matt.
13:22). The thorns "grew up with
[the seed] and choked the plants", "so that they did not bear"
fruit (Lk. 8:7; Mrk. 4:7). This person
"hears the word, but the worries of this life", "the
deceitfulness of wealth", "riches and pleasures", "and the
desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful"
or barren (Matt. 13:22; Lk. 8:14; Mrk. 4:19).
Like the 'Rocky Soil' person, the 'Green
But Barren' person hears the Word of God and believes. In contrast, though, the 'Green But Barren'
person has advanced in his faith beyond the 'Rocky Soil' person by staying
green with life in the faith. He is
actively involved in the practice of his faith. Presumably, he studies the Word of God, has grounded himself in
the basics of the faith, and has learned the foundational doctrines. As a result, he has acted responsibly since
becoming a believer to successfully establish a devotional life and maintain
his faith and his relationship with God.
He has been fairly consistent in daily: reading the Bible; studying it
to determine its meaning; and praying.
His church attendance has been regular and he tries to go to as many church
social functions as his schedule will allow.
To the best of his own limited abilities and understanding, the 'Green
But Barren' person has responded obediently to the Lord's desire that believers
should establish these disciplines in their lives (Eph. 6:18; Heb. 10:25; Ps.
1:2).
The typical 'Green But Barren' person
thinks that he is spiritually mature with a healthy relationship with God. He has bought into and follows the popular
standard formula that 'to keep your life right with the Lord, just read your
Bible and pray every day'. Practicing
his faith in this manner seems to work satisfactorily for him, and for the most
part he is content with how he pursues his faith and with his perceived
relationship with God.
DYSFUNCTIONAL RELATIONSHIP: The 'Green But Barren' person is correct in
his assertion that his relationship with God is functioning. However, in reality it is dysfunctional. He has developed personal disciplines, but
the truth is he is merely maintaining his faith just adequately enough to keep
him alive in it. Outwardly, he looks,
sounds, and acts religious. His
behaviors have changed - some. Yet,
inwardly, his personality has changed only marginally because his allegiance is
divided between worldliness and the Lord.
He purposefully harbors strongholds of sin that dominate and control his
life. Consequently, he experiences much
inner turmoil and conflict because of the incompatibility, friction, and
contention between these two competing philosophies of life.
As a side effect of his spiritual
maturity being choked, he is not accomplishing anything of value to God as
evidenced by the absence of spiritual fruit in his life. The ministry work that he does is
unacceptable to the Lord because of sinful or carnal motives, attitudes, or
manner (1 Cor. 13:1-3; 1 Thes. 2:3-4).
His strongholds of preoccupation with life's worries contaminate his
service for and relationship with the Lord.
Spiritually, he is 'Green But Barren' due to residual entrenched moral
impurity and to being unwilling to change.
While having a better relationship with God than the 'Rocky Soil'
person, the 'Green But Barren' person settles for far less than a maximized
relationship with God even though God is not entirely pleased. He is content with living a life devoid of
any substantial power from God.
In your struggles to cope with your
troubled child, has your faith subtly slipped into fruitless stagnation? Have the stresses and demands of your job,
your financial obligations, your family, and your spouse conjoined with the
preoccupying tribulations generated by your troubled child to overwhelm you -
leaving precious few moments and energy to spend on building your relationship
with the Lord? Do you yearn for the
Lord to release His power in your life?
If your faith is 'Green But Barren', perhaps this could be an important
factor as to why your troubled child is rejecting your faith. Maybe it is time to shift your priorities
and change how you are managing your life.
Level
3 'Good Soil'
COMMITTED RESPONSIVE:
Building upon the qualities of the disciplines of the faith, the next
level goes a step further in one's relationship with God. This person in this level is honorably
classified as being 'Good Soil' - and for several reasons. His heart is "noble and good",
being virtuous with moral excellence and righteousness (Luke 8:15 NIV, GRK;
Strong's #2570). When he
"hears" the Word of God, he "understands", "accepts",
and "retains" it (Matt. 13:23; Mrk. 4:20; Lk. 8:15). Then with the Word firmly planted and
growing in his heart, the 'Good Soil' person acts upon the Word through
persevering to produce a bountiful crop (Lk. 8:15; Matt. 13:23).
SOLD OUT: Clearly, this person responds to the Word of God far differently
that those in the lower levels. His
heart attitude is extraordinarily uncharacteristic of their norm. In contrast to others who are preoccupied
with themselves or with the worries of life, the 'Good Soil' person has
rearranged his priorities to put God first in his life - primarily because he
"loves the Lord [his] God with all [his] heart and with all [his] soul and
with all [his] mind and with all [his] strength" (Mrk. 12:30). In essence, he has structured and
consecrated his heart and his life to consistently be sold out to God and be in
alignment with His Word. In order to
follow after Jesus, this person consistently denies himself and takes up his
mission every day (Lk. 9:23).
Sacrificing his own personal comforts and aspirations, he stays focused
on doing work for the Lord in a manner and attitude that pleases God.
COLLABORATING: The heart attitude behind this quality of consistent God-pleasing
self-denial has an unusual empowering by God, because it is contrary to the
drives of our basic sinful nature and it suitably meets God's approval. The fact that the 'Good Soil' person is
abundantly accomplishing works that please God despite the hindrances suggests
that he is effectively drawing on God's power. Functioning in conjunction with his disciplines of the faith,
his heart attitude is collaborating with God's Spirit.
One evidence of this man-with-God
collaboration is that the 'Good Soil' person "understands" and
"accepts" the word when he hears it (Matt. 13:23; Mrk. 4:20). Scriptures declare that "The man
without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God,
for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they
are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14).
Considering that all believers receive the Holy Spirit into their lives
the very moment they believe (2 Cor. 1:21-22), the 'Good Soil' person is
tapping into the power of the Holy Spirit in a teachable way that surpasses
ordinary (lower level) believers.
It is crucial to note that this special
endowment of power from the Holy Spirit does not come automatically nor through
mystical, magical, or charismatic means.
Rather, conditions in the person's heart have become ripe for empowering
as he: "hears" or takes in the Word of God; meditates on it to gain
"understanding"; "accepts" or agrees with it;
"retains" or places it as the overriding guiding principles in his
life; depends and acts upon it to "produce a crop"; and
"perseveres" or sticks with it through various impediments (Matt.
13:23; Mrk. 4:20; Lk. 8:15). This
describes purposeful dedication, commitment, consistency, self-sacrifice, and
hard work to learn and live the Word of God.
YIELDINGNESS: When viewed as a whole, these fertile conditions in the heart of
the 'Good Soil' person reflect a deep inner comprehensive yieldingness or
submission to the will of God. He is
actively striving to weave his desire to "submit... to God" into
every aspect of his thinking, personality, behaviors, and life (Jam. 4:7). Consciously and to the best of his abilities,
he holds nothing in reserve from submitting to God. This includes a total surrender in his thought-life to the
maximum influence and control of the Holy Spirit. He is intentionally encouraging God's Spirit to "transform
[him] by the renewing of [his] mind" (Rom. 12:2). Through living out these fertile conditions,
he is consciously offering himself to God and inviting God to release power in
his life to change him, as directed in Romans 12:1-2:
1. "Therefore, I urge you,
brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God ‑‑
this is your spiritual act of worship.
2.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of
your mind. Then you will be able to
test and approve what God's will is ‑‑ his good, pleasing and
perfect will".
For various reasons, most believers never
reach this level of total yieldingness to God.
Many pastors and a few believers are able to naturally attain this
yieldingness because of their unusual personality and upbringing. But for the majority of us believers,
however, this yieldingness does not come naturally at all. We desperately want to be in charge of how
our lives are run. Giving up control to
God and letting Jesus sit in the driver's seat of our life is not easy,
natural, or appealing to us.
Therefore in order to attain this level
of yieldingness, we must sincerely and deliberately take the step every day to
offer the Lord reigning control of our life.
In a literal way, we must heed and put into practice the command in
Romans 12:1 for believers "to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy
and pleasing to God ‑‑ this is your spiritual act of
worship". Through prayer, we must
daily offer our entire being to God - our minds in everything we think, our
tongues in everything we say, our hands in everything we do, our feet in
everywhere we go, our eyes in everything we look at, our ears in everything we
listen to, our stomachs in everything we consume, our bodies in every message
we send, and etc. We freely give up how
we want to run our life, and we voluntarily offer it to God to use and run how
He wants. Because we so easily forget
and revert back to our natural state of being in charge of our own life, we
must intentionally practice this sacrificial offering over to God every day.
CONFESSING SINS: Notice in the Romans 12:1 passage, however,
that there is another stipulation to meet before God will assume influential
control over our life and will. We must
offer ourselves "holy and pleasing to God". Common sense and logical reasoning retort that we cannot be holy
and pleasing to God if we are or have been engaged in sinning. And, our sinful nature prevents us from
achieving a state of absolute sinlessness in this life (1 Jn. 1:8). Therefore, the best that we can aspire
toward is a fragile state of cleansed-ness through repeated and frequent
forgiveness of sins and cleansing from God.
The Lord faithfully provides this
cleansing when believers confess their sins as instructed in 1 John 1:9,
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our
sins and purify us from all unrighteousness". Believers are to be holy because God is holy (1 Pet.
1:15-16). When believers truthfully
confess their sins to the Lord, He will always forgive those sins, purify the
believer from the sinfulness that obstructs his relationship with God, and
restore the believer to a state of holiness.
Being cleansed from all unrighteousness
through the confessing of sins is a non-negotiable requirement for achieving a
state of yieldingness. One reason for
this is because we cannot serve two masters at the same time (Matt. 6:24). We cannot be yielding to our own sinful
desires and at the same time be yielding to God's righteousness. Our indulging in sinfulness is adversarial
to God's absolute holiness and His holy expectations for us. To ignore the sinfulness we have engaged in
is disrespectful to God's holiness. Yes,
God freely extends forgiveness, but at the same time He considers our sinful
indulgences to be a serious debilitating barrier in our relationship with
Him. Sin does not break the
relationship between a believer and God, yet it does hamper amicability.
DAILY CLEANSING: Some people claim that confession is not
necessary because we have already automatically received cleansing the moment
we became a believer. This contention
is true in regard to our final standing (or ultimate sanctification) with God,
but it does not take into account our present daily need to be spiritually
clean (progressive sanctification) before we can commune unobstructed-ly with
the Lord. Also, it outright rejects or
dismisses the teaching in 1 John 1:9.
Receiving purification from God is contingent upon our confession of
sins, and being "holy and pleasing to God" is contingent upon our
being purified from sins. Therefore,
attaining a state of yieldingness to God demands that we are repeatedly
confessing our sins for daily purification.
Due to our sinfulness though, maintaining
a state of cleansed yieldingness is a seesaw endeavor - especially when we
first start trying to maintain this state.
One moment we confess our sins and invite the Lord to be in reigning
control of our life - which He does. A
few minutes later, we sin - thereby knocking the Lord out of control of our
life and retaking mastery of it ourself.
So we then must again "renew our mind" by confessing our sin
and inviting the Lord to retake reigning control (Rom. 12:2). To maximize our empowering by God,
throughout the day this process needs to be repeated whenever we sin. This repetition may seem redundant, but it
is: required by God; necessary for cleansing; enlightening to raise awareness
of one's sins; and requisite for being empowered and controlled by God to the
maximum extent. Increased awareness of
one's sins also significantly aids one in actively trying not to sin
(repentance) - which is one of God's main objectives for us.
Another benefit of maintaining cleansed
yieldingness to the Lord all day long is that God considers this to be our
"spiritual act of worship" of Him (Rom. 12:1). He delights in our sincere continuous
efforts at being pleasing to Him, as is stated in Proverbs 11:20, "The
LORD detests men of perverse heart but he delights in those whose ways are
blameless". Through the living of
our lives in complete yieldingness to Him, we are worshiping Him in a manner
that goes well beyond mere words. Our
faith is being exercised by believing that He is pleased with our offering of
cleansed yieldingness. Behavior change
away from "conformity... to the pattern of this world" is occurring (Romans 12:2). Personality transformation
through the "renewing of the mind" is likewise proceeding at an
accelerated rate (v.2). Acceptable
ministry service is being accomplished for the Lord through His empowering and
direct supervision (v.2). Testimony is
being visibly declared to the world that the Lord is worth giving up our own
way of living for. As worship, efforts
are made to bring every aspect of our 'Good Soil' life into conformity with
God's will. Maximizing our relationship
with God is a high priority and desired outcome of this worship.
OVERRIDES STRONGHOLDS: Although the 'Good Soil' approach has
numerous benefits and excellent qualities, there is however one major obstacle
that it does not remedy sufficiently.
Strongholds of sin are not automatically removed nor do they
mysteriously disappear when a believer successfully maintains the process of
daily staying cleansed and yielding.
Instead, the strongholds are being overridden and overpowered. This results in the strongholds being
significantly weakened but not exterminated.
They continue to stay intact, to exert some influence, to surface
periodically, and to pose a threat of being restored to their former powerful
grip. Moreover, these overridden
strongholds continue to spew out psychological temptations that bombard,
plague, and entice the 'Good Soil' servant of the Lord to return to his old
sinful ways. In occasional moments of
weakness, the person may act upon a stronghold temptation, and thereupon
experience a spiritual roller coaster of ups and downs in which he is
vacillating between being controlled by sinfulness and then controlled by
righteousness.
Believers should not be naive or content
with just successfully resisting, managing, and subduing strongholds of
sin. Persistent temptations and
spiritual roller coasters are not fun to endure. Demolition and complete extraction of all strongholds of sin are
God's ultimate goal, so that believers can be blessed with a life of inner
peace (2 Cor. 10:4; Jn. 14:27). In John
8:31-36, Jesus Himself declares that He wants to set believers free from their
enslavement to sins. Believers should
settle for nothing less than the total freedom that Christ is offering.
Doesn't this 'Good Soil' approach sound
appealing? Wouldn't it be refreshing to
'let go and let God' be ultimately responsible for how your life, your
problems, your worries, your finances, and your troubled child turn out? Can you imagine what might happen in and
through your life if you offered yourself to the Lord to have complete reign
over your thoughts, words, and actions?
Deep down inside, do you long for the Lord to revitalize your spiritual
life? How do you think it would feel to
be free from those intrusive thoughts to yell at and strike your troubled child
in those tense moments? Is it time for
you to make some drastic changes in your relationship with the Lord? Take some time right now to digest and
reflect on how the 'Good Soil' person responds to hearing the Word of God. Is this how the Lord wants you to respond? Do you want to become 'Good Soil' - today?
Level
4 'Tenderized Heart'
COMPREHENSIVELY RESPONSIVE: Thus far through our examination of 3 levels
of maximizing one's relationship with God, it is interesting that the
strongholds of sin behave just as their name suggests. They are persistent and tenacious. Their defenses are formidable and able to
withstand repeated assaults. They
possess intrinsic power to exert control over a particular area of sinfulness
in a person's life. And, they continue
to perpetuate sinfulness even in their weakened state for the distinct purpose
of disrupting the believer's relationship with the Lord. The power bestowed by the Lord to the
cleansed and yielding person significantly diminishes the effects of
strongholds, but it does not remove them.
This is not because God's power is too weak. Instead, it is because God's power is being diverted by the
person to circumvent the strongholds rather than to target them directly. For whatever reason(s), the 'Good Soil'
person is avoiding dealing with his strongholds.
ATTACKS STRONGHOLDS: This fourth level of maximizing one's
relationship with God builds further upon being a 'Good Soil' person by
straightforwardly attacking strongholds to achieve their demolition and
complete removal. Considering that
strongholds reside in the hidden secret depths of a person's personality or
heart, this person unreservedly exposes his entire heart to the Lord for
examination and reproof. No matter how
painful, sensitive, embarrassing, secretive, or depraved the stronghold is,
this person readily brings them before the Lord as he becomes aware of
them. Nothing remains guarded or
protected. Hearing and accepting what
the Lord wants him to do with an area of sin, he then immediately makes the
necessary corrections and perseveres to institute any additional corrections
until the entire stronghold has been removed.
In effect, this person strives to 'tenderize' his heart to the Lord.
A key passage for having a 'Tenderized
Heart' is Psalm 139:23-24:
23. "Search me, O God, and know
my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24. See if there
is any offensive way in me, and lead
me in the way everlasting".
SENSITIVE TO GOD: This passage is a prayer - a request to the
Lord. The 'Tenderized Heart' person
regularly prays for and earnestly seeks an answer to this request. He wants to know what his strongholds of sin
are - what "divides" his thinking and allegiance (v.23; GRK; Strong's
#5587) - what in his life or thinking is "morally wrong", "wicked",
or "offensive" to God (v.24; GRK; Strong's #7563). This person truly desires to be "holy
and pleasing" to the Lord in every facet of his life (Rom. 12:1). Character improvement is a pressing priority
for him. He wants to face all areas of
sinfulness and deal with them forthwith.
He wisely understands that some things that seem acceptable to him may
be quite offensive to God. He also
realizes that a person cannot work on an area of sinfulness unless he is aware
of it. So he sincerely wants the Lord
to show him what needs correcting in his life.
He is earnestly asking for divine assistance in changing his personality
so that his relationship with God might become closer and more intimate.
HEART SEARCH: Acknowledging that our omniscient (all-knowing) Creator already
knows his deep inner thoughts, the 'Tenderized Heart' person asks for a
"penetrating", "intimate examination" or "search"
of his "heart" or personality (v.23; NIV; GRK; Strong's #2713). This is for his own benefit - not for
God's. His request is for the Lord to
reveal areas of sinfulness through the means of "testing" and trials
(v.23). This is a fairly bold request
because no one likes to go through testing and trials - least of all to reveal
their own flaws. To invite the Lord to
test you is seemingly like inviting Him to inflict suffering on you. But the 'Tenderized Heart' person trusts
that the Lord will not test him "beyond what [he] can bear", and he
has faith that the testing will refine his character (1 Cor. 10:13; Rom.
5:3-4). He replaces his fear with trust
and faith.
ETERNAL FOCUS: Faith also is applied to the future. The 'Tenderized Heart' person knows that life is meaningless and
vain apart from the Lord (Ecc. 12). In
wisdom and faith, he fixes his view upon accomplishing things in life that God
esteems as having eternal or "everlasting" value (Psalms 139:24). With a yielding heart, he wants the Lord to
"lead" and "guide" his "way" or "course of
life" so that it will have eternal value (v.24; NIV; GRK; Strong's #5148,
#1870). The 'Tenderized Heart' person
is driven by a passion to make a difference in this world. He is always keenly mindful that things in
life need to be accomplished in God's way and through God's empowering in order
to meet His approval and achieve His desired outcome. This person craves for the Lord to use him to bring about good in
the lives of others, but nevertheless he is starkly aware that strongholds of
sin hinder and/or prevent him from bearing eternal fruit for the Lord.
LORD'S ACTIVITIES: As the passage in Psalm 139:23-24 implies,
the Lord longs for this kind of heart that is open and waiting to be
transformed and purified (Ps. 51:10).
He is eager and more than willing to reveal areas of sinfulness to a
person. When a person becomes open to
being convicted of his sins, the Lord dismantles the person's pride and
instills a sense of true reality regarding how decrepit he is in his
sinfulness. The Lord patiently leads
the person to where he has "a broken spirit, a broken and contrite
heart" that is regretful and sorrowful for the transgressions being
committed against Him (Psalms 51:17). In this state,
the heart has become tenderized - ready and prepared to be purified (Psalms 51:10).
SCRIPTURES: To expose, convict, prepare, and purify humans of their areas of
sinfulness, the Lord uses Scriptures, which He has specifically designed to be
"useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2
Tim. 3:16-17). God empowers Scriptures
to be "living and active" so that it "penetrates" to the
depths of one's soul where it "judges the thoughts and attitudes of the
heart" (Heb. 4:12). There is an
obligation, however, for believers to employ Scriptures (coupled with prayer)
as the primary offensive weapon for getting rid of strongholds of sin (Eph.
6:17). Like the Army tank scenario, the
challenge is to learn how to effectively wield the sword of God's Word -
logically to pierce the core of each stronghold, disarm it, and then sever it
from one's life.
Obviously, effective wielding of the
sword of God's Word to remove strongholds should not include ignoring,
discounting, minimizing, twisting, or excusing away any convicting Scriptures
that make a person uneasy. To the
contrary, such responses to hearing the Word of God only harden one's heart
further and strengthen strongholds.
Yet, this is exactly how some believers handle and manipulate the Word
of God to achieve their selfish purposes of acquiring wealth, position, power,
or prominence within the church (see 1 Tim 6:3-5). Invariably as a result, these people eventually have to deceive
themselves and others in order to perpetuate their acquisition-al efforts (1
Jn. 1:6). While projecting an
incorrectly perceived or false air of spiritual maturity, they pervert the
meaning of the Word of God in order to deceive their constituents into
supporting them (Acts 20:30; 2 Cor. 4:1-2).
They also take passages out of context and exalt them to manufacture or
shore up shaky religious doctrines that supposedly prove their high level of
spiritual maturity and intimacy with God.
Such mishandling of the Word of God in reality builds sinful strongholds
- not demolishes them.
TRUTH:
When the Word of God is interpreted and applied properly, its intrinsic
truth shines forth to confront, oppose, and counteract the lies and/or
deception that are at the core of every stronghold. In the passage of John 8:31-36, Jesus discloses that He and
"the truth will set you free" from the enslavement to sin (vv.32,34,36; cf. Rom. 2:8). Logical
reasoning would assert that if Jesus says the truth is to be used as a weapon
against enslavement to sin, and the truth is opposite of lies, then the
conclusion is that the truth is employed to neutralize the lies which empower
strongholds of sin. Jesus verifies this
assertion a few verses later in John 8:43-45 that lies are enslaving and
keeping his oppositional listeners from hearing, understanding, and believing
Him and His teaching.
JESUS' TEACHING: Care should be taken here not to assume that
just listening to truth will immediately and magically free a person from
enslavement to sin. Yes, gaining a
knowledge of the truth does open the way to godliness (Titus 1:1). But in this passage, Jesus is distinguishing
that there is more to it. Believers are
to "hold to my [Jesus'] teaching" - meaning "to stay" in
His "word" (v.31; GRK; Strong's #3306, #3056). Like the 'Good Soil' person in the parable
of the sower, this indicates steadfastly continuing to hear, understand,
accept, believe, obey, and live the truth of Jesus's teaching. Continuing to walk in the truth or living in
obedience to the truth will produce purification (3 Jn. 1:3; 1 Pet. 1:22). The truth to be lived is Jesus, and all that
He is - His life, His truth, and His teaching of Scriptures - the Word from God
(Jn. 8:40; 14:6; 1:1).
CHANGES ALLEGIANCE: In addition to properly interpreting,
applying, and living God's Word in truth, accessing God's power through wielding
the sword of God's Word also involves targeting the truth of God's Word
specifically at the lies rooted in the core of each stronghold of sin and then
attacking them for neutralization.
Notice that during this attack process, the person has changed
allegiance in regard to the stronghold.
Previously, he agreed with the stronghold by; believing its lies;
perhaps loving it; hiding, rationalizing, or denying it; surrendering to it;
engaging in it; feeding it; and protecting it.
Now, he opposes the stronghold by: rejecting its lies; believing only
God's truth; detesting the stronghold; admitting its existence; taking
responsibility for it; exposing it; ceasing to engage in it; starving it; and
aggressively attacking it.
In summary, the 'Tenderized Heart' person
persists in doing everything he can to maximize his relationship with God. His heart is sensitive and responsive to the
things of God. He advances through the
lower levels with increasing self-discipline, commitment, obedience, consistency,
dedication, and spiritual maturity. To
accelerate the growth of holiness of his life, he draws on God's power to
tenaciously dig out and "take a stand" against each individual
stronghold of sin while simultaneously creating conducive conditions in his life
for the Lord to remove them (Eph. 6:11).
With diligence he works to "purify [himself] from everything that
contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for
God" (2 Cor. 7:1). As he
successfully proceeds to remove sinfulness and develop holiness (progressive
sanctification) through this process, God's power is active and being accessed
to effect major positive lasting behavioral and personality change. Through his striving to maximize his
relationship with God, the 'Tenderized Heart' person has learned how to be set
free from his enslavement to sin. He is
directly experiencing God's power in his life.
What is your response to the Lord's
desire for you to have a tenderized heart?
Will you pursue such a close relationship with Him and make God the only
one who reigns in your life? Are you
going to start facing and dealing with your strongholds of sin in His way
according to biblical principles? Does
the potential dramatic effect this could have on your life and subsequently on
your troubled child motivate you to pursue this with all of your strength? Collaborating with the Lord is by far the
best choice, and letting Him reign supreme in a purified heart is the best way
to collaborate with Him.
Section III. Getting to the
Heart of The Problem
Having now studied the basics of how to
draw upon God's power in one's life, the next step is to learn how to
effectively bring that power to bear specifically against strongholds of sin -
in both your life as parent, and your troubled child's life. If you are going to be the person to
facilitate this kind of application of God's power in your child, you must
first learn how to do this by yourself on your own. As you become aware of strongholds in your life, you must be
self-initiating attacks on them and subsequently be experiencing some
victories.
While becoming a 'Tenderized Heart'
person (Level 4) is the ideal and most preferable, the Lord does grant
victories over strongholds to believers who are at any level of spiritual
maturity. But, it is extremely
difficult to achieve any victories in one's own life unless the person is
either: 1. very self-motivated to strive towards a yielding, cleansed,
tenderized heart; or 2. has the assistance of a facilitator to personally
mentor, exhort, and counsel him.
Considering that you probably have no one to personally counsel you,
then you must strive on your own for the most maximized, stronghold-free
relationship with the Lord as you can.
Your troubled child, however, will most likely not initially aspire to
such self-motivated dedication to the Lord and will thereby need your mature
exhortation and counsel, which you acquire from maximizing your spiritual
maturity (Rom. 15:1-2).
Objectives of Strongholds
TO OPPOSE GOD: In learning how to effectively bring God's power to bear against
strongholds, it is quite advantageous to first understand the underlying
objectives of strongholds so that you can more easily identify them and take a
stand against them. The primary
objective within strongholds is to prevent and obstruct the person's
relationship with the Lord. In
opposition to God's absolute holiness, strongholds desire to drive the person
as far away from God as possible through promoting and perpetuating sinfulness
(see Rom. 1:18-32). The intent is to
make the person spiritually unacceptable or unclean before the Lord, and
un-desirous of developing a relationship with Him.
Strongholds incorporate a wide variety of
means and degree of influence in order to produce effects that are contrary to
God, His Scriptures, His laws, and the truth.
The degree or seriousness of the sins perpetuated by strongholds can
range anywhere between being relatively minor to being catastrophic. Some examples of strongholds driving a
person away from the Lord are: encouraging or engaging in wild living, negative
peer pressure, dissension, or division; doubt; unbelief; laziness; disinterest
in religion; resistance to getting one's life right with the Lord; or
relativism.
TO BE THE MASTER: The pinnacle in the promoting and
perpetuating of sinfulness is to gain mastery over the person. In the Genesis 4:1-17 biblical account of
Cain murdering his brother Abel, the Lord warns angry Cain that "sin is
crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it"
(v.7). The Lord describes clearly that
Cain's sinful thinking was desiring to establish mastery over him and to push
him to commit wickedness. Sin was
"stretching out after" and "longing" to "rule"
Cain (v.7; GRK; Strong's #8669, #4910).
In effect, sin desired to entrap Cain and become a god in Cain's life -
to be worshiped, obeyed, served, and adored as a god in the rightful place of
the only true God (2 Tim. 2:26). Strongholds
purpose to set themselves up on the throne of a person's life to reign, hold
captive, and control unto sinfulness, so that God is hindered from rightfully
being set up to reign unto righteousness (Col. 2:8). Examples of strongholds that purpose to gain mastery over a
person are: compulsions; addictions; habits; overindulgences; prejudices; all
forms of idolatry; any state of discomposure such as abnormal behaviors and
disorders; fits, rages, rants, frenzies, dithers; compulsive television watching;
workaholism; worldly philosophies (Col. 2:8); and liberal or divergent
theologies.
TO BRING HARM: Another objective, which is simultaneously utilized by
strongholds to achieve their primary objective of opposing God, is to cause and
perpetuate harm to its victim and others through such means as stealing,
killing, destroying, incapacitating, harassing, tormenting, or torturing (Jn.
10:7-10; 5:1-15; Jam. 5:14-16).
Strongholds delight when people are walking through the fires of
suffering, trials, and tribulations.
The perpetuating of harm may be with or without the intentional
cooperation of the victim or host. The
amount of suffering which strongholds inflict ranges anywhere from mildly
annoying to severely unbearable. Easily
identifiable examples of strongholds that bring harm are: depression; worry;
anger; hate; racism; greed; abandonment; revenge; violence; suicide; eating
disorders; antagonizing; criticizing; and mocking.
TO STAY IN THE VICTIM: A side effect of the purpose to bring harm is
that strongholds make every effort to stay in their victims. Usually they try to sustain their presence
by hiding or camouflaging to avoid accurate detection. Or, they may seek to persuade the victim and
society that they are a natural part of the person's personality or
psychological makeup. Initially their
preferred strategy is to continue to exert influence without the victim being
aware of their presence so that they can solidify their hold upon the person.
For many types of strongholds though,
they can become more powerful, do more harm, and stay in the victim longer if
they can recruit the victim to love them, protect them, and cooperate with
their purposes. Concealing their true
nature from the victim is usually futile in the long-term because the victim
has enough functioning conscience to identify what is wrong inside. So when it is no longer possible to conceal
their true identity, strongholds will try to convince or confuse the victim
into denying, discounting, or rationalizing their presence in order to stay in
the victim. Essentially, strongholds
are trying to convert the victim into either a cooperative, a willing, or a
non-resistant host. Their foremost
preference, however, is to ultimately develop the victim into their lover, who
burns with passion for wickedness.
An example that parallels this striving
to stay in the victim is teenagers who become gang members. They know that gangbanging activities are
sinful and entirely unacceptable to society.
But for various reasons, they become a gangbanger anyways (Rom.
1:32). To stay in the gang, they go to
extremes to conceal their gang membership from adults. Yet, gangbangers simultaneously work to display
their fierce loyalty in competition to other rival gangbangers and to aggressively
promote the perpetuation of their particular gang. If an adult suspects that a teenager is a gangbanger, the
teenager will vehemently deny, discount, or distort his gang membership to the
adult. When the adult is around, the
gangbanger will diligently portray himself as a fine upstanding citizen who
wants to 'hang out' with his decent friends.
A few moments later when the naive or gullible adult is not aware, the
teenager stealth-fully and secretively engages in wicked gang activities with
his peers.
TO DECEIVE: Notice in this gangbanger example that deception is craftily
incorporated in order to maintain the existence, perpetuation, and promotion of
the gangbanging stronghold (Rom. 1:18,30,32).
The deception can be presented in a variety of forms: lies; half-truths;
distortions; masquerades; confusion; evading; preying on naivety or
gullibility; schemes; charades (pretending); and etc. Cleverly, elaborately, and masterfully projected deception can prove
to be quite successful over the undiscerning.
Distorting and deflecting the truth is a primary survival and offensive
tactic of strongholds.
As you already know, your troubled youth
has become quite adept and talented in deceiving adults. To counter this, you must become highly
discerning of his expert deceptions and wise to his schemes and pretenses. In James 1:5-6, believers are advised that,
"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to
all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not
doubt...". Put this on your prayer
list to ask the Lord every day for wisdom and discernment in dealing with your
troubled youth.
TO BECOME ENTRENCHED: A natural result that occurs from deception
is that more deception is needed to support and uphold the original
deception. One lie is usually
insufficient to satisfy a suspicious, questioning parent. So more lies and deception are created and
implemented to substantiate the original deception and to cover the truth. Deception breeds more deception, and is not
confined to just one specific element.
Like a cancer, it grows and spreads to get a better grip over
suppressing the truth and over the host (Rom. 1:18). It infiltrates, entrenches, integrates, and clings with increasing
vibrancy and tenacity. Reproduction and
strength of a stronghold are gained by sprouting and sending out more and more
tentacles of deception to strangle the truth and confuse the issues. Thus, the more strength a stronghold has
over a person's life, the more numerous its tentacles, which are embedded in
various relating and linked sub-strongholds.
TO SPREAD: Correlating to strongholds' driving purpose to take as much
ground as possible in a person's life, they are not content to plague just one
person. Strongholds use their hosts as
spokesmen to "mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful
desires of sinful human nature, they entice [other] people who are [themselves]
just escaping from those who live in error" (2 Pet. 2:18). The hosts promise freedom to potential
victims, but bring only enslavement to depravity (2 Pet. 2:19). Strongholds have an insatiable appetite to
devour others - to set up strongholds within them. Infected with this appetite for conquest, hosts of strongholds
love the company of cohorts. There is
strength and mutual encouragement in numbers.
It is fun to let one's passions for wickedness burn like wildfire
alongside others who have the same passions.
Therefore the hosts have an appetite to recruit more cohorts. This is a main reason why your troubled
youth is so mysteriously drawn to deviant peers.
Realms of Influence
The
Mind
Another aspect of strongholds that needs to
be understood is their realms of influence - what parts of human beings they
infect and affect. By definition,
strongholds of sin are mainly thought processes or activities of the mind. Because the mind dominates the brain control
center for the entire person and makes moral decisions, strongholds as a whole
seek to intrude upon, invade, and conquer every aspect of a person's mind in
order to acquire the fullest control possible over the person's morality
system.
INTELLECTUAL: An utmost influence of strongholds is to cloud, confuse, warp,
blind, or hamper the intellectual reasoning "thoughts",
"attitudes", and activities of the mind so that thinking will be
rendered spiritually "foolish" and "darkened" to the truth
(Heb. 4:12; Rom. 1:21). In the mind,
strongholds induce: "darkened understanding"; "ignorance";
"hardened hearts" that are characterized by "stupidity or
callousness"; "apathy" or "loss of all sensitivity" to
righteousness; and psychological craving or "continual lust for more"
moral "impurity of every kind" (Eph. 4:17-19, NIV, GRK; Strong's
#4457, #0524). The most intelligent and
wisest persons in the world can be unawarely entrapped in foolish futile
thinking because of strongholds (Rom. 1:22).
At the other end of the spectrum, mentally-challenged persons can also
be held captive by intellectual inhibitors (such as confusion, zone out,
distraction) emanating from strongholds which reduce their learning
capabilities.
SUBCONSCIOUS: Strongholds also exert influence in the subconscious mind. When the mind is asleep, dreams can be
affected by strongholds. A common
example of this is dreams in which sensual desires are acted out. Nightmares spawn from the intensity of fear
strongholds. When the mind is awake,
painful memories or re-traumatizing vivid flashbacks of the past are at times
triggered into present conscious thinking through the workings of
strongholds. The intrusions that
strongholds execute upon the subconscious mind seemingly occur indiscriminately
and irregularly.
CONSCIENCE: The conscience or "moral consciousness" is also
negatively affected by strongholds, being "corrupted" along with the
mind (Titus 1:15, NIV, GRK; Strong's #4893).
The stronghold of idolatry "weakens" and "defiles"
the conscience (1 Cor. 8:7). The
stronghold of sinning against another person can "wound" his
conscience (1 Cor. 8:12). For those who
abandon the faith to follow false doctrines, the strongholds of speaking lies
and living in hypocrisy "sear" the conscience "as with a hot
iron", "rendering it unsensitive" (1 Tim. 4:1-2, NIV, GRK;
Strong's #2743). A searing or
desensitizing of the conscience ensues anytime a person feeds a stronghold
through engaging in gross sin (especially prolonged or repeated engaging),
because God "gives them over in the sinful desires of their hearts"
to the control and effects of the stronghold (Rom. 1:24). Examples of strongholds that are linked to a
degradation of one's conscience are: cruelty; substance abuse; violence;
pyromania; gangbanging; rape; prostitution; child abuse; kidnapping; and
murder.
EMOTIONAL: Perhaps the most favorite aspect of the mind for strongholds to
influence is the emotions. Emotions
color and influence nearly all of our thinking. Moreover, emotions prompt and incite us into action. Our thinking is quite sensitive and
reactionary to our emotions, and frequently we have little or no control over
them. Therefore, we are extremely
vulnerable to manipulation of our emotions or harassment through them.
One way strongholds gain a grip on us
through our emotions is by taking advantage of emotional excitability or
weaknesses. Through our emotions,
strongholds love to impel us into hasty action with little forethought,
pondering, or calm, balanced reasoning. A biblical proverb that describes this well is, "The heart of
the righteous weighs its answers, but the mouth of the wicked gushes evil"
(Prov. 15:28). The righteous person
keeps his emotions in check, "disciplined", and under
"self-control" (Titus 1:7-8) so that he can "slowly" (Jam.
1:19) "ponder" and "study" his answers with thoroughness
and care before speaking (Prov. 15:28, GRK; Strong's #1897). In contrast, the person controlled by
strongholds of sin does not hesitate to "gush forth" from his sinful
thinking with virtually no regard as to how his emotions are affecting his
cognitive processes (Prov. 15:28, GRK; Strong's #5042). A healthy, righteous relationship with God
is based foremost upon faith, truth, obedience, and reasoning. Trailing behind in subservience should be
feelings and emotions, which are fleeting, unreliable, and frequently
self-manufactured or manipulated by strongholds. Some examples of common areas in which strongholds can carry a
person away in his emotions are: anger; crying; grouchy; yelling; giddy;
ecstasy; excitement; hyper; and laughing.
WILL:
As I have previously discussed in numerous ways, strongholds desire to
get a strong hold upon the person's will in order to force indulgence in sin. They interact with the mind in such a way as
to take over and remove a person's mental ability to make un-influenced
conscious choices at his own discretion.
Strongholds aggressively "wage war against" a person's will,
which wants to do what is right (Rom. 7:22-23).
From birth, humans are by nature under
sin's dominating power and control of the will (Rom. 8:1-8). Unbelievers are devoid of the power to
control their own will (Rom. 8:7).
Strongholds are so successful in this battle over the will that they are
even able to overpower a righteous believer's mind that is willingly enslaved
to obeying God's laws (Rom. 7:22,25).
Strongholds can prevent that righteous-minded person from carrying out
the good he desires to do, and force him to commit sinfulness that he hates to
do (Rom. 7:18,15)! This helps explain
(but not excuse) why many renowned, spiritually stalwart pastors fall into
sinful bondage, which then disgraces Christ and extensively damages the Church. This also enlightens as to why many
believers lead a spiritually unfruitful life in defeat and captivity to
personal strongholds they hate doing.
They have never been able to adequately draw upon God's power to break
their strongholds' covert compulsive grips over their wills.
The
Body
The influences that strongholds have over
the body are extraordinarily interesting and may be initially surprising to
you, particularly because of our upbringing with an empirical modern
Western-civilization worldview. In our
culture, the view widely accepted by unbelievers and believers alike is that
all medical problems have absolutely no relation to or connection with
religious problems. Instead, all
medical problems have some sort of biological problem at their source - many of
which still need to be discovered on a genetic, cellular, or chemical
level. While it is understandable that
unbelievers hold this view, it is sad that believers miss so many opportunities
to facilitate healing through spiritual means because we are scripturally uninformed
in this respect.
PHYSICAL: According to the Scriptures and Jesus Himself, strongholds of sin
can cause physical sickness (1 Cor. 11:27-30; Mrk. 2:1-12; Jam. 5:14-16). One irrefutable declaration of this reality
is found in John 5:1-15 in which Jesus healed a man who had been "an invalid
for thirty‑eight years" (v.5).
This man lived on a mat next to the pool of Bethesda beside many other
"disabled people" (vv.2,6,8,3).
He was physically unable to get himself into the pool fast enough before
someone else got there ahead of him (v.7).
From his conversation with Jesus, it can be determined that mentally he
was coherent and intelligent (v.7).
But, physically he was "feeble", "frail", and
"sick" with a chronic illness or disability which confined him to
living on a mat (v.5, GRK; Strong's #0769).
"When Jesus saw him lying there and
learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him"
a seemingly bizarre question, "Do you want to get well?" (v.6). Think about this for a second. This man had been living incapacitated on a
mat for 38 years, and Jesus asks him if he desires to be healed! Of course the man wants to be healed - or
maybe not!?
There is more to his problem than just
physical incapacitation. Jesus asked
him this question because the man was engaging in some type of sin that was
causing his incapacitation (v.14). And
through this unusual question, Jesus was also asking him if he wanted to give
up his sin too. Jesus distinctly
declared in verse 14 that there is a direct cause-and-effect connection between
this man's moral sinfulness and his physical sickness. After healing the man, Jesus found him later
and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you"
(v.14). Jesus is stoutly warning the
man that his sin caused him to be an invalid on a mat for 38 years, and that if
he does not stop sinning, the man could end up in even a worse condition than
before. Now obviously, engaging in sin
does not always produce physical sickness, nor is all sickness the result of
sin (Jn. 9:1-3). But, whatever sin(s)
this man was doing, he definitely had been suffering adverse physical effects
because of it.
MEDICAL:
In the Bible, there are accounts given in which medical conditions such
as convulsions or seizures, deafness, muteness, blindness, hunchback, and
infirmity (weakness) had a spiritual cause in those particular cases. In contemplating any correlations between
strongholds of sin and medical conditions, several possibilities arise.
One plausible possibility is that
strongholds of sin might actually cause medical problems, diseases, or
conditions. Or, they could cause
sickness that mimics medical conditions.
Another possibility is that strongholds might try to hide behind and
take advantage of weaknesses created by actual medical conditions. Strongholds could also exert symptoms of
sickness in a variety of combinations of both the body and the mind. Because they reside in the mind, which is
the control center of the entire body, strongholds can theoretically manifest
themselves through any complexity of intermixing and interconnection of the
mind, the body, thoughts, behaviors, beliefs, perceptions, and etc. Whatever the case, the problem is that there
is no clear-cut way to ascertain solely through theological studies or through
medical testing what effects strongholds are having on a person's health.
The common mistake to avoid, however, is
not to assume that the sickness is purely a medical problem. Even when there is overwhelming convincing
medical evidence, how can anyone say with absolute certainty that a stronghold
is not involved somehow with the presenting sickness? God does use weakness, sickness, and even death to discipline
and/or bring judgment upon those who refuse to repent from their sinful
indulging (1 Cor. 11:27-32). When God
gives a person over to their sinful indulgence and thinking, He may be allowing
and using strongholds of sin to bring physical harm upon that person for His
disciplining or judging purposes (Rom. 1:26,28).
What I find astounding is when believing parents doggedly cling to the
hope that medical or psychiatric science will eventually cure their child's
condition, while giving absolutely no credence to the possibility that the
condition may have a spiritual cause.
Ignoring the possibility that repentance, confession, and prayer are
what is really needed (Jam. 5:14-16), they instead earnestly pray for an
instantaneous miraculous healing. But
when God does not supply one, the parents assume that God has not theologically
prescribed any other Scriptural course of action to facilitate healing. So they proceed to limit God and become
close-minded to any treatment other than medical or psychiatric science. They put all their faith in science
thereafter and resolve to live with the condition as best as they can.
I want to quickly point out, though, that
medical treatment should not be omitted as a remedy for sicknesses just as
spiritual treatment should not be omitted either. In James 5:14-16, the Word of God conceivably advises that both
remedies be pursued simultaneously, with adequate emphasis always being given
to the spiritual remedy. If the
spiritual remedy works, needless medical bills and prolonged suffering have
been averted. Considering these potential
beneficial outcomes, it seems more prudent to pursue a spiritual remedy as a
first resort, rather than a last resort after all else has failed.
THE LIST: During my counseling in group homes, I compiled a list of
strongholds which I witnessed in the girls' lives, or in the lives of my family
members or myself. I have enclosed this
list in Appendix A in Children of Fire.
This list is restricted to only strongholds that responded to and were
successfully removed solely through biblical counseling. This list is not intended to be scientific,
nor to be exhaustive. It is just a list
that I accumulated from my own field observations.
I first started keeping the list because
I naively thought that there would be perhaps only a few dozen items total, and
I would want that list as a handy reference when doing counseling with other
girls in the future. As the list
quickly grew, I became amazed at how numerous, varietal, and specific
strongholds were. I also was pleasantly
surprised each time a medical problem was completely removed exclusively
through biblical counseling.
Take some time to slowly review each item
on the list in Appendix A. Later in
this book, I will be suggesting how to further utilize this list. For now, notice the objectives and
influences of these strongholds. Notice
also the range of intensity they have - from the mild (like sadness) to the
horrific (like murder).
I would like to mention here the medical
conditions that were cured exclusively through biblical counseling: asthma;
burping; dyslexia (mixed up or backwards writing or reading); cerebral palsy;
hiccups; hunger; eye problems (cross‑eyed; divergent or split‑eyed;
tunnel vision; blurred vision; pink eye); fainting; abnormal yellowish lump
under the skin; false illness; the itches; odor (body, breath); paralysis;
physical pain; retardation; shakes; speech problems (pronunciation problems,
speech mix up); stomachache; too frequent urination; vomiting; and
weakness. Nearly all of these medical
conditions were officially diagnosed by medical doctors because we were
required to take our group home girls to the doctor for every malady.
As would be expected, our girls' school
grades took an immediate hefty leap upwards when they were delivered from the
strongholds (medical and/or psychological) that hindered their learning. Usually their grades for all classes would
jump 1 whole letter grade in the first quarter after being freed, and then
climb steadily thereafter to plateau where they were consistently getting all
A's and B's.
CASE STUDY: Even though I could write lengthy fascinating true stories about
the deliverance results our girls experienced from these medical conditions, I
would like to focus on just one. Amy (I
have changed her name here to protect her identity) was a 12 year old slender
girl with a below average I.Q. Her
unkept appearance and messy brown straight hair accurately reflected her
disorganized life and continuous uncontrollable behaviors.
One feature in Amy's appearance that took
some getting use to was that one eye was always turned inward - and usually to
an extreme. During her frequent rages,
this made it difficult to read her eyes in order to gauge her temperament. Yearly visits to the eye doctor produced no
change in this eye condition.
Over time, we were able to share the
gospel with Amy, to which she responded one day by placing her faith in Jesus
Christ for salvation. As Amy
subsequently started growing in the disciplines of the faith, I noticed that
there were now occurring occasions when that convergent eye was aligned
properly with the good eye. So,
alerting my wife and other staff to this intriguing phenomenon, I began
tracking and noting the circumstances within which alignment was occurring. It did not take long for me to discover a
pattern. When Amy was living her life
right with the Lord and yielding to His control, her convergent eye was
properly aligned, behaving normally, and under control. When Amy was out of control or in a rage,
her convergent eye was out of control and turned extremely inward. This pattern was so consistent in Amy that
we could accurately predict Amy's current state of mind just by observing what
her convergent eye was doing.
In my analysis from countless hours of
personal interaction with Amy, I think that a powerful stronghold of being 'out
of control' had a formidable command over both her life and her eye. Unquestionably, this stronghold developed as
a result of Amy being abandoned and abused by her drug-addicted mother. After getting saved, the power of the Lord
was overpowering this stronghold whenever Amy was collaborating with the
Lord. Conversely, the stronghold would
erupt to spew forth its fiery corruption whenever Amy collaborated with it by
choosing to be out of control. Amy was
unwilling to deal with the root reasons the stronghold remained in her life,
and it was still there the last time I saw Amy, when she was prematurely moved
to another group home against our recommendations.
III. Getting to the Heart of The Problem (cont.)
As we become fully immersed in our study
of the nature of strongholds, I do not want to overemphasize the concept of strongholds
so that some readers might be tempted to take it out of proportion or to
formulate some new erroneous theology based upon this concept. My intent is to give you a visual way to
understand how sin effects people, while adhering tightly to proper biblical
interpretation and applying biblical principles. There are other biblically-correct ways to conceptualize the
effects of sin, but I am choosing to discuss only this stronghold approach
because I think both you and your troubled youth can more readily accept,
understand, digest, and successfully implement this approach.
In the previous chapter, perhaps you were
able to see many negative qualities within your own life and your child's life
that correlate with the objectives and influences of strongholds. During the study in this chapter, more light
bulbs may come on as you piece together why we humans behave the way we
do. As you consider or begin applying
the principles to your life, it is crucial to remember, however, that this
counseling approach does not work for unbelievers, because they lack an actual
relationship with the Lord. If you are
not a believer yet, you can nevertheless continue reading through Children
of Fire to evaluate and digest the entire approach, which may then convince
you to become a believer and subsequently implement this approach (which works
superbly for believers).
Origins of Strongholds
Strongholds of sin are like hardy weeds
in your garden. Cutting a weed off does
not get rid of the weed because its root system remains intact, enabling it to
continue to grow. You must dig down
through the dirt and rocks to the weed's concealed, entrenched root core, and
pull out all of the core in order to kill the weed. The bigger the weed is, the bigger the root core is and the
tougher it is to pull out. Slicing off
part of the root core does set back the weed, but does not kill it. You must dig down to and remove the entire
root core that is firmly attached to and fed by its many tentacles. In order for the Lord to deliver a person
from a stronghold, He requires that the person adequately deal with the sin(s)
that resides in the root core of the stronghold (1 Jn. 1:9). This will necessitate successfully digging,
probing, and investigating underneath the surface symptoms, emotions,
diversions, and detours down to the root core cause of the stronghold.
Inherited:
For strongholds of sin, there are 3
different ways in which root core sins can originate or take root in a person's
life. One way is by being inherited. A key passage for inherited or ancestral
strongholds is Exodus 20:1-6:
1.
"And God spoke all these words: 2.
"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt,
out of the land of slavery. 3. "You shall have no other gods before
me. 4. "You shall not make for
yourself an idol in the form of
anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters
below. 5. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD
your God, am a
jealous God, punishing the children
for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of
those who hate me, 6. but showing love to a thousand [generations]
of those who love me and keep
my commandments.""
This passage contains an account of God
giving the 10 commandments. Verse 1
identifies God as being the one who is directly pronouncing these commandments
and reasonings. Because He is the only
true God (v.2), we humans are strictly forbidden from engaging in any type of
worship of other gods (idolatry) (vv.3-5).
God considers worshiping false gods to be a "perversity" or a
divergence away from what is right or good into what is "morally
evil" (v.5, GRK; Strong's #5771).
Worshiping anything other than God Himself is a blatant act of
opposition or "hate" against God (v.5) and outright rebellion against
his moral laws (v.6).
As an immediate consequence for becoming
involved in idolatry, God decrees in verse 5 that He will cause the perverse
moral evil that the parents are engaging in to be passed on to their children,
proceeding down through 3-4 generations.
In other words, as punishment God will cause the children to inherit
their parents' and ancestors' bondages to idolatry and to any sin that has been
worshiped as a false god. Conversely,
for those people who "love" the Lord and "keep [His]
commandments", He promises blessings and love to their progeny for a
thousand generations to come (v.6).
OBSERVABLE TODAY: Because this decree is
extended into the future by God, who has sufficient power and motivation to
carry it out, then its results should be evident and identifiable today. Modern social science has repeatedly
confirmed that indeed some types of problems are commonly passed on today from
one generation to the next, although there is widespread disagreement as to
exactly how they are passed on. It is
easy to see from ordinary observation of society that idolatrous strongholds
such as overeating (worship of food), greed (worship of wealth), alcoholism
(worship of alcohol), depression (worship of self-gratification), gangbanging
(worship of violence), or sexual promiscuity (worship of sexual pleasure) do
indeed run within family lines.
TENACIOUS: From my counseling
experiences, I have found that inherited strongholds are extremely tenacious,
and thereby difficult to get removed quickly.
Perhaps this is due to the fact that the inherited strongholds have been
overly successful in perpetuating themselves in each succeeding generation
without interruption. Another reason
probably is that inherited strongholds have approval and facilitation from the
Lord to harass the next generation(s) as punishment (Exo. 20:5).
REMOVAL: I have several specialized
suggestions for taking a stand against inherited strongholds and getting them
removed:
--
1. First, identify your inherited
strongholds by examining the lives of your biological parents and
grandparents. You can use the list in
Appendix A to assist your investigation.
[For later use in Chapter 12, trace each stronghold down through
yourself and your biological children to determine whom each has passed on
to. Also, identify any strongholds that
originated in you that already have been passed on to your children. Repeat this investigative procedure for each
child's other biological parent. This
investigation can produce quite fascinating and intriguing discoveries. It can also help explain the origins of some
of your troubled child's behaviors.]
--
2. Because inherited strongholds typically do not remove easily or quickly,
perseverance in resistance and prayer are required (Mrk. 9:29). The person who desires to be free from an
inherited stronghold will need to persist in resisting the stronghold through
total abstinence. And, daily prayer
requesting removal will need to continue until the Lord has granted deliverance
(Matt. 6:13). Start a prayer list (if
you do not have one), and list each individual inherited stronghold in your
life. Every day pray against each one,
and ask the Lord to break the power of each individual stronghold over you and
deliver you completely from each.
You will know when the Lord has freed you
from a particular stronghold when you have gained complete control over the
sin, and the sin no longer has any control or a strong hold over you. You should be thereafter consistently and
easily able to abstain from doing that sin with minimal struggle. In some cases, you may even totally loose
any desire or temptation to engage in that sin ever again.
--
3. Look for the sinful beliefs, misbeliefs, erroneous doctrinal beliefs, or
lies that reside in the root core of the inherited stronghold, and ask the Lord
to reveal them. Look also for relating
or connected sub-strongholds. Some
common misbeliefs you may encounter are: "this is just the way that I
am"; "this is part of my personality and who I am"; "its
genetically inherited"; "its O.K. for me to do this because my
parents do this"; "my parents approve of this"; "I have
been doing this all my life"; or "God allows this". Once identified, then apply biblical
principles and truth to them. Confess
any sins, and repent (change your mind and turn away) from the sins, erroneous
beliefs, and lies. Stop engaging in the
sinful behaviors and thinking, and replace them with righteous behaviors and
thinking. Persevere in earnest prayer.
--
4. Realize that being delivered of an inherited stronghold will break it from
being passed on through you in the future to any new children you may conceive,
but does not undo any passing on that has already occurred to your existing
biological children. Therefore, you
should want to gently and patiently try to help each of your children become
free from inherited strongholds, while always remaining fully aware that they
got the inherited strongholds from you and their other biological parent!
--
5. If you were adopted or a foster child, it may be difficult to ascertain the
inherited strongholds through examining your biological parents and
grandparents because you may not know them very well or at all. An excellent source of information that may
help some is any caseworker files. If
you can secure a copy of them, you should be able to identify in them several
major inherited strongholds.
CASE STUDY: Maggie was an intelligent 14
year old who had been adopted as an infant, but she was placed in our group
home because she was unmanageable.
After observing her for several months, we noticed that Maggie was
always trying to take most of her clothes off so that she was provocatively
dressed for the boys. Maggie's desire
to strip down was so compulsively intense that she would openly take her shirt
off in front of the boys - knowing full-well that an adult staff was present
and prepared to issue her a very high consequence for doing so. We could not figure out why she was so
obsessed with being sexually provocatively dressed in public until we started
investigating into her past and found out that Maggie's biological mother was a
prostitute. Maggie had inherited the
stronghold of prostitution, and at the age of 14 she was in the early stages of
beginning to show signs in her behavior of the prostitution stronghold.
Abuse:
Another way root core sins can become
implanted as a stronghold in a person's life is by picking up the stronghold
from an abusive event or an abuser. The
various aspects of an abusive event can be readily transmuted into a
corresponding variety of different types of strongholds in the victim's
life. The type of each stronghold will
be either identical to that specific aspect of the abuse event, or will be
opposite in reaction to the abuse. For
example, a child who was abused physically by her parent may become either
physically abusive herself and/or become a compulsive runaway. If the child was whipped mercilessly with a string
of Christmas tree lights (this had actually happened to one of our girls), then
she may go into a rage of anger every time she sees a set of lights, or she may
vehemently refuse to participate in the decorating festivities so that she will
not have to look at or handle any sets of lights.
MATCHING EFFECT: Typically, the
intensity, depth, and strength of an abuse stronghold in the victim's life will
generally match the intensity, depth, and strength of the abusive event that
had been perpetrated upon the victim.
If the intensity of the abuse was too horrific, the person may
experience a forgetting of parts or all of the abuse and/or an active
repression of the memories in order to maintain sanity, because the torment of
the memories are too overwhelming, excruciating, or re-traumatizing. Under the right conditions, horrific abuse
can cause the person to develop a fundamental personality defect in order to
isolate the trauma and thereby minimize its inhibiting influence upon the
person's ability to function sanely.
This is particularly true of young children.
PAST: Implanted strongholds from and
memories of an abuse will continue to torment victims indefinitely even though
the event happened a long time ago in the past. Memories of what has been experienced in the past have a direct
effect upon the present frame of mind and present response to similar
situations. A strong negative response
in the present is frequently empowered by a past harmful experience. A person who is stuck in the past and being
held captive by it cannot healthfully dwell in the present nor move forward
into the future.
CONTINUED EFFECT: Abuse strongholds do
not heal and evaporate on their own.
They remain intact and operating vibrantly - even if the corresponding
memories have since faded over time.
Ignoring the implanted abuse strongholds does not get rid of them nor
cause them to subside. Likewise,
burying the abuse and moving on with life does not diminish the strongholds at
all, but rather gives the abuse strongholds opportunity and license to operate
covertly.
UNFORGIVENESS: For believers, God does
not automatically bring deliverance from abuse strongholds, primarily because
the victim harbors unforgiveness in his heart.
The Lord commands believers to completely forgive others because through
Christ, God forgives believers of all of their countless sins (Eph. 4:32). In Matthew 18:21-35, Jesus declares that the
Lord is so adamant about this absolute requirement to forgive others that He
will turn over even His own believers to be "tortured" or
"tormented" for not completely forgiving others (vv.34,35, GRK;
Strong's #0930). God not only allows
but ordains that a person suffer continuing anguish and adverse effects until
the person forgives his abuser (v.35).
This may sound too harsh for some believers, but Jesus plainly states
this in verse 35: ""This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of
you unless you forgive your brother from your heart"". Through the activities of the abuse
strongholds, God disciplines believers for not forgiving their abusers. God requires forgiveness even if the
forgiveness is only unilateral and with no restitution or apology ever coming
from the abuser.
As should be expected then, all treatment
methods that omit forgiveness will fall short of totally resolving abuse
issues. Unforgiveness (along with
relating resentment, bitterness, and anger) is the primary root core problem
and the key to resolving abuse issues.
Therefore, unforgiveness should always be the very first problem to look
for when dealing with abuse strongholds and with various aspects of abuse
events. Once the person forgives
comprehensively and completely from the heart, the power of the abuse
stronghold is greatly and dramatically reduced. Then the Lord usually grants immediate removal of that aspect of
the abuse stronghold in response to prayer which: expresses genuine forgiveness
of the abuser; repents of engaging in the stronghold; and requests removal by
the Lord.
Three other common root core problems of
abuse strongholds are: 1. lies that the abuser implants in the victim's
thinking while perpetrating the abuse; 2. misperception of the abuse event by
the victim; and 3. the victim's retaliation for or reaction to the abuse in a
grossly immoral way. Due to this
complexity of issues within abuse events, it is necessary to open up the entire
event and bring it all to full recall in order to treat every aspect. However, the victim may not be willing or
able to recall and disclose all of the details of a traumatic event. To move beyond this impasse requires time
for the victim to build trust and confidence in the counseling method and in
the Lord as He brings healing to other milder issues. When the victim finally becomes ready to face the painful parts
of the abuse, a productive prayer to offer is to verbally ask the Lord to help
the victim remember all of the abuse event in a gentle way without being
re-traumatized.
INTRUSIVE MEMORIES: For severe abuse,
victims may experience vivid intrusive memories or flashbacks of the
abuse. Flashbacks (and nightmares) are
used by strongholds as a tool to harass and inflict pain upon the victim
without warning. Despite the recurring
pain, this can be substantially beneficial for resolving abuse when it serves
to motivate the victim to keep working on the issues in order to have the Lord
get rid of the painful flashbacks.
Nightmares and unpleasant dreams can also
be generated by an abuse. It is
possible for a nightmare to be an actual flashback. Or, they can flow from strongholds of fear, which have been
either inherited or implanted through willing experience (watching a horror
movie, for example). When trying to get
rid of nightmares and disturbing dreams, avoid trying to precisely interpret
the dream and the meanings of its various elements, because these are
fabricated by the sleeping mind and usually are not based accurately on
reality. Instead, focus on the general
theme of the dream to determine if there is a link to a stronghold and/or an
actual event in the past. In some
cases, nightmares are actually inherited strongholds.
PEACE: The whole purpose of revisiting
abuse in the past is to facilitate the Lord's healing and removal of all
associated strongholds. When this is
accomplished fully, the victim will be completely at peace when she thinks
about and remembers the entire abuse event.
The Lord will not remove the memories, but He will bring peace (Jn.
14:27). If a person is not totally at
peace and serene with the abuse, then as the person is ready, further digging
should be done to unearth more details within the abuse event in order to
identify other associated strongholds or sub-strongholds. If, while working on an abuse, other symptoms
are experienced which seem to be unrelated to the abuse event, then this may
indicate that there is more to the abuse that has not yet been uncovered. Or, the abuse event has become complexly
interwoven with other similar or related types of strongholds or abuse events.
Sinful
Indulgence:
The third way root core sins can become established as a stronghold in a
person's life is by observing or by participating in a sinful indulgence. Depending upon the sin being performed, one
instance of merely watching the sin or engaging in the sin can be enough to
pick up strongholds from it (witchcraft, for example). Speaking from a spiritual perspective, when
a person observes or participates in a sin, he is, by his actions: approving of
the sin; willingly opening himself up to that sin; and spiritually allowing any
of the dynamics affiliated with that sin to become part of his life. The Word of God exhorts us to "detest
utterly" and "hate what is evil; cling to what is good" (Rom.
12:9, NIV, GRK; Strong's #0655). In 2
Peter 3:17-18, we are warned to "be on your guard so that you may not be
carried away" from righteousness into wickedness, and to "grow in the
grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" - not grow in the
knowledge of evil. We are to keep up
our guard against evil - not open ourselves up to it.
SUSTAINED: Repeated or prolonged exposure
to sinfulness can create and reinforce depraved thinking, and thereby spawn
temptations and opportunities for the sinfulness to expand into other areas. Sustained indulgence directly fortifies the
strongholds, frequently leading to the development of a habit or an addiction,
and to a desensitization of the conscience to what is morally right. Some conspicuous examples are: witnessing a
murder; dabbling in magic or witchcraft; living with a smoker; watching sexual
or violent movies; or working around an adult who cusses profusely.
NEEDS: In the beginning stages before the
sinful indulgence becomes a habit or compulsion, the person starts doing the
sin because it meets some need or desire the person perceives he has. Youths start smoking to meet the need of
fitting in with their peers. Children
start cussing in order to meet a need of finding a more dramatic way of getting
the adults' attention. Adults start
gambling to meet a perceived need of obtaining wealth quickly. We humans want to achieve happiness and
enjoyment in life. We think or perceive
we need happiness, but really it is only a want - not a need for survival. In today's "entertain me" culture,
many youths and adults think they need to be experiencing perpetual
happiness. Justifiably in many cases,
they think church is dull and boring - no happiness or enjoyment can be found
there. So they keep searching until
they find some things which bring them happiness and fun. Many of the selections they make involve
sinful indulgence. Although they know
that what they are doing is morally wrong or harmful, they continue doing them
anyways because it is meeting their perceived needs.
Many people (and perhaps your troubled
child) do not want to give up their sinful indulgences. Some might - if an attractive acceptable
substitute or solution is found which will similarly meet their needs as the
sinful indulgence does. In their
not-always-rational mind, the benefits of indulging outweigh the immediate
consequences and are worth the risk of high consequences or worse. Pointing out all of the consequences of
their sinful indulging usually reaps no positive results because they already
know what they are being told, and they nevertheless choose to continue the
indulgence. As sinful indulgences are
identified, a good strategy is to figure out and find out what the
corresponding perceived needs are and why the indulgence is being continued. There may be something that can be changed
or corrected which will sufficiently motivate a turning away from the
indulgence.
ABSTINENCE: In treating sinful
indulgences, no progress will be made until the person sincerely stops liking
the indulgence and is actively resisting it.
Total abstinence of the indulgence is more easily accomplished when
replaced by righteous thinking and actions.
Thinking must be changed towards righteousness, or else eventually the
person will return to the indulgence.
"Those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and
despise authority" are like the proverb: "a sow that is washed goes
back to her wallowing in the mud" (2 Pet. 2:10,22). Patience must be exercised to wait for the
Lord to change the person's heart.
Before progress can be made, the Lord must soften and convince the
person to pursue obedient "godliness with contentment" rather than
perpetual happiness (1 Tim 6:6).
PARAPHERNALIA: When repentance and
confession of a sinful indulgence does finally happen, then submission to God
must include getting rid of all paraphernalia that support the indulgence. If for example a person is turning away from
pornography, he should (safely) smash and destroy all of the pictures,
magazines, videos, and etc. he has been using to perpetuate his sinful
indulgence. He has to personally take
ownership in this repentance process and be proceeding according to his own
free will. Upon successfully cleaning
out all of the supporting paraphernalia, then it is important that this void be
filled with righteousness that adequately satisfies him and meets his
needs. But care must be taken so that
his dependence is not transferred onto something that could become spiritually
unhealthy.
LIES: As with other types of strongholds,
again there will be lies or falsehoods to address and to counter with God's
truth. Some typical lies for sinful
indulgences are: "I've got to have..."; "this isn't hurting
anyone"; "its O.K. because everyone else is doing it"; "I
can control it"; or "the Bible doesn't specifically say this is a
sin". An effective way to battle
sinful indulgences is to find at least one easily understood verse in
Scriptures that directly addresses the sinful indulgence (see Appendix B). Copy the verse or a key phrase in it onto
the person's prayer list and integrate the verse into his daily prayer against
the indulgence strongholds. A side
benefit to this approach is that through daily reading of the verse, the person
is both being reminded directly from God Himself of God's disapproval of his
indulgence, and he is memorizing God's Word, which holds the power for change.
THOROUGHNESS: When the sinful indulgence
is being confessed to God, all of the times or various ways that can be
remembered of indulging in that sin in the past should be listed. Likewise, the very first time the sin was
engaged in and why at that time the decision was made to do so should be
explored in detail and confessed. This
may uncover some other issues, abuse, or sins that need to be addressed. There needs to be thoroughness in resolving
all aspects of the sinful indulgence - leaving no stragglers and nothing held
in reserve or hidden. All nuances of
the sinful indulgence need to be confessed for cleansing from 'all' unrighteousness
(1 Jn. 1:9).
PAST: The Lord allows the sinful
indulgences of the past to continue plaguing a person in the present because He
causes "a man [to] reap what he sows" (Gal. 6:7). Sinful actions will produce sinful
consequences in the future, and righteous actions will produce righteous benefits
in the future (Gal. 6:8). Yes, God
forgives a believer of his past sinfulness, but no He does not automatically
deliver a believer from its continuing adverse effects, consequences, and
strongholds that resulted from his past activities. The past must be revisited to resolve open issues, to address the
demand for restitution (unforgiveness), to remove lingering negative emotions
(strongholds), and to facilitate spiritual healing of open wounds (cleansing of
all unrighteousness - 1 Jn. 1:9). Being
freed from the spiritual consequences and emotional baggage of one's past will
liberate the person to grow spiritually, "straining toward what is
ahead" and pressing on toward the goal God desires (Phil. 3:13-14).
Treatment
GENERAL STEPS OF TREATMENT:
In overview, the general steps for treatment of strongholds are:
1. utilize prayer and the
Word of God extensively throughout the entire treatment process;
2. accurately identify the
stronghold and dig down to find its root core problem: sin; lie; misbelief;
falsehood; misperception; abuse; unforgiveness; or sinful indulgence;
3. believe and apply the
truth from God's Word to each sin and its root cause;
4. genuinely repent (change
your mind and turn away from it)
5. sincerely confess the sin
to the Lord;
6. terminate all involvement
with the sin and get rid of all of its trappings and paraphernalia;
7. persistently pray against
the stronghold that the Lord would grant victory over it and remove it (Jam.
4:2; Matt. 6:13);
8. put on new righteous thinking
and behaviors, and consistently maintain disciplines of the faith: daily
personal devotions of prayer and Bible studying; regular church attendance;
pursuing holiness and righteous living; growing in the knowledge of basic
doctrines of the faith; and serving the Lord;
9. stay alert and diligent
against indulging in that sin again;
10. search for, dig out,
identify, and deal with any affiliated or tentacled strongholds and their
corresponding root causes, and deal with them in the same manner.
DIMINISHING STRENGTH: The strength of a stronghold responds to
treatment and diminishes in the following steps of graduation (which are
dependent upon all of the proceeding steps):
-
Identifying and disliking the stronghold reduces its strength some;
---
recognizing its root core lies weakens it a little more;
-----
refusing to believe the lies any longer and believing God's truth dramatically
weakens it;
-------
terminating all behaviors and thinking associated with the stronghold
substantially disarms the stronghold;
---------
and, persistently praying against the stronghold will meet all of God's
requirements for eventual removal according to His will and timing.
TREATMENT PITFALLS: After having attempted this biblical
treatment of strongholds, a person may make some apparent initial progress in
battling strongholds but then revert back to his old sinful ways. The main reason strongholds remain can be
one or more of the following:
1.
the person is not truly a believer;
2.
the person and/or counselor is not aware the stronghold is present in the
person's life;
3.
the person does not regard the stronghold as a threat or a problem;
4.
the stronghold is too strong or too entrenched to overcome yet;
5.
deep down inside, the person loves the stronghold and in reality wants to keep
it even though he knows it is wrong; he is not ready to have it removed and he
lacks adequate repentance and/or commitment to battle it;
6.
the person lacks correct knowledge or strategy of how to get the stronghold
removed; he needs competent counselor assistance in getting to the root
cause(s) and applying biblical truth to it;
7.
the stronghold is inseparably linked or tentacled to other strongholds and root
causes or motivations which must be dealt with as well; it is a common mistake
to assume that a stronghold has been completely dealt with and is finished
being worked on;
8.
the person has not been adequately maintaining his devotional life and
disciplines of the faith; he has not been putting on new righteous behaviors
and thinking to replace the stronghold and/or meet his needs;
9.
there is something blocking the process which is either very traumatic,
powerful, or compelling, such as: fear of harm to someone; and/or a serious
crime has been committed which the person does not want disclosed;
10.
there is a hindering issue(s) between the counselee and counselor;
11.
the person has a fundamental personality defect; this should be suspected if
the person may have endured severe abuse.
TREATMENT BENEFITS: Successful treatment of a stronghold that
results in the Lord completely removing it should reap the following benefits:
1.
deliverance from a problem through spiritual means has occurred with no need
for medications or appointments with healthcare professionals;
2.
increased peace of mind and general health of the person;
3.
increased freedom and ability for the person to make his own choices;
4.
temptations in the person's mind have been reduced in their intensity and
frequency;
5.
conditions in the person's life have become more favorable for better
experiencing the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), a more abundant spiritual
life (Jn. 10:10), and spiritual growth toward maturity;
6.
the person has gained some wisdom in how to be delivered from strongholds;
7. the
person has first-hand experience of the power of God in his life; in, to, and
through the person, the Lord has confirmed the reality of His existence, His
willingness to deliver from strongholds, and the active powerful truth of His
Word;
8.
evidence and knowledge have been added to the person's testimony which could be
used to help others;
9.
family members, friends, and other people in the life of the person should be
enjoying increased pleasantness and improved relationships with the person;
10.
the person has become morally, physically, emotionally, intellectually, and
spiritually stronger - which helps equip the person to better: resist other
strongholds; serve the Lord and His church; and earn rewards in heaven.
From our study of strongholds in the
previous chapters, you can prepare for working with your troubled child by
first tackling your own strongholds and making warranted lifestyle changes. You should be "throwing off everything
that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles" you from "running
with perseverance the race" God has "marked out for [you]" (Heb.
12:1). Indeed, God has an assignment
designated for you - a 'race' that goes far beyond ordinary parenting. Perhaps He is calling you into implementing
a multi-faceted ministry to your troubled child. Who will reach your child with the ministry help he needs if you
do not? Maybe right now God's hand is
upon you. Understanding strongholds
should help you 'run with perseverance' because you have a better comprehension
of what is plaguing your troubled child.
Also thus far in this book, a foundation
has been laid for you to engage in a ministry of power (1 Cor. 4:18-20). You have been equipped with knowledge of how
to draw upon God's power in your own life, in your forthcoming ministry to your
troubled child and family, and in your child's life. Power will be a critical aspect of your ministry. But it is not the only important aspect.
Ministry of Modeling a Christ-like
Life
Indisputably, authentic modeling is a
paramount responsibility of good parenting.
If there is added to this the vital need for approaching your parenting
situation with a distinctly spiritual strategy, then your parenting responsibilities
should take on the ministry dimension of modeling a Christ-like life to your
troubled child.
A primary objective of modeling a
Christ-like life is to live out before your children the reality of the
existence of God and what affect that reality has on your life. You want to show them that religion is not
about rules, but rather about an intimate personal relationship with God
through Jesus Christ. In every word,
thought, and action throughout each day, your life should be reflecting Jesus
Christ - the perfect model for our ardent emulation. You are demonstrating to your children how to live life in a way
that pleases God, is content with trusting God, and delights in serving God. All that you are as an adult, believer, and
parent reveals your intense love and devotion for the Lord. Your life radiates your "love [for] the
Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind
and with all your strength" (Mrk. 12:30).
Behind the observable exterior part of
living out your faith, modeling a Christ-like life also entails subtly
demonstrating how to maintain this life of devoted personal relationship with
the Lord. You are setting the example
and a standard for your children to strive to equal or excel. Your consistency and authenticity in
maintaining your close personal relationship with the Lord articulate clearly
to your children that your faith is genuine.
Your spiritual maturing is overtly noticeable to them, although they may
not fully understand it yet. For teenagers,
who are by nature attitude experts, your Christ-like attitude speaks loudly to
them. They also quickly determine that
you habitually keep the disciplines of the faith because you want to, not
because you are compelled to. It
becomes obvious to them that you are not just going through the motions - that
instead you are somehow actually in direct contact with the Lord. As a result, your edifying relationship with
the Lord and precipitating peaceful state of mind become attractive and
appealing to them, even though your disciplined way of life is not.
As you attempt to restructure your
children's morality and value system, through modeling a Christ-like life you
are supplying them with tangible good reasons why they should adopt your
biblically-based values and corresponding way of life. They need to see why it is more beneficial
to pursue your value system over their own relativistic, self-gratifying
system. Things like reading the Bible,
praying, yielding to the Lord, attending church, serving in ministry, working
on one's strongholds, and maximizing one's relationship with the Lord seem to
children to be a lot of work, boring, and sacrificing. Your modeling gives them credible evidence
that actions that lead to living a more righteous life are a tremendous
blessing to you, as well as to your family.
SELF-IMPROVEMENT: This of course assumes that you are actively
working on improving your life.
Modeling a Christ-like life must include the priority of pursuing
spiritual growth and maturity. You must
be living a disciplined maturing life in order to teach disciplined maturing
living. Maximizing the usage of God's
power in ministry requires ongoing spiritual growth and maturing. Your growth as a Bible student will have
both a trickle-down and a direct effect upon your children. Therefore, you must be teaching yourself
(Rom. 2:21). On a practical note, get
and use the resources for growing in the faith. A useful CD‑ROM Bible library software program with word
search, Greek/Hebrew, several modern translations, topical Bible, cross
references, and other helpful features can frequently be purchased at a large
discount store for about $10.
As you become 'more religious', your
children will be watching you very closely - particularly to see if you are
working on changing unpleasant character qualities and eliminating all
hypocrisy in your life and faith. In my
secular group home, it always seemed like the girls were watching myself and my
wife like a hawk with a magnifying glass and binoculars to catch any flaw in
our lives which would give them reason to discredit and dismiss our endorsement
of a biblical way of life. I am not
perfect, so occasionally they would find an inconsistency between the faith I
was verbally promoting and the way I was living. The girls would swoop down on the opportunity to bring this to my
attention. No one likes to have their
shortcomings brought to their attention, but I found the girls' correct
critiques to be quite beneficial in prompting me to straighten out that area of
my life. In the ministry of modeling a
Christ-like life, you must "Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will
save both yourself and your hearers" (1 Tim. 4:16).
Ministry of Modeling
Christ-like Parenting
Modeling a Christ-like life applies to
all areas of your life. But a
particular area that will most significantly impact your children is your
parenting approach. How you interact in
a parental capacity with your children and especially your troubled child will
exert determining influence over their opinion and regard for your faith. Therefore, your ministry to your children
must also incorporate modeling Christ-like parenting.
BEING A STUDENT: Given the complexity and responsibility of
such a major undertaking as modeling Christ-like parenting, some preparations
need to be occurring. Of primary
importance is that you restructure your parenting style to be biblical in
flavor and should reflect Christ-likeness in its usage. You should be a student of Christ-like
parenting - researching and studying passages that give directives or examples
of parenting. How God treated Israel is
a good topic for gleaning biblical parenting principles. Also, there are available plenty of good books
written from a Christian perspective on the basics of adolescence, good
parenting, and child‑rearing practices.
This book, Children of Fire, is about how to do Christ-like
parenting. You should be trying,
experimenting, modifying, adapting, fine-tuning, and putting into regular
practice parenting skills that exhibit biblical and Christ-like qualities. As you strive to be the best Christ-like
parent that you can, you will be learning from parenting mistakes and
experiences, and then adjusting your style to agree with biblical
standards. Flexibility and careful
consideration will need to be exercised to accommodate changing conditions,
such as: your counseling experience; the age and development of your children;
family distinctives, structure, activities, and social interaction; culture;
and neighborhood.
ABUNDANT PRAYER: Preparation for ministering to your children
through your parental role should also include establishing a long-term prayer
life that makes abundant repeated requests before the Lord. With a yielding heart, you will want to
"pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and
requests" for yourself and your children (Eph. 6:18). You can ask the Lord to empower you with the
qualities to be the best Christ-like parent that you can. Individualized specific intercessory prayer
for each of your children should also be offered. Abundant prayer is a requisite for accessing God's power in your
ministry to your children.
SUPPORT FROM OTHERS: Parenting and ministering to a troubled
child can be exhausting and draining.
To avoid succumbing to burnout, other believers should be recruited for
community, moral support, and prayer support.
If your spouse is a believer, he/she should be working in conjunction
and cooperation with you in your parental ministry endeavors. Because breaking the power and grip of
strongholds is accomplished by the power of the Lord, special emphasis of the
prayer support should be placed upon praying for the deliverance of your
troubled youth. Keep your prayer
supporters fresh in their intercessory prayer by regularly updating them about
what is happening.
Ministry of Patient
Endurance
Ministering to your children through Christ-like
parenting utilizes some features that are implemented somewhat differently than
for 'normal' children. A glaring
example is the need for parental ministering with transcending patient
endurance. On perhaps a daily basis, a
troubled child easily pushes the adult's patience to the limit and frequently
exacts overwhelming suffering through his turmoil. Parental ministering under these conditions requires a gentle
long-suffering demeanor that exceeds the abilities of most parents, and
therefore must be supplied by the Lord.
The constant opposition can only be successfully endured with God's
empowering (Heb. 12:3).
ENDURING FOR THE BENEFIT OF OTHERS: The patient endurance needed for ministering
to a troubled child must be self-sacrificing.
It should place the ultimate well-being of the troubled child ahead of
the parent's current comfort (2 Cor. 1:6).
Enduring in a Christ-like way the distress generated by a troubled child
is a demanding preoccupation for the parent.
But with one's eyes fixed on Jesus, a ministering parent can endure for
the benefit of the child without "growing weary and losing heart"
(Heb. 12:2,3). The parent will need to
stay focused on the mission in the midst of personal hardship. Career advancement plans may have to be
postponed or set aside so that priorities can be restructured to align best
with achieving the ministry objectives for the benefit of the troubled child.
PERSEVERING REGARDLESS OF THE DISMAL
OUTLOOK: Parental ministry also should
persevere even when the desired outcome appears solidly unattainable. Godly parenting does not guarantee God‑fearing
children, and a troubled child enjoys resisting what is right. But, a bleak outlook must not dissuade nor
deter the parent's unfaltering determination to persevere. The ministering parent should proceed
anyways, with confidence that God now approves of his/her parenting approach
and is using him/her to reach the troubled child. He/she knows that the Lord has plenty of power to grant
deliverance. The parent must remain on
course, having faith that "at the proper time [he/she] will reap a harvest
if [he/she] does not give up" (Gal. 6:9).
In the Lord there is hope.
CHANGE IN ATTITUDE: As you contemplate these qualities intrinsic
to parental ministering with patient endurance, you may forthrightly realize
that some changes in your attitude are called for in order to cultivate such a
noble character. Patient endurance
requires the absence of all bitterness, resentment, and anger (Eph. 4:31). Any lingering internal pain caused by your
troubled child must be dealt with and released. Embarrassment, shame, family disgrace, humiliation, and any other
unpleasantry that still bothers you must be dismissed and discarded from your
heart. To avoid thwarting your
development of patient endurance, you must resolve before the Lord any
remaining issues you have endured from the destructive activities of your
troubled child so that your conscience is clear and pure.
CALM DETACHED RESPONSE: Troubled youths are extraordinarily adept at
'pushing the buttons' of or provoking parents and adults. They quickly learn what irritates parents
and how to incite a heated argument.
Children of fire seem to derive immense enjoyment from inflaming their
parents and igniting them into behaving just like the troubled youths do.
Maintaining patient endurance under these
contentious and hostile conditions is difficult, but not impossible - if you
learn to detach yourself from your youth's attacks and wrongdoings. Let his behaviors pass over you without
provoking a strong reaction from you.
Change your automatic reactions, and do not allow your youth's personal
attacks get to you. In the end of the
skirmishing and upheaval, you will prevail.
You must rise above what he is doing and calmly respond with Christ-like
patient endurance. Rest in the
confidence that when you are using a biblical parenting approach, the Lord
approves of how you are handling the situation no matter how it will turn out.
REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS: Accurately facing the reality of your
child's problems, development, and abilities, you must balance and temper your
estimation of what your child is capable of being. It is not reasonable, fair, nor justified to expect your child to
behave above what is normal for his age.
Moreover, when you consider all of the strongholds of sin that
powerfully control him, you should anticipate that he will ordinarily behave at
a maturity level far below what is normal for his physical age. For the short-term, you should lower your
expectations of him because characteristically, the psychological maturity
development of a troubled youth is stunted, and it remains that way as long as
his strongholds have overwhelming and comprehensive control over him. Personality maturity will start and
accelerate as he increasingly becomes victorious over strongholds. Be patient and endure his immaturity for
now, because you understand that the Lord must grant him repentance before he
will be capable of acting more maturely (2 Tim. 2:24-26).
POSITIVE REGARD: Parental ministering with patient endurance
also means treating your child with dignity and respect even if he is highly
rebellious and defiant. In terms of how
you regard your child, the golden rule of "do to others as you would have
them do to you" applies (Lk. 6:31).
The Lord has made your child in His image (Gen. 1:27). Therefore your child deserves to be treated
like a human being even if he is not acting like one. Contempt and disgust will only drive your child further in the
wrong direction.
ONGOING FORGIVENESS: Unquestionably, troubled youths can be
uncaring, cruel, hurtful, malicious, and at times vicious or assaultive. Their parents are conspicuous foremost
targets for their wrath because of the parental authority that stands in the
way of their rebellion. Depending upon
how troubled your child is, verbal and physical harm may be inflicted upon you
on a daily basis. In answer to a
question about how many times should we forgive someone who is sinning against
us, the Lord Jesus says in Matthew 18:21-22 that forgiveness should be
perpetually extended. Patient endurance
must have an undertone of ongoing immediate forgiveness, regardless of whether
any remorse ensues in the perpetrator.
It is not easy to quickly forgive when such favor is unwarranted. But this is how God reacts to us believers
when we sin against Him. He requires
the same reaction of us to sin and harm from our fellow humans.
READILY RE-ACCEPTING: Following on the heels of forgiveness should
readily come re-acceptance of your abusive youth back into your life and the
restoration of fairly normal relations with you. A biblical model for patient endurance with amicable
re-acceptance is the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:10-32. In the culture of this parable, the father
suffered monumental humiliation and dishonor when his youngest son asked the
father for his share of the inheritance (v.12). By asking for his inheritance while his father was still alive,
the youngest son was publicly saying, in effect, that he wished his father was
dead. By leaving with the inheritance,
the youngest son was further publicly disgracing his father by declaring that
he no longer wanted to be considered part of the family (v.13). His highly disrespectful actions
demonstrated that he would rather live anywhere than with or near his family
and his father. Furthermore,
squandering his inheritance revealed his total lack of regard for the hard work
the father had spent over the years to accumulate that wealth.
As you read and study this parable,
notice the father's reaction to the abuses perpetuated by his wayward youngest
son. The father was generous and
enduring (v.12), patient and watchful (v.20), compassionate and forgiving
(v.20), eager and re-accepting (v.20), reaffirming and loving (v.20),
restorative and rejoicing (v.22-24).
Parental ministering with patient endurance involves putting up with all
the garbage being spewed out by your child in hope that one day he will
"come to his senses" (v.17).
Readily and repeatedly re-accepting your child is part of the way you
live out your love for him.
It is important to note that
re-acceptance does not necessarily imply or include completely returning to the
way things were and pretending that nothing ever happened. The father restored his prodigal son to his
former position within the family, but he did not replace his squandered
inheritance (vv.22,24). The responsible
older brother would receive all of the father's remaining wealth (v.31). Motivated by love, the parent should make
and apply necessary adjustments, precautions, and consequences in the midst of
re-acceptance and restoration.
IV. Christ-like Parenting (cont.)
Modeling a Christ-like life and modeling
a Christ-like parent with patient endurance form the foundation for parenting
in a Christ-like way. Resting on this
foundation should be the virtue of love, from which all parenting activities
stem. To maximize effectiveness, love
should always be the dominant influence in your interactions with, parenting
of, and ministering to your troubled child.
Ministry of Love
ATTITUDE OF LOVE: Love should be interwoven into and permeate
every aspect of your parenting (1 Cor. 13:1).
Your attitude, your thoughts, your decisions, your intentions, your
facial expressions, your body language, your actions, your reactions, your tone
of voice, your words - everything you are as a parent to your troubled child
must be saturated with Christ-like love for your child. When your child is standing nose-to-nose
with you, his eyes burning with fiery anger, and he is cussing you out with
scorching vulgarity, thoughts must well up from deep within your soul of how
much you love your child and would relish giving him a long hug right now to
love him through this terrible time.
This is the kind of love Jesus had while hanging on the cross for those
who crucified Him (Lk. 23:33-34).
Christ-like love is not a gushy love nor
a blind love. It is a balanced, moderate,
tempered kind of love. This love seeks
to achieve what is necessary and right in the long run despite the discomfort,
and does not merely keep patching over problems for quick relief.
Many parents of troubled youths have
buried issues that hinder them from cultivating a Christ-like love. Resentment can remain smoldering for years
about the unplanned pregnancy of this unwanted child. Disappointment and disenchantment about un-reached expectations
for this child can subtly quench the parent's love. Perhaps long ago you desperately wanted and laid sophisticated
plans for a boy, only to have them obliterated by the arrival of a girl. Do a soul search and work on getting removed
anything that is obstructing a pure, Christ-like love for your seemingly
'unlovable' child. Your child is
"a heritage from the Lord, ...a reward from him" (Ps. 127:3). With the Lord's help, develop a new right
heart-attitude of love.
ATTENTION: Many parents of troubled youths fail miserably to detect or
properly respond to one supreme good-parenting essential:
*** What troubled youths crave most is their
parents' accepting love and positive attention. ***
The
main reason that children act out in a negative way is because they are not getting
enough parental (or adult) loving attention.
Even the most extremely anti-social teenagers long for positive adult
attention, but they have erected a hedge of protection to keep out further
potential hurt and pain from abusive or disrupted adult relationships. They want and need an adult to pay attention
to them for proper development of self-worth, identity, personality,
acceptance, reassurance, security, guidance, and etc. Voluntary parental attention signifies to the child that the
parent cares about him. Some troubled
children so hunger for adult attention that they will deliberately incite
severe negative adult attention rather than receive no adult attention at all.
Analysis of this phenomenon reveals that
it originates from the parents' abuse of their child through neglect and/or
abandonment. The father got the mother
pregnant and then moved away or divorced her.
Raising the children by herself and simultaneously trying to hold a job,
the mother does not have enough time or energy to devote the attention that is
needed for each child. A parent who is
totally absorbed and consumed with building a career or fortune also produces
neglect abuse. Selfish disregard,
irresponsibility, materialism, and busyness are the major propagating culprits
of the widespread parental neglect abuse in our society today. In reaction to this abuse, the child picks
up strongholds that demand the attention he has been deprived of for so long by
his parents.
AFFIRMATION: It is healthy and necessary for children to receive loving
affirmation from their parents. Genuine
accurate statements of praise are highly valued. Regular communication of parental acceptance, approval, esteem,
and appreciation are priceless in edifying, molding, and shaping the healthy
development of a child. In your
parenting, make genuine loving affirmation a daily habit. If you feel disdain or apathy for this, then
dig out the reasons why. A possible
source may be that this is how your parents mistreated you. Incidentally, genuine affirmation of love
from the parent to the child tends to disarm his hostility. So you have a lot to gain by changing this
area of your parenting.
DAILY QUALITY INTERACTION: Parental ministering to your troubled child
must contain daily interaction with him that is authentic and not
superficial. The familiar scenario of
Dad reading the paper and responding with "Uh-huh" to his teenager's
account of his day at school is not quality interaction. Troubled youths need intelligent
conversation and undivided attention with each parent every day for a combined
total of at least 20 minutes per parent.
If you do not give them this minimum, they will find undesirable ways to
demand it.
Some parents and house parents properly
recognize that their child is intentionally having negative behaviors in order
to receive attention. But, they
prescribe the wrong remedy of withholding attention, which consequently
produces the opposite effect of the child initiating more negative
behaviors. A correct approach is to try
to wean the child off of receiving attention through his negative
behaviors. This can be done by telling
him that you will give him attention as soon as he is being appropriate - and
then doing so right away when he is acting appropriately. This demonstrates to him that your
interaction with him can be mutually enjoyable when he is acting
positively. Of course you will want to
point this benefit out to him as it is occurring so that he sees it. Eventually when he is ready, you will want
to work with him on spiritually getting rid of the stronghold of demanding
attention, being sure to dig out its root core cause(s).
Daily quality interaction should be
meaningful to both you and your child.
It should be a balanced, two-way, mutually amicable and edifying
interaction. As the parent, you should
listen and ask questions more than you should do the talking. The objective with this is to get your child
to open up about his life and to freely share with you the joys as well as the
sorrows, the pleasures as well as the hurts, the fun as well as the crises, the
hopes as well as the worries. He needs
to feel comfortable venting with you about the frustrations and disappointments
of life. Through this daily sharing and
learning what is happening in his life, you will be bonding with your troubled
child. His respect for you will be
strengthening, and he will be subliminally learning how to interpret, handle,
and cope with life from the quality interaction he has been having with
you. If done with sensitivity and love,
these conditions will naturally create 'teachable moments' - a brief time in
which your child is willing to listen to you and adopt what you are trying to
teach him.
Initially, this interaction will be
one-sided in terms of the speaking of truth.
Your troubled child will deceptively try to paint himself as an
upstanding and perhaps perfect person who never intentionally does anything
wrong. You must patiently bear with and
correct his compulsive lying. Be
mindful that not telling the truth is a major stronghold in his life and you
are not about to change it with a few nice conversations. Use good judgment on whether to issue him a
consequence for lying to you during this quality interaction time, because you
want to keep the information flowing from him.
If he gets disciplined every time he talks with you, he will obviously
want to remain secretive and stop the interactions.
Interaction with complete truthfulness is
an utmost priority for a healthy parent-child relationship. Your side of the conversation with him must
always be truthful if you are going to expect him to always be truthful with
you. Similarly, your modeling the
speaking of truth in daily life is equally important. Your failure to consistently model the speaking of truth will
result in you teaching him to lie. You
will also be sending him the messages that you cannot be trusted and that it is
acceptable to lie at times to suit one's purposes.
Children are deeply hurt by their
parents' lies and hollow promises.
During my house parenting days, I was astounded by how often parents
lied to and deliberately mislead their troubled children. Then the parents would wonder why their
child is incorrigible and complain that they could never get the truth from
their child. When our group home girls
discovered that their parent(s) had lied to them and/or were breaking a
promise, invariably the devastated girls would fly into a rage and for days or
weeks take their anger out on other adult authority-figures in their life. Parents should never, ever, lie to their
children - or to anyone else for that matter.
The biblical command is that "...each of you must put off falsehood
and speak truthfully to his neighbor..." (Eph. 4:25). Even lying to them with good intentions
about such things as 'Santa Clause', the 'Tooth Fairy', the dentist, the
doctor, a forthcoming consequence, and etc. should never be done. Christ-like parenting must consistently
model speaking the truth and keeping promises.
"Simply let your `Yes' be `Yes,' and your `No,' `No'" (Matt.
5:37a).
Maybe, not always speaking the truth to
your child is a stronghold in your life.
Monitor yourself as you interact with him. Identify any other of your shortcomings or your inabilities to
relate well with him.
During your daily quality interaction,
you should study your child. Closely
observe and carefully note such things as his motives, his inner character,
what makes him tick, what gets him ticked off, what he values in life, and what
his aspirations are. Learn as
intimately as possible what his world is like and what kinds of daily
experiences are important to or impacting upon him. Try to view life from his perspective. Be a diligent student of your troubled child, because this
information and understanding you accumulate will one day prove invaluable when
the time comes to counsel him through his problems and his strongholds.
I have found that a really good time to
interact with a troubled child is right away when she comes home from
school. A majority of her life revolves
around what happens in school.
Everything is fresh in her mind after school and she now has time to
process the day's events. Therefore,
she is usually quite talkative and eager to share an account of her day. Also, this is the best time to deal with and
diffuse reactions to adversity in her life before they build or vent
destructively. Remember that her world
and daily experiences are important to her even though they may be trivial to
you. As she discloses her day with you,
watch for and seize upon teachable moments in a loving manner.
Another almost-as-good time for quality
interaction is while you are cooking or during supper - but the television must
be off. Watching television together
never suffices as quality time because the attention is focused on the
television and not on each other. So,
shut the stupid television off during meals and talk to your children! If you are interacting with more than one
child at the same time (during a meal for example), then this is group quality
time and does not count as individual quality time.
Find some mutually-pleasurable healthy
activities you can do together one-on-one.
Common examples are boys enjoy playing basketball, and girls enjoy
having their hair styled. Ideally, the
activity should be conducive to simultaneous casual conversation, like putting
jigsaw puzzles together. Playing sports
together can foster bonding, but avoid recreation in which you are yelling at
your child to play better. This is
self-defeating to your relationship-building purposes. On a related note, it is usually unwise to
expect a troubled youth to become proficient in any sport. For many, their numerous powerful
strongholds relating to being out-of-control prevent them from being
self-disciplined enough to get good at a sport. Also, some of their strongholds may be exerting physical symptoms
that hinder their athletic development, such as being cross-eyed or split-eyed
will make judging distances very difficult.
Nevertheless, their athletic accomplishments are important to them; so
your attention, observation and acknowledgment of their athletic
accomplishments is quality interaction for them.
If done correctly, humor can be quite
effective in breaking down hostilities.
Join in the playful harmless pranks of your child (and his/her
friends). My bonding with our group
home girls accelerated significantly on occasions when I let them do such
things as put makeup on me, smear shaving cream on me, or have water fights
with me on hot days. Find or invent
appropriate fun things to do with your children. Learn how to play with them on their level. Take the time, and make the time enjoyable
for both or all of you. Do not be
annoyed or bothered by them and want to repulse them. Enjoy, relish, and cherish their presence, their company, their
interaction, and their relationship with you.
You might even discover that having a teenager, albeit a troubled one,
in your home can be fun. And, they will
discover that they like having you as their parent - that there are appropriate
ways for them to have fun with you and by themselves.
One fun and enlightening game to
occasionally play is 'role reversal'.
This is where you reverse roles with your troubled child for a short
period of time (about 2 hours maximum).
Within limits, your child assumes your role as the parent, and you
become him, the troubled youth. He gets
to act like you, and you get to act like him.
Playing this game helps him to experience, from a parental-like
perspective, how difficult it is to manage the negative behaviors of a troubled
youth. It also gives you a first-hand
look at how he regards your parenting style.
TOUCH:
Appropriate touch is important to the daily giving of attention, and it
is particularly useful in reaffirming your love, acceptance, and desire to
restore amicable relations with the troubled child after a rupture of the
relationship. The Lord Jesus engaged in
touching children as a means of encouragement and blessing (Matt. 19:13-14). Due to perceived attention deprivation,
younger troubled children thrive on appropriate physical affirmation of love
through side-hugs, pats on the head, hand-to-hand contact, and sitting
side-by-side. Which of these you should
use is dependant upon the child, his age, and his/her preferences. As children transition into their teenage
years, though, they progressively need and desire less affirmation through
touch from an adult, yet they still appreciate verbal affirmation.
COMMUNICATION: The quality of daily interaction is dependent upon how you are
communicating with your youth. Both
your physical and verbal communication send messages which are perceived and
interpreted either favorably or unfavorably.
Be sensitive and loving in your communication. Notice, highlight, and draw out the good in him and the good
things he does. Use appropriate,
edifying humor to foster bonding and reduce tension. Engage him in conversation at a level that matches his age and
maturity.
Due to the influences of their
strongholds, troubled youths typically have substantial difficulties with
exercising good communication skills.
They frequently do not interpret communication correctly, and they
hastily jump to conclusions because they are unteachable and defiant. At times, they do not know what constructive
thing to say, so they blurt out something stupid or antagonistic which popped
into their head (from a stronghold) without thinking first. Also, they struggle to identify and
articulate their thoughts and feelings in a calm manner. When your child does communicate harshly or
incongruently, keep these deficiencies in mind and patiently prompt him to
rephrase the statement. On your end of
the communication, learn to accurately read the true messages under the surface
of his complaints and comments. Ask
clarifying questions and be careful not to assume.
GETTING ALONG AS A FAMILY: Troubled youths are like sponges - they will
soak up as much attention as you give them.
This creates competition for your time.
If there are siblings in your home, inevitably the competition will
escalate into acidic rivalry for your attention and favor. Consequently, you must be vigilant to
balance your attention time between all of your children and your spouse so that
no one is being neglected. Be careful
to always avoid making demeaning comparisons and showing favoritism among
siblings, but it is acceptable to continuously acknowledge and reward good
behaviors (Jam. 2:1).
All children want their family life to be
happy, cohesive, loving, and harmonious.
Due to an innate sense of insecurity and their propensity to readily
wander off into delinquency, troubled youths especially need this kind of home
life to keep them off the streets, to foster personal development, and to
regulate exposure to temptations. A
home filled with turmoil, boredom, or criticism will drive them to the company
of other behavior-disordered peers.
Therefore, you must do everything within you abilities to keep your
family atmosphere generally pleasant and appealing. Relationships within your family must be intentionally cultivated
every day or they will wither and polarize.
REFRAINING FROM HARMFUL INTERACTION: There are times when a troubled child gets
the parent really agitated and provoked into lashing out at him with a verbal
barrage. Lecturing, barking, harping,
scolding, yelling, threatening, sarcasm, being critical, cutting remarks, and
arguing are never effective in bringing about positive change in children. In an attempt to establish authority, some
parents further resort to physical threats, slapping, punching, kicking in the
posterior, or making hurtful physical contact to sexual areas. These kinds of parental verbal and physical
abusive responses backfire to harden children against the parent and to plant
more strongholds within them.
Some responses parents use may be harmful
even though they are meant as humorous or jesting. Flippant remarks, insinuations, disguised insults, crude joking,
demeaning comments, obscenities, and derogatory names, such as 'Stupid' or
'Clumsy', are never appreciated by the targeted receiver despite whatever
impressions may be outwardly shown.
Nagging or giving an impromptu rebuking-lecturing type of sermon will
also prove to be counterproductive.
It is "improper for God's holy
people" to participate in "obscenity, foolish talk or coarse
joking" (Eph. 5:3,4). We are
explicitly instructed to: "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of
your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their
needs, that it may benefit those who listen" (Eph. 4:29). This is a good verse to memorize for
yourself and for future use with your troubled child. Let your speech always be filled with kindness and compassion (Eph.
4:32). Ministering with love as a
parent demands that you keep "a tight rein on [your] tongue" (Jam.
1:26). Self-monitor your speech and
accompanying intentions. Let love
pervade all your interactions.
IV. Christ-like Parenting (cont.)
Discipline is important interaction and
responsibility of parenting. By its
nature, disciplining imparts tremendous influence upon the development of one's
child. Parents who are significantly deficient
in administering appropriate discipline will produce conditions fertile for the
development of a troubled child. The
counterproductive disciplining methods that these parents utilize vary widely,
with no one particular method being predominant. These parents formulate their method from their own:
understanding; experiences; perceived results; or preferences to what suits
them the best. Many of these parents
love their children, but their disciplining approach is seriously flawed
nonetheless.
The Word of God has much to say about how to properly discipline
one's children. Clearly, discipline is
prescribed: "Discipline your son, for in that there is hope" (Prov.
19:18); and "Discipline your son, and he will give you peace; he will
bring delight to your soul" (Prov. 29:17). Discipline eventually "produces a harvest of righteousness
and peace for those who have been trained by it" (Heb. 12:11). Failing to discipline is warned against:
"Do not withhold discipline from a child" (Prov. 23:13); and "He
who spares..." discipline "hates his son, but he who loves him is
careful to discipline him" (Prov. 13:24).
LOVE:
As Proverbs 13:24 describes, love should be the supreme quality which
motivates and saturates the use of discipline.
Discipline is administered because the parent loves the child and wants
him to develop appropriate behaviors.
Love motivates taking care to, or being earnest and diligent to, watch
for situations that necessitate the use of discipline (Prov. 13:24, GRK;
Strong's #7836). If the discipline is
to be effective and have value, love must be present in all aspects of the
discipline (1 Cor. 1:1-7). Love also
controls and governs how the discipline is implemented (Col. 3:21).
ACCOUNTABILITY: Love requires that discipline be implemented in order to hold the
child accountable. If the parent loves
the child, discipline for accountability will be administered despite the
unpleasantness. Minimizing or excusing
a child's negative behaviors are contrary to these biblical directives, and
ultimately perpetuate more behaviors.
In Proverbs 22:15, imagery of using forcefulness in disciplining is
distinctly portrayed: "Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the
rod of discipline will drive it far from him" (Prov. 22:15). Thus, biblical parental discipline mandates
getting tough, while maintaining an overriding attitude of love, to hold the
child accountable for his actions through the application of unpleasant
discipline. This can be referred to as
'Tough Love With Accountability'.
There are limits to how tough the
discipline should be. In the Word of
God, fathers are warned: "do not embitter your children, or they will
become discouraged" (Col. 3:21); and "do not exasperate your
children" (Eph. 6:4). Christ-like
parenting should not employ harsh or immoderate discipline which would
"stir", "stimulate", arouse, "irritate",
"provoke", or "move" a child to develop bitterness,
resentment, or anger (Eph. 6:4, GRK; Strong's #3949; Col. 3:21, GRK; Strong's
#2042). Troubled youths are
particularly provoked by unfair treatment and discipline. Discipline should always be fair, just,
current, and warranted so that the child can realize that he is being
disciplined for the purpose of correcting his behavior, and not for the purpose
of the parent striking back at him or venting anger.
BALANCED: It is extraordinarily difficult to maintain a healthy balance in
disciplining a troubled youth. His
constant countless inappropriate actions call for constant disciplining. But, such a disciplining approach that
yields continuous reprimands would overwhelm and exasperate the child. Conversely, to allow the negative behaviors
to go undisciplined would serve to condone his inappropriate actions.
Permissive-ism does not equal love, and neither does being overly strict. Therefore, a balance must be arrived at and
consistently upheld. A good guiding
general principle is to verbally prompt the troubled child on the smaller,
less-serious infractions, and issue disciplinary consequences on the bigger,
more-serious behaviors. In other words,
tackle the big forest fires first before trying to put out all of the numerous
little grass fires. Verbal identification
of small behaviors will draw attention to their unacceptability while simultaneously
extending undeserved mercy.
Disciplining serious behaviors sends a message that there is a limit to
what will be tolerated, and that the child needs to be disciplined to benefit
his own personal development.
SETTING LIMITS: When setting limits, be careful not to become autocratic or too
rigid, nor wishy-washy or too permissive.
Again, implement a moderate balance that is always characterized by
fairness, and is flexible as necessitated by unusual circumstances. You will find that your limits will need to
be adjusted from time to time. But make
these adjustments when the playing field is calm - when the adjustments have no
immediate impact on current ongoing disciplinary actions. Never compromise your limits or allow limits
to be circumvented so that your troubled child can escape or postpone a
disciplinary consequence in order to participate in some super-fun
activity. Changing the rules in the
middle of the game will take the teeth out of the discipline, reduce it to a
mere inconsequential formality, and totally negate both present and future
accountability endeavors.
PARENTAL AUTHORITY: Establishing a fair-handed, balanced
approach to discipline will build your child's respect for you and for your
parental authority (Heb. 12:9). If you
are converting from a strict or harsh disciplining approach, your new 'Tough
Love With Accountability' approach will be welcomed as a relief. If you are changing from a permissive
approach, the first few months will be rough going until your troubled child
realizes that you are firmly determined to hereafter institute tough love with
accountability. Ride out the storm and
hang in there. He will strongly object
to the increase in accountability, but you must persevere, with the expectation
that he will eventually grow accustomed to it.
Remember that you have responsibility before God to adequately and
properly discipline your child.
In your implementation of discipline,
inevitably you will encounter major disagreements with your spouse about when
and how to discipline. You must
together present a harmonious united front in order to retain parental
authority. When one spouse is openly
un-supportive of the reasonable discipline being administered by the other
spouse, the authority of both parents is seriously undermined. Work out your differences in private using
principles from the Bible as a guide to disciplining your child. Also, keep in mind that the spouse who was
directly involved in an incident will have a fuller grasp and first-hand knowledge
of what transpired than the absent spouse will.
Ideally, discipline should be equally
initiated and administered by both parents.
An imbalance in who does the disciplining creates an aura of one spouse
being the 'Candy Man' and the other spouse being the 'Ogre'. Parental authority must be shared,
exercised, and supported equally by both spouses. To retain authority, the parent who initiated a disciplinary
action should be the one who delivers the consequence. The other spouse should be firmly supportive
and should avoid acting as a mediator.
In situations in which the initiating parent is being grossly
unreasonable, then the other spouse can act as a mediator but only in private
with just the unreasonable spouse. If
you are not pulling together as parents, you will end up pulling against each
other - along with against your troubled child who is actively seeking to
capitalize on any weaknesses in your joint disciplinary approach.
COMMUNICATION: Implementing the disciplinary process is a confrontational and
stressful time. Frequently, emotions
are running high. Decisions are being
made based upon perceptions and interpretation of known facts. Sometimes, suspicions of undisclosed details
or truths are also taken into consideration when administering discipline. Conflict is a natural part of the
disciplinary process. Because these
natural elements of the discipline process can cloud clear thinking and hinder
a sense of justice, communication between spouses needs to be open, clear, and
accurate. The better the communication
between spouses is, the more fair and effective the discipline will be. Truthfully relay details and facts to each
other as they become known. In the
middle of behavior crises, hold briefing conferences with each other to create
a sort of think-tank for arriving at truth and determining a unified
disciplinary strategy. Make it a habit
to confidentially keep each other fully informed as you proceed through a
disciplinary process.
Interaction with your child should
likewise be factual, truthful, accurate, and clear. Allow, encourage, and practice open sharing and listening without
interrupting. Keep your language
simple, direct, basic, and brief.
Explain concepts and refrain from using big words. You want to cut through the intense emotions
your child is having in order to cultivate understanding between you and him
regarding the discipline he is receiving.
"Because I said so" is not an adequate explanation of a
disciplinary consequence.
RULES:
Discipline is initiated when an infraction of a rule has occurred. To be regarded as fair, rules should be
clearly delineated prior to an infraction.
Adequate explanations should be given for the reasons a rule is
incorporated and for how you expect it to be obeyed. Thoroughly providing explanations and rationales is a
prerequisite fundamental way in which you are helping your child become
increasingly aware that he is being held responsible for his actions.
When establishing rules, consideration
should be given to both the physical age and the maturity level of the
child. Within appropriate limits,
expect and let the child act according to his physical age. Most of the time for troubled youths though,
the maturity level should have priority over physical age in determining and
customizing rules. Just because other
kids his age get to do something does not necessarily mean that your child is
ready to do them too. However, there
are some warranted exceptions to this assertion. An example is when a child reaches the physical and legal age of
adulthood. Whether he is
psychologically ready or not, the parents must allow him to exercise the
freedoms, rights, and experiences of becoming an adult. The older teenagers get, the more they yearn
to being treated as an adult and to achieve self-sufficiency and
independence. Emancipation plays a
natural major role in their quest to establish an identity separate from their
parents. A preferred way of
accomplishing this transition is through a steadily progressive reduction in
rules.
Consideration of the maturity level will
also need to encompass what strongholds of sin the child has and his
inabilities to control them. An example
is: a parent cannot reasonably expect or require a child with the stronghold of
restlessness to sit still in church.
Try to specifically design rules with the intent of gradually weakening
individual strongholds and slowly shaping the child toward acceptable
behaviors.
Common sense prescribes that you should
avoid requiring your child to keep a rule you are breaking or you are allowing
siblings to break. Showing favoritism
or being hypocritical are always unacceptable (Jam. 2:1) and may likely
generate a stronghold of sin in those who are being slighted. Also, rules that are created and inaugurated
in reaction during the heat of battle are probably skewed and out of
balance. Consistency, fairness, and
reasonableness are key to successfully implementing rules.
CONFLICT: "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful"
(Heb. 12:11). Troubled youths react
adversely to being disciplined (even though they may actually enjoy the
negative attention and heated interaction).
No matter how nicely the parent tries to present the discipline, a
troubled child usually reacts strongly - probably as a form of intimidation in
an attempt to weasel out of the deserved consequences. With troubled youths, fiery conflict is
inevitable whenever a parent tries to enforce discipline. Yet, conflict should be expected within the
family - especially when the parent is modeling Christ-likeness (Lk. 12:51-53).
How you regard and handle conflict will
directly affect the results of your disciplining approach. If you loathe conflict, your child will know
this and fashion his defenses accordingly to aggressively take advantage of
this. Moreover, you will tend to
withdraw and acquiesce quickly in an early stage of conflict. Conversely, if you have a disposition that
thrives on conflict, then you will tend to loose sensitivity and drag out conflicts
far too long.
An excellent perspective to adopt is to
regard conflict as an opportunity to grow.
Facing trials tests and develops one's character and maturity (Jam.
1:2-4). The sprouting of conflicts
offers learning opportunities to enhance one's skills in conflict management,
problem-solving, collaboration, and patient endurance. Conflicts are self-convicting in that they
help a person become aware of areas in his life that need to be changed and improved. Long-term conflicts can foster a
strengthening of one's faith through persevering reliance upon the Lord to
bring relief and resolution (Rom. 5:3-4).
These types of benefits need the catalyst of conflicts in order to
propagate.
A healthy perspective on conflicts should
also encompass a loving, patient attitude that makes a clear distinction
between the person and the person's behaviors.
In a conflict with your troubled child, you will want him to always
understand that you are rejecting only his negative behaviors, but you are simultaneously
still accepting him as your son and a person.
You are taking a stand against his behaviors but you still love him as
your child and approve of him as a person who can be nice when he wants to be.
As a safeguard to maintaining this
distinction between the person and the person's behaviors, you should strive to
mentally distance and detach yourself from the impact of the behaviors. Do not take what he is doing personally
because he is making these choices for his life, and he will have to answer
to the Lord one day for them. Keep your
cool in the heat of the battle, not allowing yourself to overreact or to get
agitated, angry, distressed, or personally wounded. Respond with a calm interested neutrality which detaches yourself
- almost like an innocent bystander.
Persevere in this attitude even when the conflict ends in failure or
disaster, because you know that the unpleasant outcome is exclusively the
result of your child's unacceptable behaviors and choices. Successfully coping with stress and managing
conflict means that despite your deep love and concern for him, you do not let
your child's actions inflict devastation or trauma upon you personally. Instituting this conflict management
strategy of detachment will serve as a protection measure for your
psychological well-being and as guidance for self-control.
CONFRONTATIONS: When you become involved in a confrontation, be careful not to
get sucked into participating in your child's behaviors. "Don't have anything to do with foolish
and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not quarrel;
instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently
instruct..." (2 Tim. 2:23-25). You
have seen the many tactics your troubled child employs to avoid
discipline. His arguing, ranting,
raving, tirades, or fits of rage are designed to gain control of the situation
and thereupon squirm out of the consequence.
Other tactics employed may be: creating a diversion; twisting the facts;
shifting the blame; stalling for time; wearing you down; complaining; griping;
antagonizing; or picking a fight or argument.
As best as you can with love, exercise your parental authority through
the entire disciplinary process, including over the content and manner of his
communication. Distancing yourself
includes quenching his attempts to draw you into personally engaging in
negative conduct like he is.
When emotions are heightened during a
heated confrontation, it is usually quite difficult to reason with the enraged
person. Giving your child some time to
himself to calm down is a good way to diffuse strong emotions and dangerous
situations. It is also an opportune
time for you to check your attitude and your confrontation approach to ensure
that you are exhibiting qualities of Christ-like parenting. This would be an advantageous time to switch
off with your spouse and let him/her temporarily take over the confrontation
interaction so that you can maintain calmness and return to the interaction
refreshed and objective.
When your child has calmed down enough,
reason with him as an adult in proportion to his age. This displays honor and respect to him. Being "quick to listen" to his explanation, "slow
to speak" or verbally respond, and sincere in trying to look at the
situation through his eyes will exhibit respect and reasonability on your part
(Jam. 1:19). Troubled youths crave
interaction on an adult level and being treated more like an adult, perhaps
because they have low self-esteem and even self-loathing. Sending a message that you want to treat him
like an adult will generate reciprocal respect.
Be mindful that during heated
confrontations, you are modeling conflict resolution skills and problem-solving
skills for your troubled child. He is
watching your reactions very closely, and over time will tend to adopt your
style. Through your example, you will
want to eventually wean him from throwing fits during confrontations, and
instead develop in him good problem-solving skills and conflict resolution
skills of his own.
An effective reasoning technique that
works well in some confrontations is to divert the problem back into his court
- i.e. have him solve the problem.
Through a series of questions, you have the child identify the problem
his behaviors have caused, describe what consequences he thinks should be
forthcoming from his behaviors, and determine what course of action he thinks
he should self-initiate to resolve the problem in a manner characterized by
justice and integrity. Thus, rather
than dictating a solution and consequence, you are assisting him in logically
and realistically thinking through the problem and arriving at a just solution
on his own.
Some mental health professionals
recommend addressing discipline and rule-making problems in a family meeting
forum. Such an approach tends to
neutralize parental authority by spreading the authority among everyone in the
family. It also creates fertile
conditions for the troubled child to resort to his favorite tactic of
intimidation to gain control over the power structure within the family. I see no biblical basis that would allow for
this type of democratic family rule, which usurps parental authority when
determining discipline. However, family
meetings can and should be utilized when a problem or need for a decision
arises which affects the whole family and requires their opinion, consent, or
participation.
As you get more sensitive and experienced
in how to manage conflict effectively, you will find that timing can exert a
significant impact upon the ultimate outcome of a confrontation. There is a fine art to picking the best time
and place to initiate a confrontation.
A general rule suggestion is: fairly soon after the infraction has
occurred while the facts are still fresh in everyone's mind, select a time and
private environment which would sufficiently enable you to fully deal with the
problem in case a strong and prolonged adverse reaction should erupt.
In the brief time between when the
infraction surfaced and when you initiate the disciplining process, be sure to
investigate adequately to ascertain as many facts as possible. Frequently with troubled youths, an infraction
that appears minor on the surface hides an underlying major offense or serious
deviant behavior. For example, one time
we had one of our group home girls receive an after-school detention for
earning too many tardies to classes. At
first glance, this appeared to be a typical, relatively minor infraction. But as we investigated further and
progressively uncovered more details, we eventually learned that this girl was
regularly going outside the school building before school started and during
lunch breaks to smoke marijuana, and was thereupon late getting to her next
class. In order to hold your troubled
youth accountable, you have to catch him at the major stuff he is doing. This requires thorough investigation.
Although you may have ample circumstantial
evidence on some occasions, be careful not to incorrectly or falsely accuse
your child of doing something he did not do.
This will erode respect for you, undermine your parental authority,
generate resentment in him, and possibly motivate him to go out and now
actually do what you had incorrectly accused him of doing. Troubled youths tend to be very reactionary
and compulsive. With minimal
forethought and justification, they mechanically react to injustice done to
them, regardless of the rationality or of subsequent consequences. Keep your conclusions fair-minded (just and
impartial).
When you do have irrefutable facts, hold
your ground and follow through with the warranted discipline - regardless of
his threats or scathing objections. The
common tendency is for parents to revert to prompting, toleration,
permissiveness, and leniency in order to avoid or end the confrontation. But, giving in to his intimidation only
strengthens your child's resolve to control you. It is for his ultimate good that he be held accountable for his
actions.
POWER STRUGGLES: For various reasons, many troubled youths
develop an affinity for getting into power struggles in order to get their way. As they get older and physically stronger,
their ability to successfully carry out power struggles increases. Parents who use 'Tough Love With
Accountability' should call the police whenever their troubled teenager
inflicts substantial physical harm to others, substantial property damage, or
threatening with a weapon. As the
authority figure in the home, you have an obligation to protect siblings, a
small or fragile spouse, and yourself from an abusive troubled teenager. If your teenager ends up being arrested and
going to detention, then that is the choice he made by his actions. Physical abuse must be stopped through
appropriate and legal means, or else other people in the future will endure the
same abusive treatment from him. A
precipitating question to be contemplating is: If this is the kind of physical
harm your teenager is doing which you have become aware of, what is he doing to
siblings or others that you have not learned about?
INCARCERATION: This next assertion may come as a surprise to you, but:
spiritually speaking, being arrested and going to juvenile detention or jail
for an extended stay is usually the best thing that could happen to a
criminally-inclined youth! During the
long boring hours of incarceration with nothing to do, a youth has time to
think about his life and what he has done.
He knows he is guilty and his criminal activity has been exposed. His mind begins to clear, and he can see
that what he has done is wrong and deserving of punishment. During a long stay in incarceration, he
becomes broken morally. Because of the
criminal charges against him, there is uncertainty and apprehension about his
future. He is genuinely afraid of what
may come next. Being literally trapped
in a cage with no way to free himself, he is powerless and forced to face the
stark reality of the consequence for what he has done or been doing. He is destitute and lying face down in the
gutter of despair. He is open to
changing the direction of his life because he can plainly see that his current
direction is heading him down a dead-end street. While in this crisis of being incarcerated, he is more open to
spiritual matters than ever before.
Indirectly, he begins to realize that he needs a Savior to rescue him
from his moral corruption (depravity).
The Lord gets criminally-inclined
people's attention when they are in jail.
Normally, they are too busy doing their wickedness to have any desire or
time to consider God. When they stay
locked up in jail for awhile, it is like the Lord has grabbed ahold of them,
set them down in a chair, and told them to sit their until they are ready to
listen to Him - for their own eternal good.
For criminally-inclined youths, this is an effective way the Lord gets
their attention.
If parents come along and bail their
teenager out of jail, they thwart the Lord's efforts at spiritually reaching
the youth. This is going to sound rigid
and harsh, but: parents should not bail out their child if he/she is guilty in
any way. Supporting the eternal
activities of the Lord has paramount priority over the temporal comfort of
one's troubled child. "Do not be
deceived: God cannot be mocked.", "for whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap" (Gal. 6:7, NIV, KJV).
This verse is saying not to fool oneself into thinking that one can
continue to engage in wickedness without suffering any consequences. God is all-powerful and is actively working
to cause people to reap consequences in this life for what they are doing.
Do not be naive about what your child has
done or has been doing. If he is
guilty, leave your child in detention and allow the Lord time to soften his
heart spiritually. But at the same
time, use wisdom, caution, and get legal advice. It is a good idea not to be under-informed about the legal
consequences your child may reap for his actions. Always keep in mind, though, that for the beneficial purposes of
the Lord's long-term plan, He may want your guilty child to be criminally
convicted and receive a sentence for his actions (see Gal. 6:7-8 & Matt.
5:29). It is better for your child to
suffer discomfort in jail and perhaps in there receive Christ for eternal
salvation, than it is for him to enjoy freedom but subsequently "be thrown
into eternal fire" (Matt. 18:8;7-9).
NATURAL CONSEQUENCES: 'Tough Love With Accountability' permits
one's troubled child to reap the natural consequences for his behaviors and
actions. Most of us only learn lessons
in life if we experience them the hard way - through suffering the natural
consequences from trial and error. Our
prideful, stubborn, rebellious hearts compel us to ignore wise verbal
instruction and instead to try it our way.
This is our preferred method of learning.
When my son David was about 2 years old,
he always wanted to grab our cat's tail because she walked with it sticking
straight up in the air. I repeatedly
warned David not to grab the cat's tail because she might claw him. On numerous occasions I interceded just in
time to prevent him from making such a grab.
Finally one day, when I saw he was going to grab the cat's tail, I let him. Sure enough, the cat whacked at David,
hissed, growled, and made it crystal clear to him not to grab her tail. Although he suffered no physical injury, the
scare caused him to scream and then cry briefly, but he never grabbed the cat's
tail after that.
In the same manner, the Lord allows us to
suffer from the choices we make in life because He intends for these
experiences to build our character (Jam. 1:2-4; Rom. 5:3-4). If He always protected us from the natural
consequences of our actions, then we would continue in our own way and not
learn nor change for the better. At
times, the Lord does intervene to prevent the consequences from going to
far. As parents, we should continue to
do that protective limiting as well - when warranted. But the older your rebellious child gets, the more he should be
allowed to reap what he has sown.
Maintaining a balance of what to allow and what to prevent requires
wisdom, good judgment, flexibility, and character strength. It is not easy to purposefully stand back,
allow suffering to come upon one's child, and then endure the suffering along
with the child. But be careful and
selective in when and how you interfere with the Lord's teaching and
disciplining of your troubled child through the natural consequences of his
behaviors (Heb. 12:10).
FORMULATING CONSEQUENCES: For those behaviors that do not afford a
natural consequence, you will need to formulate a fitting consequence. If you can, try to relate the consequence to
the infraction somehow so that while he is serving the consequence, your child
is practicing the appropriate behavior that is opposite the infraction
behavior. Furthermore, you want him to
be thinking about what he has done wrong during the entire time he is serving
the consequence. Fulfilling a related
consequence will give the child a sense of making restitution.
Other guidelines for formulating
consequences are:
--
Consequences should exact a cost in something valued by the child, such as
time, privileges, or fun activities.
--
Locking a child in a room or withhold food during a mealtime are never
appropriate.
--
Current consequences should not attempt to rectify or enact punishment for
separate past offenses.
--
Consequences should not be incremented over time to an extent of becoming
overly punishing or harsh.
--
Consequences should not be excessive so that they subsequently bury the child,
and thereupon must be rescinded later.
--
Your child should not derive enjoyment from serving the consequence. For example, some youths like isolation or
like to clean.
--
Work should be accomplished to provide excessive compensation for damaged or
destroyed property (Num. 5:6-7).
--
Homework or Bible study work must never be forced as a consequence, but they
can be offered as one of several choices of consequences.
--
A consequence should not embarrass or humiliate the offender in front of his
friends, peers, or siblings unless those persons directly suffered from the
offense.
--
Spanking is ineffective and counterproductive beyond age 5 or 6. Beating, whipping, or strapping are always
abusive and create strongholds of sin in the recipient.
--
Keep in mind the child's strongholds, their effects, and their
motivations. Interpret, view, and
analyze the infraction in terms of his strongholds, and then design the
consequence toward weakening and conquering each stronghold.
--
Permitting the child to contribute input toward the formulation of a
consequence can enhance his maturity - depending on the child's
disposition. Ultimately though, you
will want to retain your parental authority and make the final decision
yourself, which he must abide by.
--
Generally, the child's weekly monetary allowance should not be used to fulfill
a consequence. An exception to this is
when the child is unable or unwilling to make restitution for property damage
or loss. Allowances should be tied to
building work ethic and to compensate for the successful, timely completion of
chores - not to consequence for negative behaviors nor to reward for good
behaviors. Lavish or stingy allowances
accomplish nothing and are counterproductive to healthy development.
DELIVERING CONSEQUENCES: Guidelines for delivering consequences are:
--
Bringing up and throwing his past behaviors in his face denotes unforgiveness
on your part (1 Cor. 13:5) and will cultivate bitterness in your child.
--
Explain the reasons behind the consequences and restrictions he earned. He needs and deserves good reasons and
rationales for changing his behaviors.
--
As you explain the reasons for his consequence, reiterate and reinforce your
previous expectations that he broke.
Also, specify that he earned the consequence - you did not give
him one.
--
Have him complete the consequence right away.
He should lose all of his privileges until he has completely served the
entire consequence. An exception is if
you have designed the consequence to be served for specific periods of time
spanned over many days.
--
Monitor and lovingly follow through on the consequences. Partially-served consequences teach nothing
and instead encourage more negative behavior.
--
If the consequence you have formulated is lighter than normal, then clearly
explain your reasons for this to siblings so that they understand you are not
playing favorites. Because the troubled
child has just benefited from a lighter consequence, find ways to reward the
siblings over and above normal for their exemplary behaviors. And, offer the same rewards to the troubled
child - that in the future he will receive the same rewards whenever he behaves
as well as his siblings have.
--
Plentifully supply approval, affirmation, and praise when he is appropriately
serving his consequence and is doing what is right. During this, highlight the benefits of being good.
REWARDS:
--
Never reward the child for successfully completing a consequence. He earned the consequence and thereby has an
obligation to successfully complete it.
--
You can force him to comply, or you can entice/reward him to obey. The preferred manner is to entice with
rewards. But remember that neither of
these methods effect lasting behavior and personality change. To a limited extent, rewards can foster
motivations, induce obedience, and buy some love and respect.
--
In the long-term, a balance in the usage of rewards will be the most
effective. Too many or too high of
rewards spoil the child. Too few or too
low of rewards produce lost opportunities to reinforce positive behaviors.
RESERVED TRUST: When your troubled child has committed a serious infraction, your
trust of him should be significantly reduced in all areas relating to that type
of infraction. Jesus repeatedly warned
His disciples to "be careful" and "be on your guard"
against the evil of the Pharisees (Matt. 16:6). They were not to be trusted because they were secretly scheming
and practicing evil while appearing to be righteous. Similarly, a troubled youth should not be trusted when he has
seriously broken your trust. You need
to catch him at the evil he is doing, hold him accountable, and require him to
slowly earn back your trust. Then with
his evildoing exposed, and being motivated to earn your trust back, he may
eventually become repentant and ready for you to counsel him about his
underlying strongholds. Your love for
him is unconditional, but your trust has to be earned.
One message I repeatedly heard from
nearly all of the behavior-disordered group home girls I worked with is that
they think their parents are "SO STUPID" because despite the obvious
indications, their parents could not tell that they were intimately engaged in
evil and gross sin. There are times
when parents need to be as clever and "shrewd as snakes", and as
harmless and "innocent as doves" (Matt. 10:16). You must be on your guard and constantly
monitoring the activities of your child - particularly when you are not
around. You need to be as
fully-informed as possible. Be alert
for warning signs and learn to read the indicators of problems.
As a warranted consequence of losing your
trust, exercise your right as the parent to do periodic unannounced searches of
his room. If he has nothing to hide,
any objection will be minimal. In
addition to looking for drug paraphernalia and other contraband, watch for
gang-related items. Skim his notes and
letters to identify any illegal activities and to get an accurate sampling of
what he is doing and what he is truly like deep inside. His notes and letters also indicate how he
is actually interacting with his peers.
Closely observe the flavor of his posters, pictures, and music in his
room. These tend to reflect such
characteristics as: what he is feeling; what he is thinking about; what his
views are; what he desires; who he is; or who he wants to become.
REDUCED FREEDOM: A partner to your reserved trust is his
reduced freedom. Your child must lose
his freedoms to run around unsupervised until he earns back your trust by
consistently demonstrating that he can be trusted. Lose of freedoms should always include a strictly-enforced
conservative early curfew, because a majority of teenage sinful indulgences
occurs late at night under the cover of darkness away from parents. Essentially, you have to restrict his
freedom in order to protect him from self-destruction until he is mature enough
to be making the right choices for himself.
However, as he nears adulthood at 18 years old, you have to taper off
most of his restrictions whether he is ready or not. His arrival into adulthood should force you to be continuously
modifying your rules and restrictions, with the purpose of maintaining a
balance between accommodating his growing needs for independence and autonomy,
and your right as parental head of the household to manage the family
environment within your home.
When your troubled son or daughter
reaches adulthood and moves out, you now loose most of your opportunities to
further influence him toward godliness and righteousness. Yes, peace will be restored to your home,
but at what cost to your troubled son or daughter? Viewing this from an eternal perspective, it is more preferable
to have your troubled adult son remain in your home through the early adult
years - assuming he is not violent, substance abusing, committing crimes, or
absolutely unbearable. Even though you
are paying a price to keep him in your home, you want him to stay under your
tutelage in hope that the Lord will effect lasting change in his life through
your mentoring efforts.
RELINQUISHMENT: On that day when your still-troubled child has moved out (for
good, perhaps), your best option is to relinquish him fully over to the Lord to
deal with. Like the father in the
'Parable of the Prodigal Son' (Lk. 15:10-32), you watch, wait, pray, and hope -
for this is all that you can do now.
Depending on the specific conditions of his leaving, sustain, establish,
or stand ready to restore normal relations with him. The more communication you have with him, the more possibility
there will be for you to influence him toward Christ. And, by this time in the process of modeling Christ-like
parenting, your past exhortations for him to seek the kingdom of God will be
recalled in his mind every time he talks with you.
Section IV. Christ-like Parenting (cont.)
Now after you have been consistently
modeling Christ-likeness and implementing balanced discipline for awhile, your
relationship with your troubled child should be gradually improving -
some. But, his hostile disagreeable
attitude towards you still smolders. His
opposition and its by-product tension remain entrenched. In a sense, he is still rejecting you - your
authority, attitudes, beliefs, and values.
Why? Besides having serious
behavior problems, part of the reason a child is considered 'troubled' is because
his relationship with his parents is dysfunctional. The next logical course of action for you is to dig into the
reasons why he is still oppositional toward you, address them, and then resolve
this hostility. You must resolve all
difficulties and points of contention that still remain between him and you
before you can begin to reach him for Christ and thereupon facilitate lasting
personality change.
Ministry of Reconciliation
Hostility and opposition burn deep in the
souls of troubled youths because of harmful experiences that have happened to
them in the past. Harmful experiences
are like barrels of toxic waste buried under our house. They are a part of our life that we do not
want to face or think about, so we bury them as deep as we can. Eventually though, the toxic waste eats
through our containment efforts and starts oozing toward the surface to pollute
and poison our daily thinking and interactions. Ignoring this seepage problem or assuming it will go away does
not work. The morally-corrupting
aftereffects of our past adverse experiences continue to haunt us throughout
the rest of our life despite our best efforts to subdue them.
CORRECTING PAST INJUSTICES: Past injustice inflicted by their parent(s)
is always a central issue for troubled youths.
These injustices can extend from the present all the way back to
toddler-hood. Any unfair treatment from
a parent can manufacture toxic strongholds of sin in the child. The younger the child is, the more
defenselessly vulnerable he is, being unable to protect himself from the
injustice and to reason through it.
Little children think and view life in concrete terms. Their brains have not yet developed enough
to be able to adequately process harmful events in any realistic protective way
beyond what their 5 senses (see, hear, touch, taste, smell) are inputting. Consequently, strongholds of sin are readily
planted in little children when injustice or abuse is perpetrated upon them -
particularly when it is done by a parent who, by natural role, is always
unqualifiedly trusted and loved by his/her little child and is suppose to be
comprehensively protecting the child.
This may not be a pleasant undertaking
for you, but in order to reach your child, you must reconcile with him concerning
past injustices you and your spouse(s) have inadvertently or intentionally
inflicted upon him. No parent is
perfect. He is hung-up in the past even
though you are not. His current
perspective of the harmful past events are still based upon the original
perceptions and thinking for his age when they occurred to him. You may dread opening old wounds, and
rightly so. For these old wounds are
still very sensitive and tender because they have never healed. To your child, the outrage of the injustices
continue to infect and fester his wounds.
In Matthew 5:23-24, Jesus declares that
being reconciled to another person is so important that it has priority over
worshipping the Lord. Stop what you are
doing and "First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer
your gift" to the Lord (v.24). A
positive way to look at this task is that you are engaging in a ministry of
reconciliation with your child. (After
this is accomplished, your ministry of reconciliation work will then focus on
reconciling your child to the Lord (2 Cor. 5:18-19).)
Contemplate and face the truth about what
abuse happened to your child in the past.
When you finish reading this chapter, lay Children of Fire down
and take as much time as necessary to be fully reconciled with him. Do some intense internal soul searching so
that you can straightforwardly admit the truth to your child about what you
have done and what your spouse(s) or live-in friend(s) has done - no excuses, no
vague generalities, and no fudging the truth.
Make sincere, open apologies and admissions of guilt on your part. In humility, take full responsibility for
your harmful activities, while not casting any of your rightful blame upon your
spouse(s) or your child. Furthermore,
you should in no way condone or excuse any inappropriate actions your spouse(s)
have perpetrated. If you do not come
completely clean in your admission of guilt to your troubled child, his
strongholds will not only endure perhaps for the rest of his life, but will
actually become stronger and more intense.
You have the means to end the hostility between you and your troubled
child. Go to him as many times as
necessary to seek his forgiveness, until he can no longer think of anything he
still holds against you. Correct the
past wherever you can so that he can move entirely into the present. Make peace with him and come to an
understanding with him about your present relationship so that it can now
become positive. Take these action
steps right now to mend, repair, and heal your dysfunctional, broken
relationship with him/her.
Undoubtedly during this time of
reconciliation, you will encounter sore spots that you still harbor
against him. Whether or not he is
confess-ive, remorseful, and apologetic to you, the Lord commands that you must
forgive him from your heart (Matt. 18:35).
Similarly, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving
each other, just as in Christ God forgave you" (Eph. 4:32). "As far as it depends on you", do
everything you can to make peace with him (Rom. 12:18), and at least make a
one-way termination of hostilities from you.
Then from your end of the relationship, you can proceed with
genuineness, a cleared conscience, and purity of heart.
It is plausible that given the current
situation, reconciliation of your child to your estranged spouse, live-in
friend, and/or ex-spouse(s) is not possible or workable. In these scenarios, you can suggest that
your child forgive them, but for now he probably will not extend forgiveness to
them without authentic face-to-face apologies.
If this occurs, then shelve these issues and do not push them. Later if he becomes a believer in Jesus
Christ as his personal Savior, he should become more open to forgiving, and
then you can bring this up again in the proper time (see chapter 12).
Your situation may be exacerbated by an
abusive mate who is currently living in the home. A dysfunctional relationship with one parent figure will present a
formidable obstacle to the reconciliation efforts of the other parent. If you are not married to this mate, then
the obvious biblical course of action is too immediately separate from him/her. Then adultery will be terminated, and you
and your child(ren) will no longer be living with him/her and be subject to
his/her abuse. If your spouse is being
abusive, you can attempt to remedy some of the relationship damage being done
by him/her, but care must be exercised to keep from gossiping, disparaging him/her,
and negating his/her parental authority.
Tactfully admitting to your child that you are unable or unwilling to
stop your mate's abusive behavior would be a small yet significant step toward
relationship improvement.
ABUSE:
Besides addressing past injustices, it is equally important to deal with
the abuses that have happened to your child.
Typically, troubled youths have experienced most of the following abuses
in some form and within a wide range of severity. When exploring these with your child, a key concept to remember
is that even though such abuses were perpetrated by various persons older and
bigger than the child at that time, the child still holds the parents
ultimately responsible for not protecting him/her from these abuses.
A parent or adult in the home can
inflict:
--MORAL
AND VERBAL ABUSE: wrongly blaming the child or laying guilt trips on him;
breaking promises; demeaning; cussing out; holiday pampering; lack of
discipline; poor parenting skills; lack of affection; holding drug parties in
the home with the child(ren) present;
--PHYSICAL
ABUSE: hitting, striking, or beating him; poverty; homicidal threats and
attempts; fighting; an abusive mate; substance abuse; substance abuse during
pregnancy; forcing or enticing the child to participate in substance abuse;
taking the state welfare monies intended for child support and spending it on
substance abuse;
--NEGLECT
ABUSE: lack of nurture; abandonment; insufficient necessities to live - food,
clothing, housing, bedding; perpetual absence, or neglect by one or both
parents; excessive leaving the child at daycare; insecurity;
--SEXUAL
ABUSE: sexual exposure, touching, rape, or enticement by males or females;
forcing the child to take extreme protective measures such as running away, hiding,
passing out, or vomiting;
--BIOLOGICAL
PARENTAL ABUSE (active or passive; past or ongoing): failure or refusal to be
the child's parent; abandonment by leaving or giving the child up for adoption;
unkept promises; death; permitting or encouraging others to abuse the child;
(Note: All foster and adoptive children will have abandonment
issues. Even after abandonment,
biological parents continued to have a profound negative influence upon their
children until the children reach adulthood.)
--REACTION
TO ABUSE: anger at God and/or parent(s), adult relative(s), or grandparent(s)
for letting it happen and not trying to stop it;
--MARITAL
DISCORD AND DIVORCE ABUSE: arguing, fighting, yelling, screaming, or assault
between spouses; blaming the child for the marital discord; forcing the child
to protect or take care of the mother or siblings; divorce abandonment,
insecurity, poverty; loss of love, attention, structure, or identity; other
collateral damage.
Divorce is always devastating and
traumatizing to minor children. Even
for teenagers and young adults, marital discord and/or divorce of their parents
is a major crisis. In the children's
eyes, divorce equals abandonment by one parent. Divorce always spreads strongholds of sin to every family member
who is involved in any way. God hates
divorce (Malachi 2:16), but He blesses the next two generations if the marriage
stays peacefully intact (Ps. 103:17-18).
Parents should never blame their child(ren) in any way for their
failed marriage. Parents should take
full responsibility for their part, readily admit failures and poor judgment to
the child(ren), and in no way put a guilt trip on them. When reconciling the issue of divorce with a
child, address and deal with the full range of the divorce - from the past
initial onset of marital arguing and fighting, through the bitter verbal and
physical attacks, then the legal bickering and strife, followed by protracted
conflicts, and continuing with present lingering bitterness and resentment.
INITIAL DENIAL: Your first attempts to talk with your child about the abuses he
has suffered will probably come up against his hardened resistance. In fact, he most likely will outright deny
that he is having any problems with his past abuse issues. However, if you closely observe and note any
changes in his tone of voice, mannerisms, body language, and agenda, you will
see that these subtle behavior changes are revealing his true feelings about
the subjects - that he does indeed have major problems from past abuses. These subtle behavior changes also indicate
that he is not ready to talk with you about them. Work on earning his trust and reassure him that he will not be
disciplined for disclosing his emotionally-charged true feelings about abuses
done to him.
CASE STUDY: Loren was a troubled 10 year old girl in our group home who had
been adopted at a very young age.
During toddler-hood before her adoption, she was abused sexually by her
biological parents. Then she was
abandoned by them, and eventually adopted by 'Christian' parents. Life with these new parents started out
fairly satisfactory, but Loren's behaviors degraded as she grew older. Adding to the downslide, the 'Christian'
adoptive father had an anger problem and would cuss Loren out, pull her by the
hair, stand on her back with his hard shoe, or lock her in the hot garage all
day. He would also wash her during
shower time, with his bare hands washing her everywhere. Of course, the adoptive father behaved as an
upright 'Christian' gentleman in church and when other adults were around. The adoptive mother did nothing to
acknowledge or stop this abuse.
Consequently, Loren was prone to fits of rage and striking others. She was torn between fear of another
abandonment, and the critical self-protective need to report the abuse being
perpetrated by her adoptive father.
Thereupon, Loren's relationships with both her adoptive father and
adoptive mother were seriously dysfunctional due to the ongoing abuse by the
father and the ongoing denial/cover-up by the mother.
Loren's resulting constant disruptive and
oppositional behaviors motivated her adoptive parents to place her in a private
Christian group home organization, where she ended up in our unit. It took me months of loving attention-giving
and accountability before she trusted me enough to start disclosing some of the
abuse she endured from her biological parents.
Even though numerous indicators pointed to serious issues with her
adoptive father and adoptive mother, Loren would not open up about them as
readily. One weekend Loren returned
from a 3-day homevisit with physical evidence of abuse from her adoptive
father. State child protective
officials were called in, but Loren changed her story because she "did not
want Daddy to go to prison".
Apparently, the adoptive mother also felt this way, because the charges
against the adoptive father were investigated but eventually dropped. Loren's behavior problems continued, and
shortly thereafter she was abruptly discharged from the private Christian group
home organization because during one of her behavior episodes of defiant
cussing and yelling, Loren pulled the hair of an adult caregiver. She was then promptly placed in another
group home organization. Loren never
did open up and disclose any abuse issues to the organization's staff
therapist.
Loren's overall negative behaviors abated
very little, primarily because she was not reconciled to her adoptive
parents. Yet in my conversations with
the adoptive parents, amazingly they could not figure out why Loren continued
to behave so oppositional-ly to them but was making steady progress in relating
well with myself and my wife. Loren's
pleas for relief from current abuses and her strong desires to be restored to
loving relationships with her adoptive parents went ignored by them. She clung to me for the appropriate
parental-type loving relationship she so desperately craved. Moreover, with the Lord's guidance, I
detected the presence of abuse issues in her, regarded them seriously, and did
everything I could to resolve them and help her process them. In my counseling house parent role, within
less than a year I had developed a solid, good, working relationship with Loren
that far surpassed that of her adoptive parents.
YOUR RESPONSE: Your response to your troubled child's abuse issues must be
likewise regarded and reconciled with respect and diligence. You will not make progress in reaching your
child until reconciliation has occurred between him and you. Furthermore, if your spouse is being
abusive, you must find a way to terminate this in order to make headway with
your troubled youth.
After each of your reconciliatory
conversations, write down the abuse issues your child mentioned. In later biblical counseling with him
(chapter 12), you will want to bring these up again for exploration and praying
against. With your troubled child being
an unbeliever at this point in time however, he is not ready to deal with these
issues on a religious level before the Lord, who is the only One with
sufficient power to bring total healing of his psychological wounds.
Section V. Facilitating
Reconciliation with God
Achieving reconciliation with your
troubled child will be a vital major step forward toward your objective of
effecting lasting positive personality change in him. After you have made substantial progress in being reconciled with
your child, then conditions are ready for you to facilitate reconciliation of
your child with God. This is accomplished
by preparing and then leading your child to salvation in Christ, followed after
that by spiritual nurturing. Your child
must genuinely receive Christ as his personal Savior in order to gain access to
God's power for change (Jn. 1:12-13).
Your job will be to use gentle persuasion as you assist the Lord in
helping your child to make this choice.
Ministry of Gentle
Persuasion
Bringing a person to salvation is
entirely a work of God, but He delights and prefers to include us in helping
move the person along to the point where the person makes this decision to
receive God's salvation through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ on
the cross (2 Cor. 6:2). The Lord wants
to use every believer in this regard (Matt. 28:18-20).
Your job is to present the message of
salvation to your child in a gentle, understandable way (1 Thes. 2:6-8). As a representative of the Lord, you should
strive to gently offer and accurately explain to your child how he can place
his faith in Jesus Christ for eternal salvation. Through your life, your words, your love, and your parental
treatment of him, you are introducing your child to the Lord and living out
what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. You are trying to sell him on your faith, its values, and its way
of life. Sensitive, patient
encouragement and gentle persuasion are to be your presentation style.
Sharing the Good News of salvation in
Jesus Christ is comparable to planting a garden. First, you cultivate the soil - softening it and preparing
it. Next, at just the right time, you
carefully plant the seeds in the proper way.
Beneficial fertilizer and water are then carefully added as needed in
just the right quantities. Also,
safeguards are immediately enacted to thwart potential invaders, such as weeds
and dogs, from damaging the seedbed.
Finally, all that is left to do is wait, and watch for the Lord to cause
the seeds to sprout and grow (1 Cor. 3:6-7).
Pounding the seed into the ground with a
hammer does not work. In the same way,
pressuring, demanding, forcing, pushing, ridiculing, condemning, blasting,
shocking, or falsely representing the message of salvation never work in
helping a person move closer to believing in Jesus (2 Tim. 2:25). To the contrary, these approaches turn the
person off, harden him to the message, and actually move him farther away from
believing.
Creating Fertile Conditions
HOME: Perhaps the place that holds the
highest potential for being the most fertile and conducive to the successful
planting and sprouting of the Good News in a child's heart is the home. Because you are the parent and hold
authority over how the home is operated, you have the ability to customize your
home's environment to maximize fertile spiritual conditions in it.
In your home and family life, you will
want to create an environment and atmosphere that reflect Christ-likeness. Make specific efforts to set apart
(sanctify) your home for holy service to the Lord. Purify your home from all unrighteousness. This will involve changing routines,
schedules, habits, priorities, opinions, prejudices, expectations, lifestyles,
meal gatherings, activities, entertainment, decor, and themes. Conduct a special ceremony with your family
to dedicate your home to the Lord's purposes, and in prayer ask Him to bless
your home and to cleanse it from everything that is not pleasing to Him.
The atmosphere in your home should also
radiate Christ-like love - where love permeates everything occurring in and
contained in the home. Promote,
feature, and attend to "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is
right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable" ‑
"anything [that] is excellent or praiseworthy ‑‑ think about
such things" (Phil. 4:8). Your
"love must be sincere. Hate what
is evil; cling to what is good. Be
devoted to one another in brotherly love.
Honor one another above yourselves" (Rom. 12:9-10).
A home overflowing with these qualities
will become attractive to your troubled youth and his/her friends. Your peaceful, loving, positive home
environment will draw them like a magnet, especially if individually their
school-life and/or their home-life are not going well. In order to influence your troubled youth
toward godliness and impact him for Christ, you want to draw him along with his
friends into your home - not chase them out.
You should drop out of most of your evening social activities and stay
home to raise your child and reach his friends for Christ. (It is potentially disastrous to let
troubled children raise themselves.)
Encourage your child to invite his friends over to your house, and get
to know them. Condition yourself to
enjoy their presence and interaction with you.
The more contact you have with them, the more opportunities you will
have to share the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ and to model a better
way to live. Besides, you can better
monitor what your child is doing with his friends when they are at your house.
MEDIA & MUSIC: One area that desperately
needs to be changed in your home is the type of media and music that are being
consumed. The influence of media and
music on children's and teenagers' value systems is enormous. Through the modern media, our children are
rapidly becoming exposed to "every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and
depravity" (Rom. 1:29). The
glitzy, entertaining qualities of media have already hooked and addicted this
next generation on smut, immorality, godlessness, moral corruption and filth,
wickedness, and impurity.
Garbage in - Garbage out!!
If members of your household are watching, listening, and taking into
their minds inappropriate, or vulgar, or sexual, or violent content, then these
things will eventually plant themselves in their heart and spew out their mouth. "The good man brings good things out of
the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the
evil stored up in his heart. For out of
the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks" (Lk. 6:45). Minds should be thinking upon only that
which the Lord would approve of (Phil. 4:8).
A good question to ask when viewing or listening to media is: Would
Jesus approve of this if He were sitting here watching and listening to it with
us?
You must practice censorship in your home
- diligently - everyday. Because the
media is so extensively saturated with every kind of vileness today, you must
keep your guard up and monitor all media that is coming into your home - music
tapes and CD's, radio stations, video tapes, television, magazines, catalogs,
Internet, computer games, and etc. But,
expect strong resistance when you start tampering with what media your troubled
child is feeding on. The youths of this
generation enjoy consuming this kind of media and do not want to give it up.
One effective way to make a smoother transition over to
wholesome media (and particularly music) is to conduct an ongoing two-for-one
exchange. Make a standing offer: that for
each inappropriate tape or CD your child turns over to you for destruction, you
will buy him 2 appropriate Christian ones of his choice at the Christian
bookstore to replace it. When he does
turn in some of his inappropriate tapes or CD's, immediately take him to the
Christian bookstore and have him pick out what replacements he wants and
likes. Then upon returning home, have
the inappropriate media physically destroyed right away so that it is not left
sitting around as temptation. Do not
merely throw it in the trash where it can be retrieved later. The preferable approach is to have the youth
himself safely smash it while everyone else watches.
Another change you will want to make is
to gradually switch the background music being played in your home over to
contemporary Christian music.
Traditional hymn music will outright irritate, provoke, and harden your
youth. But, contemporary upbeat
Christian music will grow on him/her.
So slowly increase this type of music into your home's background music
repertoire. Soon you will notice him
singing along with these songs and requesting his favorites. Avoid so-called 'Christian Rap' and
'Christian Rock' because it is highly questionable whether these agitated types
of music are honoring to the Lord and promote peaceful, wholesome thinking and
attitudes. Also, if you have tuned in
to Christian radio, shut off any preaching that comes on when your child is
present, because your child is not ready for this and frequently the doctrine
being espoused is faulty. He can
tolerate the Christian music but he will not be able to tolerate the radio
preaching in his home. Concede
this point of contention to him and remember that you are nevertheless feeding
him the same religious message through the lyrics in the contemporary Christian
music. Every penny you spend on
Christian music that your troubled child likes will be well worth it - one
thousand-fold.
ACTIVITIES: Family activities should also contain intrinsic Christ-like love
and Christ-approved wholesomeness. Find
healthy alternative forms of entertainment and activities which your child
enjoys and which strengthens relationships.
Include his friends, and enjoy having them involved too. Games and recreation sports should not
become overly competitive.
CHURCH:
The church you attend will play a pivotal role in how your troubled
child responds to religion. A dull,
boring, spiritually-stagnant church with hollow religiousness will quickly turn
your child off to religion. A church
that teaches false or wacky doctrine is likewise counterproductive (Titus
1:10-11). On the other hand, a vibrant,
spiritually alive church that teaches sound doctrine right out of the Bible can
do wonders to help draw your child in (Titus 1:9).
Select a church with care. Go and observe. Find out for yourself whether the Bible is actually being taught
from the pulpit and in your child's classes and youth group gatherings. Note how the teachers and youth leaders
relate to youths in your child's age group.
Pay attention to the music.
Critique these aspects to determine Christ-likeness. Ask your child whether he liked going to
church there, and why or why not.
Listen to his feedback and investigate.
Pray about it, and keep looking until you find a balanced, Bible-teaching
church which is appealing to your child.
The right church can and should become a whole new social network for
your child, which is appropriate and beneficial to his spiritual and social
development. The right church can help
to sprout and nurture faith in him/her.
Generally speaking, the behaviors of
troubled youths make them unsuitable for attending church peer groups. Most church youth staff are unequipped and
un-desirous of managing disruptive behaviors within their church group. Therefore, initially you should accompany
your troubled youth in all of his church groups and personally monitor his
behaviors until he demonstrates that he is always appropriate in the group and
is manageable by the staff. Then,
initiate regular periodic communication with his group's staff to ensure that
he is not being disruptive. On days
when your child is not deserving to go because of bad behaviors, encourage him
to go to church anyways (unless he is completely out‑of‑control)
and stay with him in his group during the entire time. If a problem does arise with your child in a
church group, always believe, side with, and explicitly support the staff
rather than your troubled child.
SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS: As has been previously discussed in Children
of Fire, troubled youths typically keep friends that are a bad influence
upon them. Parents cannot pick their
child's friends for him. And the older
a child gets, the more he needs social relationships. Perhaps a good strategy for managing this undesirable phenomenon
is to: 1. be teaching and encouraging your child to say 'No' when his friends
suggest doing evil; 2. try to place your child in environments where he can
make friends with peers who are appropriate; and 3. bond with the friends that
he does have and try to impact them for Christ right along with your child.
Daily Devotions
The pinnacle of all your Christ-like
parenting efforts will be the consistent holding of daily devotions with your
troubled child. This is the setting in
which major progress can occur. Bonding
can be accelerated here. Three-way
heart-to-heart interaction can transpire between you the parent, the troubled
child, and the Lord of the universe.
Psychological wounds can be dramatically healed. During devotions time, his personality can
be transformed right before your eyes.
If you have never held devotions with
your child, then you will have to get him use to the idea. You do not want to force him to participate,
but you can and should encourage him to at least sit quietly and listen. Establish a fairly convenient time period in
which to generally start and conclude devotions. Shut off all distractions in the home and require everyone to
observe the quiet time. Guard this time
period and make it into a regular, unbroken family routine. An opportune time of the day is in the
evening right before bedtime, because his day is still fresh in his mind, which
allows for sins to be remembered better and confessed. Holding devotions before bedtime also helps
calm him down, and will send him to bed thinking about the Lord. The peace of mind achieved by getting his
life right with the Lord will aid him in sleeping sounder, too. Reflecting on one's day in light of
Scriptures tends to re-orient life back into proper perspective. This daily, quiet, reflective thinking
towards godliness is the type of habit you want to build in your child.
WITH AN UNBELIEVER: Daily devotions should be conducted entirely
different with an unbeliever. Every
component should be designed toward helping the unbelieving child move closer
to placing his faith in Christ. Use an
accurate translation of the Bible that is easy and appealing for him to read
and understand, like the New International Version (NIV). Avoid using devotionals, and instead select
and study main Bible passages from the 4 Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John - so that he is introduced to Christ and learns details about Him in a
picturesque, storytelling way. Strive
to make the stories memorable and interest-holding, because dull and boring
doctrinal lecturing will turn him cold.
Always be sure your doctrine is biblically sound because those who teach
will be held more accountable, and the Word loses its effectiveness when
watered down or distorted (Jam. 3:1; 1 Tim. 4:16; Titus 2:1). Ask plenty of thought-provoking questions
that are challenging and engaging, but not too difficult for his level of
comprehension. The objective is to have
your child realize for himself that he is heading down the path to eternal
punishment, and he therefore needs to change directions and call upon the Savior
to rescue him from the impending, just consequences of his sins (Matt. 7:13-14;
Rom. 10:13).
Make it the highest priority to offer and
hold devotions every day. Plan ahead
and revise your schedule if some upcoming event is going to interfere with devotions
time. Regularity of devotions will
establish a routine for both you and your child, and will cultivate a bonding
time. A concept you want to convey to
your child is that believers should be steadfastly committed to communing with
the Lord every day - whether they feel like it or not, and whether it is
convenient or not.
Do not expect immediate reverence for the
Lord and His Word from your unbelieving child.
Instead, expect initial callousness, disinterest, unconcern, apathy, or
even outright disrespect, blatant disdain, and open hostility. Spiritual blindness and confusion will be
the norm, for "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that
come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot
understand them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14).
PRAYER:
It is always improper to insist or ask an unbeliever to pray. In their state of unbelief, unbelievers are
by nature enemies with God and at war with Him (Rom. 5:10). Furthermore, the Lord detests and will not
hear the prayers of the wicked (Prov. 15:29,8). Never force your child, or anyone else for that matter, to
pray. Prayer should always be offered
voluntary and not submitted under compulsion (2 Cor. 9:7). Instead, you set the example by praying out
loud in group settings. Formulate your
prayers so they reflect your love for the Lord Jesus and so that they reiterate
the gospel message. Make your verbal
prayers personal and from the heart so that your personal intimate relationship
with the Lord is evident. Let your
unbelieving child see and hear your real relationship with the real Lord.
SALVATION: After your child has heard and understands the gospel message of
salvation, then you can and should occasionally suggest and gently invite him
to place his faith in Jesus Christ for salvation. Discernment is needed here to determine if his heart has been
softened enough by the Lord so that he is ready to believe in Jesus as his
Savior. Base all of your assertions for
salvation on specific Bible verses, which you will read, teach, and review with
him right out of the Bible. Keep your
language simple and avoid using big, technical words. Re-read chapter 3 in Children of Fire to refresh your
memory on the basic theological principles comprising salvation.
In order to receive salvation, your child
must first acknowledge that he has sinned.
Read and explain a sin verse like Romans 3:23, "for all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God".
Before he can get saved, a person has to realize that he is not going to
heaven because of his sin. And, he
cannot get saved if he refuses to admit that he has sinned. Many young children get hung up on this, so
come right out and ask your child if he has ever sinned or done something
naughty. If he is in denial, you can
offer generalized examples of common sins a child his age would do and read the
corresponding commandments out of the Ten commandments in Exodus 20:1-17. If he remains in denial, then you cannot and
should not proceed any further into the process of leading him to salvation in
Christ until he is ready to freely admit that he is a sinner.
Next, review with your child that he must
believe that Jesus died on the cross to give His perfect, sinless life and blood
in payment for the penalty for his sins.
In previous devotions, you should have been reading and teaching him the
death, burial, and resurrection accounts as recorded in later parts of the
Gospel books Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Review with him one of these passages you studied together. Be careful to not be doing all the talking
here, but listen carefully to what your child has to say about what he
remembers, understands, and believes.
Discern if he actually understands and believes what he is saying, or is
merely repeating what he knows you want him to say. Ask clarifying questions to test his understanding. You can use realistic drama to help him
visualize biblical concepts and accounts.
To get saved, an unbeliever must also
believe that Jesus bodily rose from the dead (1 Cor. 15:2-8). Again, review as necessary the biblical
account(s) you studied together. The
purpose of this meticulous step-by-step reviewing is to surface and address any
problems that might prevent salvation from actually occurring. Some pre-teens and older youths will come up
with a theory or belief about the resurrection that creates an impasse to
salvation, such as the incorrect notion that "Jesus didn't really die on
the cross, but only passed out".
Let your child talk and listen to what he has to say. Then lovingly show him in the Scriptures
what the Lord says happened. Allow your
child his rightful freedom and time to decide and believe for himself. Permit and encourage him to examine and
question biblical doctrines, so that he can personally take ownership of them
for himself. Radically changing his
beliefs and value system will take time and sufficient motivation.
The next step for an unbeliever is
repentance - to turn from his sins, and turn toward living for the Lord in
godliness (Acts 2:38). Many older teens
and most adults get stuck at this point because they do not want to give up
their sinful indulgences. However, some
of them will listen to reasoning about the long-term futility and unsatisfactoriness
of indulging in temporarily pleasurable sinfulness (Prov. 14:12; 12:15).
With these several biblical doctrines
correctly in place in the unbeliever's mind, the final step for him is to take
a step of faith and commit his life to believing in Jesus. Merely knowing these doctrines and biblical
accounts is not enough to receive salvation.
The unbeliever must firmly commit himself to believe in this for himself
at some specific point in time. And
this commitment takes a sizeable step of faith that is based upon God's Word.
Taking this step of faith is like a
person going to an airport to fly to Hawaii.
He arrives at the airport, finds the right terminal, has his boarding
ticket in his hand, and is ready to go.
The jet airplane pulls up to the terminal, its door opens, an
announcement is made that the flight is going to Hawaii, and prospective
passengers are invited to board the plane.
The person carefully inspects and approves the tires, the engines, the
fuel tanks, and the wings. From his
observations, the person knows that plane is fit to fly to Hawaii. But as the last call to board the plane is
announced, he remains standing in the terminal looking out the window at the
plane leaving the terminal. He refuses
to get on the plane because deep down inside he does not truly believe that the
plane will get him there safely. Even
though he has plenty of knowledge about the flight, he nevertheless declines to
take the step of faith to actually board the plane and thereby trust that the
plane will get him to his destination safely.
After acquiring a thorough knowledge
about how to get saved, your child may respond by hesitating at the point of
taking a step of faith. He may stay at
this point for years - or even the rest of his life. Your job is to help him get to this point of decision, but you
cannot make the decision for him nor can you pressure him to make it. So you patiently wait, persevere in intercessory
pray, and keep reinforcing the basic doctrines for salvation as you teach him
from the Bible during daily devotions.
When the time comes in which he indicates
that he wants to believe in Jesus now, then you again briefly review these
basic doctrines of salvation, being sure to read and derive them from
applicable Bible verses. If he is in
full agreement with these doctrines and is ready to take the step of faith, a
good way for him to cement this step is to pray and tell the Lord what it is he
wants. If he so desires, you can assist
him in formulating the prayer by saying the words, short phrase-by-phrase, and
having him repeat them to the Lord. Be
sure though that he understands that he needs to talk to the Lord - not to you,
because you cannot save anyone. He also
needs to understand and be completely honest about what he tells the Lord, or
else the prayer will mean and accomplish nothing.
Before dictating the words to the prayer,
give a brief summary of what you are going to say so that he understands what
he is praying. An easy and highly
effective way to quickly generate a prayer for salvation is to string along 2
of the key verses you used in teaching the gospel message. One of them should pertain to being a
sinner, and the other should be a condition/promise verse: that if a person
believes/then he will be saved. The
following is a sample prayer for salvation that can be used with young children
and anyone older. It has been taken
from Romans 3:23 and John 3:16 and has been chopped into short phrases with
slash marks / .
Dear Lord,
I know that I have sinned /
and been naughty, / and that I cannot get into heaven on my own / because of my
sins. / Please forgive me. / I believe that You love me / and sent Your
Son, Jesus, / to die on the cross / for my sins. / I believe that Jesus / was raised from the dead. / I want to turn from my sins right now /
and believe in Jesus / to take me to heaven / one day when I die. / Thank you. / In Jesus' name, Amen.
Another
sample prayer for older children, teenagers, or adults is listed near the end
of chapter 3 in Children of Fire.
For younger children, you may want to abbreviate that sample prayer some
and use simpler words.
During the middle of the prayer, take a
peak at how your child is praying - whether his eyes are closed and he looks
sincere, or whether he is looking around and playing with something while
repeating your words. This will give
you a good probable indication of his readiness to get saved, the genuineness
of his prayer, and whether he faked the prayer or not. I have found that due to their extensively
deceptive dispositions, almost all troubled youths do fake the salvation prayer
on the first time, and/or they falsely claim that they have genuinely done this
already. Faking a prayer for salvation
or mindlessly repeating the prayer absolutely does not achieve a person
salvation.
Because no human has the power to see the
true intentions inside another person's heart, you must be very, very
careful what proclamations you make after your child exhibits an apparently
authentic prayer for salvation. Even if
tears are streaming down his face during a salvation prayer, do not assume that
he just got saved - nor should you assume that he did not get saved. You cannot say for sure because you do not
know for sure. And you do not want to
give him a false sense of salvation, or conversely, doubt about his
salvation. Therefore, never make
direct, unqualified, declarative, pronouncing-type judgment comments like,
"You are now saved and going to heaven one day". Rather, reserve your estimation of what
actually happened, and instead always make all of your post-salvation prayer
comments conditional, like "If you believe in Jesus, the Bible
in John 3:16 says that you are now saved and going to heaven one
day". Place the responsibility for
what really happened during this apparent prayer for salvation upon your child
and the Lord.
Knowing whether you should continue doing
evangelism of helping him believe in Jesus, or if you should switch to
discipleship of helping him grow in his new faith is quite difficult to
definitively ascertain at this point.
He could be faking it, or his salvation could be real - initially there
is just no way to tell for sure. So,
the best course of action is to continue teaching the basic biblical doctrines
and passages for salvation and listen closely to his responses and comments,
noting any changes in terminology but being careful not to feed him the
responses and terminology you want to now hear from him. During the next days, ask follow-up
questions which are carefully constructed to incite descriptions, rather than a
mere 'yes' or 'no', and do not feed him the answer within the question. An example of a very poorly framed question
is: "Did you get saved?".
This question tells you nothing about what the child believes, indicates
the answer you are looking for, and furthermore most youths will falsely answer
'yes' to this just to avoid the question.
The proper way to ask this is something like: "If you were to die
today, do you think you would get into heaven...why (or why not)?". This question requires a descriptive answer
and does not hint at what answer you are looking for. Any answer short of the correct response "Yes, because I
believe in Jesus who paid the price for my sins on the cross so that I can go
to heaven" indicates that your child most likely is not saved.
Another critical indicator which will
give evidence to his salvation or not is that the fruit of the Spirit as listed
in Galatians 5:22-23 (i.e. "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self‑control") will now start to be
exhibited in a new, fresh way in his life.
You should notice some distinct positive changes in his attitudes,
behaviors, and personality.
With a troubled youth who has gotten
saved, you should also now see and hear a new internal battle going on within
him. A new repentant part of him now
wants to do right and is actively opposing his old propensities to habitually
engage in sinfulness whenever he wishes.
Because his old strongholds are still present and fully functioning, the
recently saved trouble youth will exhibit wide mood and behavior swings in
which he is flip-flopping back and forth between these opposite natures.
Virtually no evidence of the fruits of
the Spirit clearly determines that the Spirit of God is not present in his
life, and therefore salvation has not occurred yet. Until you see measurable evidence of the fruit of the Spirit and
genuine repentance, treat him as an unbeliever and keep reiterating the gospel message
and offering occasional invitations to receive Christ as Savior.
DISCIPLESHIP: When you have observed convincing evidence that salvation has
occurred in his life, then you want to gradually start introducing other
biblical doctrines during devotions while simultaneously reviewing the doctrine
of salvation. The purpose here is to
help him become established in the reality of his salvation while also starting
to become grounded in the basics of the faith.
Your ministry goal now is to focus on making him into a fruit-bearing
disciple of Jesus (Matt. 28:19).
As his interest in spiritual matters
grows, excel at teaching God's Word in an interesting, appealing,
thought-provoking, and Spirit-empowered way.
Be sensitive not to run your devotions time too long, always staying
within the range of 30 minutes minimum and 45 minutes maximum. Make one main biblical point that has been
taken directly from a verse you are studying during the devotion time, and expound
on that point without getting sidetracked.
Address unrelated topics and questions after devotions time is
over. The power to change your troubled
child is contained within God's words - not your words. Feed him the Word of God first (2 Tim. 4:2;
Matt. 4:4).
For the devotions time the next day,
re-read the previous few verses, briefly review the one main point made the day
before, and tie it in with the one main point you are going to develop
next. Strive to keep your teaching
clear in order that the Lord may open his mind so that he can understand the
Scriptures (Col. 4:3-5; Lk. 24:45). Be
doubly sure to apply the main point to his life. If he does not see how it applies to him, he will not be convicted
by God's Spirit nor be motivated to change.
Work with the Lord to "fill" your child "with the
knowledge of [God's] will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding"
(Col. 1:9).
Consistently holding daily devotions with
him will help him maintain and perhaps grow in the faith. As you get immersed in and comfortable with
devotions time, you will be tempted to rebuke your troubled child from God's
Word. Due to his many areas of
sinfulness, conceivably you could rebuke him nearly every day from whatever
Bible passage you are in. Put yourself
in his shoes, though, for a moment.
Would you like if you were personally rebuked by your adult Sunday
School teacher every time you attended his class? Teach, correct, rebuke, admonish, and encourage from the Word
with great patience, kindness, and careful, gentle instruction (Col. 3:16; 2
Tim 4:2; 2:24-25). "Encourage,
comfort, and urge him to live a life worthy of God" (1 Thes. 2:12).
Teaching and applying the Word of God
should not be restricted to within devotions time only. In Deuteronomy 6:4-9, instructions are given
to parents about how to present God's Word in the home:
4. "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our
God, the Lord is one. 5. Love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with
all your strength. 6. These commandments that I give you
today are to be upon your hearts. 7.
Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at
home and when you walk along the road,
when you lie down and when you get up. 8. Tie them as
symbols on your hands and bind them on
your foreheads. 9. Write them on the doorframes of your
houses and on your gates."
In
your ordinary daily interactions, teachable moments will arise when your child
will be receptive to the on-the-spot application of biblical principles you
taught during previous devotions times (v.7).
"Make the most of every opportunity" to "impress"
and implant God's Word in your child's heart (Col. 4:5; Deut. 6:7). In your conversations at meal times and
after school, talk about how biblical principles apply to the given situations
(Col. 4:6; Deut. 6:7). Visibly
demonstrate in real-life problems, crises, or circumstances why and how to put
God's Word into action. Moreover, put
reminders around the house (Deut. 6:8-9).
Christian bookstores have nice posters and decorations which tastefully
yet poignantly apply biblical principles to everyday life situations. Have your child help you select some of
these to put up around the house. Also,
encourage him to pick out some of these posters that he would like to put up in
his bedroom, and then buy them for him.
If you can get him to use them as replacements for his inappropriate or
worldly posters, that is even better.
Section V. Facilitating Reconciliation with God
(cont.)
When your comprehensive parental ministry
efforts are successful in gently persuading your child to believe in and live
for Christ, the foundation is in place upon which lasting personality change
can now begin to be established. By its
intrinsic nature, discipling will precipitate some changes in his life. However, due to their vested power, the
deeply entrenched strongholds of sin will not voluntarily succumb to
generalized discipling. The Word of God
must be applied directly and specifically to each stronghold in order to subdue
them. This direct application of
biblical principles and truth to individual strongholds is accomplished in
discipling through one-on-one biblical counseling.
Ministry of Biblical
Counseling
SOURCE:
Life-changing counseling comes from the Lord, as He declares in Proverbs
8:14, "Counsel and sound judgment are mine; I have understanding and
power". Counseling which draws
upon the advice, wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of the Lord will be
fortified with His life-changing power.
By default then, humanistic counseling is essentially devoid of God's
life-changing power. Countless hours of
secular advice-giving and lecturing your child bear testimony to this reality
that God's power is absent in humanistic counseling. Hence, to effect lasting change in your child, your counseling
approach must be substantially altered so that you are relying upon "God's
power" rather than upon "men's wisdom" (1 Cor. 2:5).
WIELDING: Battling and defeating strongholds of sin require taking up and
wielding "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Eph.
6:17). Through the hearing of His Word,
the Lord instructs, teaches, directs, and counsels us in the way we should
think, believe, and live (Ps. 32:8).
Your counseling of your child must incorporate the activity of wielding
God's Word to confront and assault strongholds of sin (Prov. 8:13-14).
COOPERATION: As an extension of the ministry of gentle persuasion, your
counseling should likewise be characterized by sensitive encouragement and
patient instruction (2 Tim. 2:24-26).
The whole counsel of God should be offered in a cooperative manner - not
with any form of coercion. Your
approach should be to kindly, tenderly, and lovingly come along side him to
assist in his spiritual walk and growth.
Progress cannot be made unless you have a good working relationship with
your child.
ACCOUNTABILITY: The strengthening of your relationship will allow you to
gradually and gently confront your child about his behaviors and help him
realize that he is accountable before the Lord. Children need to be compassionately reminded daily about God's
authority over them and their future accountability to Him (Deut. 6:5-9). Biblical counseling during daily devotions
is an excellent venue for fostering accountability before the Lord, as well as
for formulating biblical solutions and initiating behavior change.
CONFIDENTIALITY: Proper counseling should also carefully
observe confidentiality. Trust will be
built if you appropriately keep the issues and experiences of your child
confidential. Biblical counseling does
not seek punishment nor force admissions of guilt, but instead offers help in
working through problems, remedying hurts, disarming issues, and healing
abuse. Disclosing his personal
information to others will effectively quench any motivations for your child to
tell you anything.
IDENTIFYING STRONGHOLDS AND THEIR ROOT
CAUSES: In order to be able to battle
strongholds of sin, it is necessary to identify them so that you can determine
their root cause and then select a corresponding Scripture passage(s) to apply
to the defective thinking or beliefs.
Appendix B and a concordance may be very helpful in finding relating
Bible verses. To be thorough in your
counseling, efforts must be exerted to identify even the subtle or covert
strongholds. The following is a list of
ways you can utilize to identify strongholds.
Look
for, explore, examine, and/or investigate any thinking, behavior, or
personality trait that is:
--
dysfunctional, such as: social; relational; behavioral; emotional;
psychological; academic; spiritual; or sexual;
--
a pattern of sin, sinful involvement, or sinful indulgence;
--
a habit or repeated instinctive reaction;
--
unbalanced, defective, or unrealistic thinking or self-perception;
--
un-biblical or anti-biblical beliefs or values;
--
a lingering mental hurt, pain, anguish, stress, or distress;
--
oppositional to peacefulness, righteousness, godliness, or faithfulness (Jn.
14:27);
--
un-biblically self-protecting or self-promoting;
--
idolatrous;
--
tormenting, harassing, or weakening;
--
unforgiving;
--
deceptive, abusive, harmful, destructive, or negative.
Other
resources that can be utilized for identifying strongholds are the lists you
have accumulated so far:
--
personal issues (Chapter 3);
--
inherited strongholds (Chapter 6);
--
abuse issues (Chapter 10);
--
strongholds of sin (Appendix A);
--
(derive a list from your child's) family history and negative life experiences.
GENERAL POINTERS: The following is a compilation of additional
general pointers for effectively treating strongholds through biblical
counseling:
--
Re-read Chapter 6 and use the general steps of treatment as described
therein.
--
I have found that God is always willing to psychologically heal a person as
quickly as the person is willing to regard and combat his strongholds in God's
way. However, this does not necessarily
hold true for purely medical problems.
Nevertheless, the Lord is honored when we ask Him to remove or heal a
real or an apparent medical condition, but the prayer must be offered without
doubt (Jam. 5:14-16; 4:2-3; 1:6).
--
Making an assumption that a medical problem is due solely to biological
conditions can be incorrect. One
indication that should prompt you to strongly suspect that a medical problem
has a spiritual cause is if the symptoms are not consistently displayed.
--
Normally, you will start counseling to get the easiest strongholds removed
first, then working your way to the hardest.
The person's trust and confidence in you will thereby build, resulting
in him becoming more receptive and repentant as he makes progress. In cases involving perpetration or substance
addiction, initial counseling should include biblical exhortation to
immediately cease such activities.
--
A major roadblock that will effectively stall all progress in biblical
counseling is any grievances or issues the person has with God. These must be addressed and cleared first
before any headway can be accomplished on other issues.
--
When trying to dig out a stronghold, it is imperative that you get at all of
the tentacles in order to gain victory over the stronghold. Let's consider as an example 'excessive
burping'. Just treating excessive
burping in general will not get rid of the stronghold. You have to dig out all of its supporting
tentacles, such as burping because: 'I want to'; 'I have to'; 'it makes me feel
good'; 'it gets me attention'; it makes my friends laugh'; or 'I like being
obnoxious'. As the person becomes ready
and willing, you must keep digging out every single root cause in order to
attain comprehensive victory.
--
Be on guard not to get stuck in the quicksand of trying to deal exclusively
with the symptoms. Get past what is
going on externally to get a true picture of what is occurring internally. Move to dealing with the root cause(s).
--
In the biblical counseling process, negative feelings can be both a starting point
and an ending point. You can start with
the feelings and use them to point to their root cause(s). Then as you work on biblically resolving the
root cause, you check the feelings for peacefulness to ascertain if the root
cause has been completely resolved or not.
But, you must get past the feelings in order to uncover and address the
root cause, which is spawning the feelings.
Otherwise, you are merely treating the symptoms and not the wound
itself. To walk by faith means to do
what is right whether a person feels like it or not. Good feelings will follow when there is obedience to godly
living. Despite the flood of contrary
feelings, the person must walk in obedience and trust the Lord to work things
out (Rom. 8:28).
--
Making assumptions about what your child means, believes, or is thinking can be
counterproductive. It is better to let
the child describe what he means.
Listen carefully and take notes of other possible strongholds to
investigate. Be a student of his
attitudes and thinking processes.
Understand your child and the effects that his experiences have had on
him.
--
Be careful not to be fooled by masterfully executed avoidance strategies,
diversion tactics, charades, bogus-ness, vehement denial, clever deception,
hidden critical details, falsified facts, and etc. Expect that the battle will intensify as you get closer to the
root causes.
--
During biblical counseling, when your child gives you an answer that is
deliberately false, a frequently helpful tactic is to then ask him if the Lord
Jesus agrees with his answer.
--
Remember that if you meet strong resistance, then he is not yet ready to repent
of that stronghold. Keep feeding him
the Word of God and wait patiently for the Lord to change your child's mind. Stay committed to offering him biblical
counseling.
--
If your child is unrepentant in any area, regularly remind him of the long-term
consequences of his actions and how it will play out in the long run.
--
Keep in mind that your troubled child may not want to divulge to you, his
parent, some of the things he has been doing which were criminal, shameful, or
would anger you. Do not insist that he
disclose them to you, but rather encourage him to talk silently in prayer with
God about them. Then continue in your
counseling and probe for sub-strongholds.
Remember, your objective is to facilitate his relationship with the Lord
to bring lasting personality change.
You do not want to inject a stumbling block in that process by demanding
to know details that you are entitled (or not) to know. Your youth may tell you one day - if he has
a good reason to and when he feels it is safe to do so.
--
When troubled youths say they cannot control themselves from indulging in a
sin, they may be mostly right. Their
control is sporadic and inconsistent at best because the stronghold has
established overpowering control over them and is effectively hindering them
from submitting to God and bearing fruit for Him (Rom. 6:5-7).
--
The Lord Jesus gives permission for believers to ask for a binding of
strongholds in Matthew 18:18, "I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on
earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed
in heaven". I have found that
bindings of strongholds can be quite useful and particularly effective for a
brief time - when they are asked in an audible prayer for and with a believing
person who is currently exhibiting an out-of-control stronghold. It is important to make the distinction
after requesting a binding, though, that the Lord has indeed briefly bound the
stronghold, but the person himself may be choosing by his own free will now to
indulge in the stronghold anyways for whatever reason(s). In other words, for a brief time immediately
following the binding, if the person is still engaging in the sin, the
intensity and power emanating from the stronghold have been bound by the Lord
and thereby noticeably reduced. The
Lord has temporarily provided the person with the ability to have sufficient
control over himself while the stronghold is bound.
--
During biblical counseling, you can likewise ask the Lord to clear your child's
mind.
--
When uncertain about what to do next in counseling, pray and ask the Lord for
guidance.
--
The person you are trying to help may at times resort to verbally attacking or
accusing you. Even though he may try to
toss you in the fiery furnace, you must be willing to take the heat and stick
with him through the fierce combat with his strongholds. If you have built a good relationship with
the person, he will eventually come back for more help. He is just acting out of the latest
stronghold you are encountering next.
You can consider this attacking behavior as an indication that you are
getting closer to a very nasty and ferocious stronghold.
--
Unforgiveness is usually the primary stronghold when dealing with abuse.
--
Persevere in working on an abuse issue until godly peace is completely achieved
for it. You can determine if complete
peace has been achieved by asking the person how does he feel when he now
thinks about the abuse situation.
--
The lingering aftereffects of past abuse can manifest as dysfunction in many
different areas or ways: school behaviors; homework; sports; peer
relationships; sibling fighting; substance abuse; aggression; rebellion;
running away; introversion; sexual promiscuity or perversion; gang involvement;
anger or rage; moodiness; depression; or suicidal.
--
Crisis situations require that you first stabilize the disequilibrium of the
crisis before you can move to dealing with its source or with lesser
strongholds. Stabilize the crisis and
deal exclusively with the immediate precipitating factors first. Then when he is receptive to your counsel,
you can work on getting to the root cause(s).
--
If you stay observant, you can spot when a severely abused person is having a
flashback. Don't panic if she freaks
out. Stay calm and ask the person if
she is having a flashback. Then ask her
to describe it. Remind her that the Lord
is ready to heal her of the pain - if she is willing to forgive the abuser and
let go of the anger. If she flips into
a baby-ish demeanor while talking about traumatic abuse, then she may very well
have developed a fundamental personality defect from the severe abuse. (Counseling a fundamental personality defect
requires some modifications in the counseling approach in order to accommodate
the dynamics going on and to facilitate the Lord's repairing of the defect.) Do not discourage her from talking in this
baby-ish demeanor, but rather view it as a good indication that very traumatic
abuse has occurred to her during early childhood. When the Lord has completely healed her of the adverse effects of
the abuse, her baby-ish demeanor will leave as well.
--
At times you may need the help of a professional biblical or pastoral
counselor. Referring to a secular
psychiatrist, psychologist, or therapist is inadvisable because these persons
hold views and give advice that frequently are opposite of Scriptures.
--
In a troubled youth, when you have successfully finished dealing with one area
of bondage, then another stronghold usually pops up right away. Do not be discouraged or grow weary and give
up (Gal. 6:9). Persevere in your
battle, because there are only a fixed number of strongholds in the person's
life even though it may seem at the time that there is an endless supply. God is delighted when we persevere and are
steadfast in the battle to be free from strongholds of sin (Eph. 6:10-18). Moreover, in the battle both you and your
child are learning how to gain victory over spiritual problems. Proceed with confidence because you know
that God is pleased with your parental ministry and biblical counseling
endeavors, and He is using you to accomplish His will in your child's life
(Rom. 12:2).
I have found that in counseling extremely
troubled youths who are receptive and cooperative to the biblical counseling,
in one year of counseling of at least 4 sessions per week, she will get rid of
a majority of her strongholds - resulting in some immediate easily-measurable
major personality changes. As the
number of remaining strongholds tapers off, then they pop up less frequently
and you start to run out of strongholds to work on until life circumstances
trigger another one to surface.
--
Due to spiritual immaturity, expect that your child's obedience and submission
to God will be negligible at first.
Initially, he will be a very poor witness for Christ because of his
bondages and double-mindedness (Jam. 1:5-8).
Help him to develop obedience and submission to God. Progress will likely be slow and
hard-fought.
--
Regularly encourage your child by reminding him of the progress that has been
made so far and the deliverance God has granted him.
--
Within your biblical counseling, prepare your child over time to be able to
resist the temptations and hazards of life.
Explore options with him about how he can better handle difficult
situations next time in a godly manner.
Empower him to biblically counsel himself.
Concluding Remarks
I hope the material in this book has been
helpful to you and your troubled child.
After you have been ministering to your child for awhile, you may want
to go back and re-read Children of Fire again so that you can institute
aspects that you may have forgotten or did not comprehend fully the first time
you read it.
I am available to provide you the reader
with personalized advice or with biblical counseling. If after having read this book you are in need of further
assistance from me, I can be reached through my E-mail address:
In
closing, I would like to offer the following prayer:
Dear Lord,
We know that the salvation of the righteous comes from
You. Indeed, You are our stronghold in
time of trouble. You help us and
deliver us (Ps. 37:39-40). Apart from
You we can do nothing (Jn. 15:5). But
with You, we can do all things because You give us strength (Phil. 4:13). Lord, grant this reader Your strength,
wisdom, discernment, patience, perseverance, love, kindness, and understanding
so that he/she can effectively minister, teach, counsel, and parent through
Your Word. Also, please grant to this
reader's child repentance leading him/her to a knowledge of the truth so that
by Your power he/she will come to his/her senses and escape from the trap,
which has spiritually enslaved him/her (2 Tim. 2:25-26). Lord, pour out your power and blessing upon
this family. Transform this child of
fire into a child of light. In Jesus'
name, Amen.
Blessings,
Dr.
Mel W. Coddington
www.BelieverAssist.com
Appendix A: List of
Strongholds
The following is a list of strongholds that I encountered mostly within group home teenage girls.
I have been able to identify and confirm each item in this list as a spiritual stronghold through the successful and complete removal of each by means of utilizing a specific type of biblical counseling.
From observations, these items are things that a person either: engages in; loves to do; has a strong desire to do; is experiencing; is doing in excess; is doing frequently; is obsessed with; is being controlled by; or has a compulsion to do.
Even though the nature of these strongholds includes psychological problems and/or medical problems, my counseling approach revealed and verified that all of these strongholds on this list had a spiritual component, which was in addition to their respective psychological and/or medical component(s).
Furthermore, all of these strongholds on this list were in some manner directly linked to a source of sin, specifically either being conducted in a sinful manner, and/or stemming from past experienced abuse, and/or stemming from past sinful behavior.
And the presence, power, and intensity of these spiritual strongholds with their corresponding sin source remained intact, unaffected, and un-removed by any of the treatment approaches that were used on the group home teenage girls by the modern group home treatment approaches, the modern secular therapy, the modern psychiatry, and the modern psychotropic medications.
Of course, it would be improper to assert that all of the items on this list always have a spiritual component to them and/or a link to sin, but nevertheless this document is a report of my findings for these behavior-disordered teenage girls in a state-of-the-art treatment group home setting.
This list is not intended to be exhaustive, because when I got this far, I stopped recording more items upon realizing from this data that any sin can become a stronghold.
But, the more troubled a person is, the more of these strongholds he/she may have, and may have more that are not listed herein.
This list can be very helpful as a checklist for identifying strongholds in a person's life.
This list can also give direction as to where effective treatment and cure can be found, of which modern psychology and modern medicine are unable to facilitate a cure.
The cured medical problems have been underlined so that they are easy to find in this list.
A ‑
abandonment; abortion; not accept authority of adults; accusing; agitation;
alcoholism; anger; annoy; antagonize; argue; arrogance; asthma; attention
(need, demand)
B ‑
babble; biting (fingernails, arms, tongue, people); bitterness; bizarre; mental block-out; "blood"; boasting; boredom; bossy;
burping
C ‑
candy; cerebral palsy; resistance to change; childishness or act like a baby;
clumsy; co‑dependence; complain; confusion; contempt; control others;
coveting; critical; cruel; crying; cussing
D ‑
dancing (around, inappropriate); deception; delusion; denial; depression;
despair; destroy property; devious; discouragement; disgusting; dishonest;
disorganized; disrespect; dissension; dissociation; distracted; "do as I please"; doing things wrong;
doodling; don't care; doubt; dullness; not drink enough liquids; drugs (legal,
illegal); dyslexia (mixed up or backwards writing or reading)
E ‑
eating (cravings; nothing; too much; objects; false hunger; addicted to a
particular food, soda pop, or snacks; planning to overeat; becoming hungry by
just thinking about food; eat to escape unpleasantness or stress; eat to
relieve boredom); evasiveness; exaggerate; excitement; indecent exposure; eye
problems (cross‑eyed; divergent or split‑eyed; tunnel vision;
blurred vision; pink eye)
F ‑
going to fail; fainting; faking it; fantasizing; farting; fear; fear of future;
fidget (restlessness); fighting; start fires; flaky; flashbacks; flick off;
foggy or clouded thinking; foolishness; freeze up (unable to move or speak);
frustration; acting funny
G ‑
gang activities; not get along with others; "not get my way"; giddy; God (false, 'Elohim', "I am
God"); giggles; goof around; goofy; gossip; greed;
abnormal yellowish lump (cancer growth) under the skin; grouchy; guilt
H ‑
goofy hairdo; hallucinations; harshness; hate (church, Jesus, God, children,
everything, life, everyone, teachers, school, police, vacations); headache; hiccups; hide; hitting; false Holy Spirit; hopelessness; hurt other people;
hyper; hypochondriac
I ‑
idolatry; false illness; impatience; inflexible; insensitive; insulting;
insecurity; the itches; interrupting; intimidation; irresponsibility; isolation
J ‑
jealousy; false Jesus; judgmental
K ‑
kidnapping; throw knives
L ‑
laughing; laziness or do nothing; "nobody likes me"; limit-testing; not listen; losing things; lusts; lying
M ‑
magic; malice; manipulate; marijuana; masquerade; masturbation; materialism;
memory loss; messy; not mind my own business; mind‑link; miss the point;
mocking; modeling; mumble; murder
N ‑
neglect; nightmares
O ‑
obnoxious; odor (body, breath); overreact
P ‑
pain (physical, mental, blocker); paralysis; pass out; pneumonia (lethal); pride; overly
protective
Q ‑ "I am the Queen"
R ‑
racism; rage; rape; rebellion; reject; not responsible; restless; retarded;
revenge; ridicule (self, other people); rocking back and forth; rudeness; run
away
S ‑
sadness; sarcastic; scheming; skip school; screaming; seclusion; seduction;
selfishness; self‑mutilation; false self‑perception; self‑pity;
sensuality; sexism; sexual (desires, activities, promiscuity, perversion,
prostitution, homosexuality); shakes; want new shoes; shy; silly; not sit
still; slamming doors; slander; sleepiness; sleeplessness; acting smart;
smoking; snotty; sorcery; spaciness; speech problems (speechless or mute, talk
endlessly, pronunciation problems, speech mix up); steal; like stink; stomachache; strife; stubborn; playing stupid; sucking (thumb, fingers,
tongue); suicide; superiority; suspicion
T ‑
talk endlessly; threatening; throw things; ticked off; want to try everything
U ‑
unfair; unforgiveness; too frequent urination; "this is useless"
V ‑
vanity (in appearance, in accomplishments); violence; vomiting
W ‑ weakness; use anything suitable as a weapon to threaten; whining; witchcraft;
worry (anxiety); worship a rock singer
Y ‑
yelling
Z ‑
zone out
Appendix B: Quick List of
Bible References
The following is a list of common youth
counseling topics and strongholds. For
each there are listed several Bible references that can be applied in
counseling that particular topic.
ACCOUNTABLE
TO GOD
--
""But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of
judgment for every careless word they have spoken"" (Matthew 12:36).
--
"...each person was judged according to what he had done" (Revelation
20:13c).
--
"But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are
storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his
righteous judgment will be revealed" (Romans 2:5).
AGITATION
or DISCONTENT or UNGRATEFULNESS
--
"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body
you were called to peace. And be
thankful" (Colossians 3:15).
--
"But godliness with contentment is great gain" (1 Timothy 6:6).
ANGER
-- "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and
anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice" (Ephesians
4:31).
--
"...Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give
the devil a foothold" (Ephesians 4:26b-27).
--
"...Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become
angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God
desires" (James 1:19b-20).
--
"A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger"
(Proverbs 15:1).
ARGUING
or COMPLAINING
--
"Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become
blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved
generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life" (Philippians
2:14-16).
--
"Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you
know they produce quarrels" (2 Timothy 2:23).
ASSURANCE
OF SALVATION
--
"He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not
have life. I write these things to you
who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have
eternal life" (1 John 5:12-13).
--
"...God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake
you"" (Hebrews 13:5b).
--
""My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall
never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one
can snatch them out of my Father's hand"" (John 10:27-29).
BITTERNESS
-- "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and
anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice" (Ephesians
4:31).
--
"See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root
grows up to cause trouble and defile many" (Hebrews 12:15).
CONFESSING
SINS
--
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our
sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).
--
"He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and
renounces them finds mercy" (Proverbs 28:13).
--
"When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day
long. For day and night your hand was
heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did
not cover up my iniquity. I said,
"I will confess my transgressions to the LORD"‑‑ and you
forgave the guilt of my sin" (Psalm 32:3-5).
COVETING
or LUSTING
--
""You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or
his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to
your neighbor"" (Exodus 20:17).
--
""You have heard that it was said, `Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a
woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his
heart"" (Matthew 5:27-28).
CUSSING
or CURSING
--
""You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD
will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name"" (Exodus 20:7).
--
"With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men,
who have been made in God's likeness.
Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be" (James 3:9-10).
--
"But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage,
malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips" (Colossians 3:8).
DISOBEDIENCE
--
"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother"‑‑which
is the first commandment with a promise‑‑ "that it may go well
with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth"" (Ephesians
6:1-3).
--
"[Jesus] replied, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God
and obey it"" (Luke 11:28).
--
""Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves
me. He who loves me will be loved by my
Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him"" (John
14:21).
DEPRESSION
or SADNESS
--
"Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things
above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on
earthly things. For you died, and your
life is now hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:1-3).
--
"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in
despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed" (2
Corinthians 4:8-9).
--
"...I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. ...I have learned the secret of being
content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living
in plenty or in want" (Philippians 4:11b;12b).
--
"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the
bones" (Proverbs 17:22).
--
"[The Lord] heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds" (Psalm
147:3).
--
"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed
me to preach good news to the poor. He
has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners" (Isaiah 61:2).
DRUNKENNESS
--
"Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit"
(Ephesians 5:18).
--
"Listen, my son, and be wise, and keep your heart on the right path. Do not join those who drink too much wine or
gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and
drowsiness clothes them in rags" (Proverbs 23:19-21).
FEAR
--
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me"
(Psalm 23:4).
--
"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity [fear], but a spirit of
power, of love and of self‑discipline" (2 Timothy 1:7).
--
""Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the
soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who
can destroy both soul and body in hell"" (Matthew 10:28).
FIGHTING
--
""Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of
God"" (Matthew 5:9).
--
""...Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute
you..."" (Matthew 5:44).
--
"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?
You
want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what
you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask
God. When you ask, you do not receive,
because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your
pleasures" (James 4:1-3).
GREED
or MATERIALISM
--
"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing
out of it. But if we have food and
clothing, we will be content with that.
People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into
many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and
destruction. For the love of money is a
root of all kinds of evil. Some people,
eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many
griefs. But you, man of God, flee from
all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and
gentleness" (1 Timothy 6:5-11).
--
""No one can serve two masters.
Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to
the one and despise the other. You
cannot serve both God and Money"" (Matthew 6:24).
--
"Then he said to them, "Watch out!
Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not
consist in the abundance of his possessions"" (Luke 12:15).
GUILT
--
"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus" (Romans 8:1).
--
"Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy
Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the
curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of
God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having
our bodies washed with pure water.
Let
us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is
faithful" (Hebrews 10:19-23).
HATE
or RACISM or FAVORITISM
--
""The second [greatest commandment] is this: `Love your neighbor as
yourself.'"" (Mark 12:31).
--
""But I [Jesus] tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who
persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and
the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward
will you get?"" (Matthew 5:44-46a).
--
"My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show
favoritism" (James 2:1).
--
"For God does not show favoritism [racism]" (Romans 2:11).
HOMOSEXUALITY
--
""If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them
have done what is detestable. They must
be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads"" (Leviticus
20:13).
--
"Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to
sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie,
and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator‑‑who
is forever praised. Amen. Because of
this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.
Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned
natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men,
and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion" (Romans
1:24-27).
IMPATIENCE
--
"We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to
please ourselves. Each of us should
please his neighbor for his good, to build him up" (Romans 15:1-2).
--
"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in
love" (Ephesians 4:2).
--
"Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against
one another. Forgive as the Lord
forgave you" (Colossians 3:13).
JUDGING
--
"You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else,
for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because
you who pass judgment do the same things" (Romans 2:1).
--
""Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and
with the measure you use, it will be measured to you"" (Matthew
7:1-2).
--
"Brothers, do not slander one another.
Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the
law and judges it. When you judge the
law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it" (James 4:11).
IDOLATRY
--
""You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything
in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship
them..."" (Exodus 20:3-5a).
INSECURITY
--
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own
understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths
straight" (Proverbs 3:5-6).
--
""For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD,
"plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a
future"" (Jeremiah 29:11).
LAZINESS
--
"Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and
to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win
the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody"
(1 Thessalonians 4:11-12).
--
"One who is slack in his work is brother to one who destroys"
(Proverbs 18:9).
--
"The sluggard's craving will be the death of him, because his hands refuse
to work" (Proverbs 21:25).
LYING
or SLANDER
--
""You shall not give false testimony against your
neighbor"" (Exodus 20:16).
--
"Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his
neighbor, for we are all members of one body" (Ephesians 4:25).
--
"Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its
practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in
the image of its Creator" (Colossians 3:9-10).
--
"To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my
teaching, you are really my disciples.
Then
you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."" (John
8:31-32).
MINDING
YOUR OWN BUSINESS
--
"Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and
to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win
the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody"
(1 Thessalonians 4:11-12).
MOCKING
--
"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or
stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night" (Psalm 1:1-2).
--
"The mocker seeks wisdom and finds none, but knowledge comes easily to the
discerning" (Proverbs 14:6).
--
"If you are wise, your wisdom will reward you; if you are a mocker, you
alone will suffer." (Proverbs 9:12).
OVEREATING
(GLUTTONY)
--
"Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat,
for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in
rags" (Proverbs 23:20-21).
--
"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in
you, whom you have received from God?
You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body" (1
Corinthians 6:19-20).
--
""Everything is permissible for me" ‑‑but not
everything is beneficial.
"Everything is permissible for me" ‑‑but I will
not be mastered by anything. "Food
for the stomach and the stomach for food" ‑‑but God will
destroy them both. The body is not
meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body"
(1 Corinthians 6:12-13).
PEER
PRESSURE
--
""Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong"" (Exodus 23:2a).
--
"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world..." (Romans
12:2a).
--
"My son, if sinners entice you, do not give in to them. If they say, "Come along with us; let's
lie in wait for someone's blood, let's waylay some harmless soul; let's swallow
them alive, like the grave, and whole, like those who go down to the pit; we
will get all sorts of valuable things and fill our houses with plunder; throw
in your lot with us, and we will share a common purse"‑‑ my
son, do not go along with them, do not set foot on their paths; for their feet
rush into sin, they are swift to shed blood" (Proverbs 1:10-16).
PRIDE
--
""God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble""
(James 4:6b).
--
"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall"
(Proverbs 16:18).
--
"A man's pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor"
(Proverbs 29:23).
--
"Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up" (James
4:10).
REBELLION
--
"Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is
no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist
have been established by God.
Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against
what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on
themselves" (Romans 13:1-2).
--
Under an (obsolete) Old Testament law, "If a man has a stubborn and
rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to
them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and
bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn
and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." Then all the men of his town shall stone him
to death. You must purge the evil from
among you. All Israel will hear of it
and be afraid" (Deuteronomy 21:18-21).
--
"Some [men] sat in darkness and the deepest gloom, prisoners suffering in
iron chains, for they had rebelled against the words of God and despised the
counsel of the Most High" (Psalms 107:10-11).
REVENGE
--
""Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people,
but love your neighbor as yourself. I
am the LORD"" (Leviticus 19:18).
--
"If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with
everyone. Do not take revenge, my
friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to
avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.
On
the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give
him something to drink. In doing this,
you will heap burning coals on his head."
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans
12:18-21).
SALVATION
--
"...This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in
blazing fire with his powerful angels.
He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of
our Lord Jesus. They will be punished
with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from
the majesty of his power..." (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9).
--
"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans
3:23).
--
"By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached
to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance:
that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried,
that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he
appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.
After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the
same time" (1 Corinthians 15:2-6).
--
""For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that
whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life"" (John
3:16).
--
"That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and
believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be
saved. For it is with your heart that
you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and
are saved" (Romans 10:9-10).
--
"Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through
me"" (John 14:6).
--
"..."Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved...""
(Acts 16:31a).
--
"He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not
have life. I write these things to you
who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have
eternal life" (1 John 5:12-13).
SELF-CONTROL
--
"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to
ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self‑controlled, upright
and godly lives in this present age" (Titus 2:11-12).
--
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self‑control" (Galatians
5:22-23).
SEXUAL
IMMORALITY or WILD LIVING (DEBAUCHERY)
--
"The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the
Lord for the body."; ..."Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his
body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple
of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a
price. Therefore honor God with your
body. (1 Corinthians 6:13b,18-20).
--
"But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of
any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy
people" (Ephesians 5:3).
-- "It
is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual
immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that
is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know
God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage
of him. The Lord will punish men for
all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to
live a holy life. Therefore, he who
rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy
Spirit" (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8).
--
"The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity
and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of
rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies,
and the like. I warn you, as I did
before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God"
(Galatians 5:19-21).
SIN
or UNREPENTANT
--
"Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it,
sins" (James 4:17).
--
"For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is
guilty of breaking all of it" (James 2:10).
--
""If a person sins and does what is forbidden in any of the LORD's
commands, even though he does not know it, he is guilty and will be held
responsible"" (Leviticus 5:17).
--
"But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it
is written: "Be holy, because I am holy"" (1 Peter 1:15-16).
--
"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your
old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in
the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God
in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:22-24).
--
"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap
destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap
eternal life" (Galatians 6:7-8).
--
"I cried out to him [God] with my mouth; his praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord
would not have listened; but God has surely listened and heard my voice in
prayer" (Psalm 66:17-19).
STEALING
--
""You shall not steal"" (Exodus 20:15).
--
"He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing
something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with
those in need" (Ephesians 4:28).
--
"The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not
murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be,
are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as
yourself." Love does no harm to
its neighbor" (Romans 13:9-10).
SUFFERING
--
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so
that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have
received from God" (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).
--
"To keep me from becoming conceited..., there was given me a thorn in my
flesh, ...to torment me.
Three
times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is
sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness"" (2
Corinthians 12:7-9).
--
"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have
had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.
These have come so that your faith‑‑of greater worth than
gold, which perishes even though refined by fire‑‑may be proved
genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is
revealed" (1 Peter 1:6-7).
--
"For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust
suffering because he is conscious of God.
But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong
and endure it? But if you suffer for
doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ
suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his
steps. "He committed no sin, and
no deceit was found in his mouth."
When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he
suffered, he made no threats. Instead,
he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die
to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed" (1
Peter 2:19-24).
--
"Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering,
as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so
that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed." ..."So then, those who suffer according
to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue
to do good" (1 Peter 4:12-13,19).
‑‑
"...we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering
produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God
has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given
us" (Romans 5:3‑5).
‑‑
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many
kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops
perseverance. Perseverance must finish
its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything"
(James 1:2‑4).
TATTOOS
--
""Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on
yourselves. I am the LORD""
(Leviticus 19:28).
TEMPTATION
--
"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be
tempted beyond what you can bear. But
when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up
under it" (1 Corinthians 10:13).
--
"When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does
he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is
dragged away and enticed" (James 1:13-14).
UNFORGIVENESS
--
"Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as
in Christ God forgave you" (Ephesians 4:32).
--
see Matthew 18:21-35 [verses 34a,35 - ""In anger his master turned
him over to the jailers to be tortured... This is how my heavenly Father will
treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.""]
--
""For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly
Father will also forgive you. But if
you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins""
(Matthew 6:14-15).
--
"Do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your
servant cursing you‑‑ for you know in your heart that many times
you yourself have cursed others" (Ecclesiastes 7:21-22).
--
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our
sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).
UNWHOLESOME
TALK
--
"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is
helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit
those who listen" (Ephesians 4:29).
--
""But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of
judgment for every careless word they have spoken"" (Matthew 12:36).
--
"But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of
any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy
people. Nor should there be obscenity,
foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather
thanksgiving" (Ephesians 5:3-4).
--
"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in
your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer" (Psalm 19:14).
WEAKNESS
--
"I can do everything through [Christ] who gives me strength"
(Philippians 4:13).
--
"..."My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in
weakness"" (2 Corinthians 12:9).
--
"...for the joy of the LORD is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10c).
WITCHCRAFT
or MAGIC
--
"Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the
fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in
witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults
the dead. Anyone who does these things
is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD
your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the LORD your God. The nations you will dispossess listen to
those who practice sorcery or divination.
But as for you, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so"
(Deuteronomy 18:10-14).
WORLDLINESS
--
"Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in
him. For everything in the world‑‑the
cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has
and does‑‑comes not from the Father but from the world" (1
John 2:15-16).
--
"You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is
hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses
to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God" (James 4:4).
--
"For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight" (1
Corinthians 3:19a).
--
"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive
philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this
world rather than on Christ" (Colossians 2:8).
--
"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you
used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the
kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time,
gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and
thoughts. Like the rest, we were by
nature objects of wrath. But because of
his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even
when we were dead in transgressions‑‑it is by grace you have been
saved" (Ephesians 2:1-5).
WORRY
or ANXIETY
-- see Matthew 6:25-34 [verses 25,32b-34 -
""Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat
or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important
than clothes? ...your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his
righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for
tomorrow will worry about itself. Each
day has enough trouble of its own.""]
--
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and
petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all
understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus"
(Philippians 4:6-7).
--
"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you" (1 Peter
5:7).
Works Cited
Bible. "The Holy Bible: New International
Version." The Bible Library CD‑ROM.
Oklahoma City: Ellis Enterprises, 1988.
Bible. "New King James Version
Bible." The Bible Library CD‑ROM. Oklahoma
City:
Ellis Enterprises, 1988.
"Strong's
Greek Dictionary." The Bible
Library CD‑ROM. Oklahoma
City: Ellis
Enterprises, 1988.
**End of Book**