Listening to God; August 30, 2021

Posted on September 1, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 10:16 “He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”

This is a very familiar verse, but I just noticed a nuance in the Japanese that I find very interesting. Rendering it back into English, it says, “A person who listens to you is a person who listens to Me,” and so on for the other two similar phrases. That might seem to be identical, but to me it corrects the impression some people seem to have that they are always speaking the words of God, so you’d better listen up. Rather, this is talking about the personality, the attitude, of the listener. This wasn’t to puff up the disciples who were going out as Jesus’ representatives, it was telling them that the reception they got would be indicative of how those people would receive God Himself. When we read this today, we need to check our own attitude first, to see if we are genuinely receptive to God and what He is saying to us. Then, we need to be perceptive of the attitudes of the people around us. We aren’t to give up on unreceptive people, but we are to focus our energies on those who are receptive. That said, we need to be very careful to listen to what God says about people, rather than judging them by our feelings. One of my seminary professors talked about when he was a pastor, going around door-to-door to invite people to his church, and one man responded by spitting in his face – and it wasn’t just saliva. However, God indicated to the pastor that this indicated the man had strong feelings, and those feelings just needed to be corrected. The pastor persisted, and eventually the spitter not only got saved, he became a deacon in the church! The professor told us this to say that indifference is a worse obstacle than active opposition. That’s a lesson I think we all need to remember.

This verse is particularly pointed for anyone ministering in Japan. I think the biggest issue from the human perspective is that Japanese have trouble distinguishing faith from religion from culture. Since very few people have personal faith, they see Buddhism and Shinto as being part of being Japanese, and the idea of becoming “less Japanese” is scary and/or repulsive to them. Active faith seems cultish to them, and they’ve had some pretty scary encounters with religious cults. That is very much of a challenge to me, but I think the simple fact of my longevity here has had a favorable impact. I don’t think people are afraid of me! That said, the issue becomes one of felt need, the awareness that their choices here determine their eternal destiny. All I can do is pray for them and keep speaking the truth in love. Trying to beat them over the head with Scripture is definitely not the answer! God knows their hearts far better than I do, and I need to depend on Him.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for what You did in the service yesterday, and throughout the day. It was rather strange to only be responsible for interpreting Cathy’s testimony and giving the benediction. Thank You that people stepped up and took part. I pray that we would indeed be Christ-centered and be delivered from being pastor-centered, as so many churches are. May we indeed be the agents that You desire and intend, so that those whose hearts are open may indeed hear and receive the Gospel through us, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Transformation; August 29, 2021

Posted on September 1, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 9:29 As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.

There are levels of prayer that we haven’t tasted. We might expect Jesus to be transformed like this, particularly in light of how He appeared to John on Patmos, (Revelation 1:12-16) but Moses too was transformed by intimate fellowship with God, so that his face shone. (Exodus 34:29-30) We’re not there yet! As C. S. Lewis wrote in The Last Battle, the call is always to go deeper and higher. As sweet as prayer can be for any believer, there’s always more. The thing is, we indeed need to be transformed to experience and appreciate it. Paul touched on that in writing to the Romans. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2) I don’t think he was speaking of physical transformation there, but we are spiritual beings who possess bodies, so what’s going on inside affects what goes on outside. We do speak of people as “having a glow about them,” and that’s not achieved by external means, whatever makeup companies try to tell us. It is when we are changed inside, through prayer and the Word of God, that we start to reflect the glory of God, just as happened with Moses. Jesus just hid it most of the time! However, He doesn’t want us to hide it. He told us explicitly, “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

I’ve never been accused of “shining like lightning!” I have had some moments of very deep fellowship, to the point that I would not have been surprised if my appearance had changed, but no one’s ever told me that had happened. I’m not to focus on external appearance, certainly, but rather open myself to the Lord’s transformative work within me. I am reminded, with somewhat depressing regularity, that I’m far from perfect, but I do have the assurance that “He who began a good work in [me] will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6)

Father, thank You for how much You have already worked in me, and for the assurance that You’re not going to stop working. Help me cooperate fully with all that You are doing so that I will be an ever more useful tool in Your hands, accomplishing that for which You created me, for Your glory alone. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Listening to God; August 28, 2021

Posted on August 31, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 9:18 Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?”

Two things are of interest about this simple verse. The first is that Jesus didn’t always go off by Himself to pray, but prayed in the presence of His disciples as well. We have no record of whether He was praying out loud or silently here, but the general impression of the Gospels is that He probably did both. Naturally, the only ones we have a record of are those He prayed out loud. The second thing is that His famous question to His disciples, recorded here, was a direct outgrowth of His time in prayer. In other words, it would seem that the Father told Him to ask them what He did. Any time we pray we need to “have our listening ears on,” as little children are sometimes told to do. We all tend to hear without listening sometimes. That creates enough problems when it’s between people, but it’s much more serious when we fail to listen to God. However, the Biblical record is that mankind has done that a lot! When we read the Bible, too often we take it in just as literature, failing to recognize that it is written to us personally. We don’t believe that God cares that much about us personally! One of the most incredible things about the Gospel is that He does indeed care. Jesus indicated the extent of that caring when He said that even the hairs of our head are numbered! (Matthew 10:30, Luke 12:7) When God cares about us so much, why would He not be speaking to us, guiding us, informing us, and assuring us of His love? After all, that’s what a good father does for his children, isn’t it? When God is the perfect Father, we need to work at being better children, listening to what He says to us and not just letting His words go over our heads or whistle past our ears.

I have written before about how I have heard God speak to me in what could have been an audible voice (though no one but me heard it) on two, maybe three occasions, but inaudible impressions are frequent. Sometimes, if I’m listening, He guides me in such mundane things as when to change lanes when driving. If I’m listening, it really speeds up and/or smooths out my trip. That’s very gentle training, because the consequences of listening or not listening aren’t so momentous, and it helps me tune my ears to Him. I wish I could say I always listen attentively to Him, but that’s another area in which I’m still growing. As a pastor, this is naturally an area in which I want the believers to grow as well, but training them isn’t easy. I can give testimonies, but I don’t want to brag or be seen as bragging. What I can do is pray for them to have their ears opened, and I need to do that more. I want us to be a congregation that listens to our Lord and does what He says, for His glory alone.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for the many ways You have guided over the past week. Help us learn from everything You allow us to experience, hearing what You are saying however You choose to express it to us and responding in full obedience, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Loving Enemies; August 27, 2021

Posted on August 30, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 6:27-28 “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

Jesus’ command to love our enemies is one of His most famous, recorded both here and in Matthew 5, and it’s also seen as one of His most “impractical” commands, because it so goes against our human nature. However, unlike so many politicians and leaders of all sorts, Jesus never told us to do anything He didn’t do Himself. The ultimate test of that was when He prayed forgiveness for those who had nailed Him to the cross. (Luke 23:34) This command should be in very sharp focus for every believer at this point, because the whole world is increasingly polarized, and everyone seems to see someone, or some group, as enemies. The starkest test of that in most people’s awareness at the moment is Afghanistan. Every Christian, and indeed every woman, in that area has every reason to consider the Taliban their enemies. The atrocities that are happening even at this moment are unspeakable. How do you pray for people like that, much less love them? We need to start by realizing that such people are terribly deceived by the devil, just like Jesus did on the cross. They are fun­damentally just as human as we are, however inhuman they may act. Then, there’s the question of how to pray for them. What every per­son needs in order to get right with God is to repent. So it should be very easy to pray that they repent. Sometimes that’s all we can pray for them! If we think about it, we also can pray God’s best for them, because His best always includes a right relationship with Him, and if they have that, they will be very different people indeed. I’m re­minded of Corrie ten Boom, praying for the former concentration camp guard whom she had seen beat her sister to death. She was speaking at a meeting and he showed up. She recognized him and froze internally, until God dealt with her on this very issue, and the man was marvelously born again. That’s just about as clear an exam­ple as Jesus on the cross, and it shows that Jesus isn’t the only one who can do it, if we will allow the Holy Spirit to work in us.

I’m grateful never to have had such stark enemies as I’ve just written about, but there are plenty of people about whom I have to consciously apply this Scripture. For starters, there are numbers of politi­cians and government figures whom I feel are actively cooperating with the devil and advancing his agenda. I certainly pray repentance and deliverance from deception for them! By God’s grace I feel I am fairly up-to-date on forgiving those close to me, and I am grateful to feel I am generally not treated badly by anyone. As a pastor I deal with people all the time who are bound by hatred and unforgiveness (thankfully not toward me) and ministering to them can be a real challenge. They have no grasp of how they are imprisoning themselves, far more than they are doing harm to the people they don’t think they can forgive. I have seen people destroyed by their lack of forgiving others. I talk a lot about how the Japanese language itself hinders the very understanding of forgiveness, because the word is a homophone for one that means “permission.” Since there are many things for which we should never give permission, people can’t un­derstand how we can forgive those things. I explain it every chance I get, but this has to apply on a much deeper level than intellectual understanding, I have to rely on the Holy Spirit to get it through to them.

Father, this is certainly a challenging issue for the whole human race. May all of Your children trust You to work it in and through them, for the salvation of many and for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Fame; August 26, 2021

Posted on August 30, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 6:12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.

I used to think this was largely hyperbole, but having a wife who will get up at all hours of the night and spend hours praying, it’s much easier to see it as entirely realistic. Jesus had momentous decisions ahead of Him, choosing those who would represent Him, not only during His ministry but after His ascension. It’s interesting to me that for several of them, literally the only thing we know about them is their name. They might be mentioned a few times in the Gospel accounts, but that’s it. I think there’s a powerful lesson in that, because James son of Alphaeus was just as much an apostle as James son of Zebedee, and Simon the Zealot was just as much an apostle as Simon Peter. Fame is quite literally how people speak of you, but our value, and our evaluation, comes from what God says about us. When we realize that, fame becomes literally a non-issue. I don’t think we want to be famous the way Judas Iscariot is! I’m reminded of the widow who gave God all that she had to live on, who came up in the reading on the 19th. As I said then, we don’t know her name, but I bet she has plenty of honor in heaven! That’s part of what Jesus was talking about when He told us to “lay up treasure in heaven.” (Matthew 6:19-21) Sociologists speak of “social credit,” and China has recently instituted a formal system to evaluate “how good a citizen” everyone is, entirely as a means to control people. We need to grasp, to the depths of our being, that the only “credit system” that counts is the one that’s eternal.

I would be the first to concede that it feels good to have people speak well of you, but right after this Luke records Jesus’ words of caution about that. (verse 26) However, there is a distinction between fame and reputation. Fame is meaningless, but I am to so live that bad things said about my character are all false. When I live with the awareness that God is my judge, then people’s opinions of me are valid only as they agree with His. Having lived as foreigners in Omura for 40 years now, we are pretty well known. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard people whom I didn’t know personally telling someone else all about us! However, my real concern is how much our influence has drawn people to Christ. I thankfully don’t think we’ve driven many away, but sadly, many seem to admire the Christ they see in us without opening their heart to receive Him themselves. That is a continuing issue, and frankly a mystery. I’ve got to leave it in His hands, and discover how much fruit I really have born when I stand before His throne.

Father, thank You for the incredible privilege of being Your agent. May I care about nothing else, whatever people say, or fail to say, about me. May Your kingdom and Your righteousness indeed take first priority in my life, so that You may be pleased and glorified as Your will is done in and through me. Thank You. Praise God!

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Repentance; August 25, 2021

Posted on August 29, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 5:31-32 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

This is a rightly well-known passage, but I think it doesn’t get enough emphasis. At the same time, those who do know it tend to fo­cus on “I came to call sinners,” and gloss over the “to repentance” part. Both are essential. It is true that “holier than thou” types tend to shy away from anyone who doesn’t meet their essentially social stan­dards, and those are indeed the kind of people Jesus was responding to, but the flip side of that is that some people, saying “Jesus loves me just as I am,” make no effort to change. That’s certainly not in­dicative of repentance! Jesus indeed loves us as we are, but He never leaves us as we are. He is constantly, and consistently, calling us to draw closer to Him, to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds.” (Romans 12:2) It’s not that we don’t sin, and it’s not that such sin forever cuts us off from salvation, but rather that we can’t wallow in our sin, being satisfied with it. John’s first letter deals with that a lot, repeatedly. You could even say it’s a lengthy exposition on these two verses. The Gospel, that is, the Good News, is that God en­ables us to become what He causes us to want to become, that is, children in the likeness of His Son. (2 Corinthians 3:18) That is one of the major themes of Paul’s letter to the Romans. We are not to condemn ourselves – that’s what the devil is constantly trying to do – but neither are we to be satisfied with where we are. That’s what Paul wrote about so memorably in Philippians 3:7-16. Any parent will tell you they love their children as they are, but they also want their children to keep growing, and God is exactly the same with us.

I have written repeatedly about two massive encounters with this issue. The first was when the Lord showed me the condition of my soul, for a brief instant, and I collapsed in repentant tears. The second was years later, when on the basis of 2 Peter 1:9 I had a revelation that once a sin is confessed and repented of, it really is gone, com­pletely washed away, and it is not an enduring part of my character. The devil tries to define us by our sins and weaknesses, and too often we let him get away with it. I learned that I am defined by what God says about me, not by what I have done, if I have repented of my sin. Today we will be with someone who needs this truth revealed to their heart. I can’t force him to accept it but I can speak it to him in love and demonstrate it with my actions, so that the Holy Spirit may plant it in his heart.

Father, thank You for Your truly amazing grace. Help me be ever more effective as a channel of that grace, so that more and more people may be liberated from the lies of the devil to walk in the light of Your life, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Stress; August 24, 2021

Posted on August 29, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 5:15-16 Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Jesus was active in ministry but He was also active in maintaining His connection with His Father. This is actually a tension we all face. There’s a line I like very much in the song, Country Boy, made famous by John Denver: “I’d play Sally Gooden all day if I could, but the Lord and my wife wouldn’t take it very good. So I fiddle when I can and work when I should. Thank God I’m a country boy!” We all have things we need to do, things people require of us, and things we really love and/or want to do. When two or more of those factors converge on a particular activity it is a blessing indeed. As the saying goes, if you love your work, it isn’t work! One thing I really like about The Visual Bible (that in my awareness only managed to produce Matthew and Acts) is that the actor portraying Jesus, after much prayer, settled on a style that shows Jesus as delighting in what He is doing. After all, Jesus chose to come to earth! However, that doesn’t mean He didn’t experience this tension. Of course the clearest expression of that was in the Garden of Gethsemane, but I think this shows it as well. Living and traveling with a group of 12 guys of dubious spiritual maturity, not to mention being mobbed by people wanting to receive from Him, as it mentions here, it’s no wonder He needed to get away often to have time alone with the Father. We can do no better than to copy Him, including in this area of taking time alone with God. I talk about daily devotions a good bit, and with good reason. It’s the only way we can keep our heads on straight! It has rightly been said that stress is a given for anything that is alive, so our only option is learning how to deal with it. Getting our marching orders from our Creator is certainly the best answer.

Like everyone else, I live with this constantly. I would have “popped a circuit breaker” many years ago if I hadn’t developed a strong habit of personal devotions. I know pastors who only read the Bible when they are preparing sermons, and I don’t see how they live! For several months Cathy and I have been feeling a build-up of stress of various sorts, so today we’re going to a hot-springs resort hotel for two nights. We had hoped to do this last week, but the hotel we would have preferred is closed at the moment because of COVID, and we had to choose another (more expensive) option. Cathy has been asking me what I want to do during this time, but my biggest answer is simply that I do NOT want to do what we do here every day! It’s not at all that I feel my life is bad, but I’m in need of a real change of pace. The past few days have been a fitting build-up to this, with one mechanical failure after another in things we use, and yesterday was something of a climax to that, before a particular issue was resolved. We will be getting away, but we will also be doing ministry, and if the person involved in that makes a breakthrough, it will be more than worth the expense of the hotel! The point is to keep growing, to keep drawing closer to my Lord and learning from Him, so that His plans and purposes for me may be fulfilled.

Father, thank You for all of this, Thank You for the extremely stressful day yesterday, and that we will be able to get away today. I ask for wisdom in the various things we need to get done this morning before we leave. May we indeed grow in resting, relaxing, and rejoicing in You, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Context; August 23, 2021

Posted on August 28, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 5:5 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

This wasn’t Peter’s first encounter with Jesus. John records the first time, when Peter’s brother Andrew brought him to Jesus. (John 1:40-42) Sometimes we forget that the Bible doesn’t record everything that happened, even in a particular narrative. As we all do, those who wrote picked and chose what they would include, because having every detail would be ponderous and overwhelming. The only problem with that is that we sometimes fall into guilt trips for not responding to God as quickly as it seems some Biblical characters did. We need to let the Holy Spirit show us the context of everything, and read the whole Bible to make it easier for us to recognize what He is saying to us. Here, it is probable that Peter had been doing a lot of thinking about this teacher Andrew had introduced to him. That made it easy for him to agree to let Jesus use his boat as a pulpit, so to speak, and also softened his heart to give the response recorded in this verse. In a sense you could say that Jesus was paying the “rental fee” for the use of the boat! Also, I personally think that the fish that were caught at this point were sold to fish dealers, who were likely to have been on the scene precisely to get their stock in trade. It’s possible that Peter even sold the boat to someone. That doesn’t take anything away from his life-changing decision to stop being a fisherman and simply follow this teacher about whom he still knew very little. I would guess that the income from the fish, at least, went to his wife to support her while he was running around the countryside with Jesus. People have used this story, probably for many centuries, to justify being irresponsible about all sorts of obligations. We aren’t to hesitate to be obedient to what the Lord shows us to do, but neither are we to use “the Lord told me” as an excuse to duck out on things. I heard of one man who, when he graduated from seminary (the one I was attending) wrote “Jesus paid it all” on all of his outstanding bills, and then skipped town. I hope no church was stupid enough to call him as their pastor!

I’ve had a few experiences that relate to this. The first Sunday in 1974 we were in Denver, listening to a former missionary to Vietnam who had had to leave because of the war there, when either Cathy or I (to this day neither of us has any idea which it was) turned to the other and said, “Do you want to sell the mobile home and move to Japan?” The first of March of that year, we arrived in Fukuoka! It seemed awfully sudden, and it was, but there were various things leading up to that moment, including being very frustrated by the bureaucracy we encountered when we contacted the mission board my parents served under. Also, by God’s grace we didn’t leave any loose ends. We found someone to take over payments on our mobile home, even in a very depressed housing market, shipped a fair amount of stuff to my parents, (they paid) gave away and threw away a lot of stuff, and then loaded the remainder into our Toyota and drove to Cathy’s parents in Virginia, before flying out to Japan. (Cathy’s father bought our very used Toyota from us as a kindness, but then one day when he had to drive it to deliver the mail because his truck wouldn’t start, he fell in love with it and bought nothing but Toyotas after that for the rest of his life!) All of that to say that God’s “suddenlies” are never totally isolated events. I wish I could say that I have always been that accurate about hearing and obeying God! Actually, in recent years we have discovered that Cathy’s parents knew from when she was a small child – before she knew it – that God had called her as a missionary. God’s plans are from eternity past, so nothing is ever “out of context!”

Father, I didn’t intend to write an autobiography this morning! Thank You for Your incredible faithfulness to me. Thank You for Your plans for today, for this week, and for the rest of my life. Help me indeed rest, relax, and rejoice in You, flowing with Your Spirit on Your schedule to accomplish Your will for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Receiving from God; August 22, 2021

Posted on August 24, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 3:21-22 When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Luke doesn’t record John’s protest at the idea of him baptizing Jesus, (Matthew 3:13-15) but he includes the detail that the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus as He was praying. We naturally associate prayer with asking God for things, since the word, pray, actually means, ask. However, I don’t know that Jesus was actively praying to have the Holy Spirit alight on Him. Rather, I think He was aware that it was the Father’s timing for Him to begin His active ministry, and He was asking for whatever the Father felt He needed to do the job. Obviously the Holy Spirit was essential! He was probably remembering this when He told His disciples, shortly before His ascension, “I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49) Prayer puts us into the spiritual posture to receive whatever the Father wants to give us, and that’s always a good thing. It’s even a good thing when what the Father wants to give us isn’t necessarily what we wanted! Paul discovered that when he prayed to be delivered from his “thorn in the flesh,” and God just poured His grace out on him instead. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10) The strength that he gained from that was far more valuable, and powerful, than physical health. However, when our hearts are too set on specific things, even when we pray we aren’t opening ourselves up to receive all that God wants to pour out on us. This morning I’m preaching on specific prayer, but the flip side of that is allowing God to be in control. He knows what we need, when and how and why. We are to ask, certainly, but we are to recognize, and rejoice in, His sovereignty and superior wisdom.

This certainly applies to me! I have had many prayers granted, but many more that didn’t turn out the way I had desired. I need to stay in prayer, and at the same time rest, relax, and rejoice just as He has told me to do. It is a relief to see evidence that I am growing spiritually and emotionally, but I’ve got plenty of room to do so much more! Things are happening at a great clip, in my personal life and in the world as a whole. The more I try to stay in control, the worse it is for me. I am to be active in intercession and spiritual warfare, particularly for such things as the situation in Afghanistan right now, but even in the middle of that I am to rest in the assurance that God is still God, and those who are in Christ will triumph. I need to remember that Corrie ten Boom, who went through the unspeakable horrors of a Nazi concentration camp, losing her family in the process, was a major proponent of Christus Victor, that has been put down by some as “Christian triumphalism.” Such people are defining “triumph” on strictly terrestrial, material terms. I need to look forward to Christ’s triumph that will put everything into perspective and make it all worth it. (2 Corinthians 4:17)

Father, thank You for this strong reminder. I pray that I would be fully available to You, today and each day, walking in fellowship with You that allows You to flow through me however You please, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Parenting; August 21, 2021

Posted on August 24, 2021 by jgarrott

Luke 2:39-40 When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.

In parenting there is always the interaction of nature – genetics, essentially – and nurture, the environment in which the child grows. Genetics are settled from the moment of conception, so the input we have in the process is in nurturing the child. Many books have been written on the subject, so I won’t try to write another one! However, the whole subject becomes very interesting when it comes to Jesus. Just precisely what was His genetic package, so to speak? The Y chromosome was courtesy of the Holy Spirit, who normally is not physical at all! That’s not anything we can determine, but we do know that God chose Mary and Joseph very carefully. He really cared how His Son was going to be nurtured! We have very few details in the Bible, but the characteristics that stand out are their faith and their faithfulness. They “dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s” when it came to the Levitical law, and they did whatever was necessary according to their circumstances, including the trip to Egypt and back recorded in Matthew 2. The result of their lifestyle is recorded here. Physical growth, barring major disease, deprivation, or injury, is a given, but Jesus had a little extra help there. Growing up as the son of a carpenter, he was doubtless running errands and carrying wood and the like from about as soon as he could walk. The “strong” mentioned here was not just being polite! However, being filled with wisdom had a lot to do with Mary and Joseph. Children are taught by their parents, but they absorb more than they are taught. Jesus was filled with wisdom because He had the example of parents who were wise in the fear of the Lord. We have no way of knowing how much or how often they thought about the special circumstances of Jesus’ birth, but I would guess that as the home filled up with more children it wasn’t very much. I don’t think they were all, “We are raising the Son of God” all the time by any means! We should be intentional in raising our children, certainly, but the unintentional lessons are at least as important, as they see how we relate to each other and how we prioritize our time and our resources. That is where they gain wisdom, as opposed to simple knowledge.

I was raised by excellent parents, but I certainly didn’t turn out as well as Jesus! How well I did with my own daughters isn’t mine to judge, but I’m quite proud of them, not as my accomplishment but because of their accomplishments. I touch on parenting every time I do premarital counseling, and I have taught a parenting seminar, but I would actually like to do a lot more. I feel, and I want to communicate, that the key to parenting is a good marital relationship between the parents. I tell people that only two things are essential for a child, other than basic physical needs: assurance that they are loved by their parents, and assurance that their parents love each other. It’s amazing, and tragic, how often those get confused or even overlooked. As the Lord gives me opportunity, I want to counter the lies of the devil so that more children may be raised as Jesus was.

Father, thank You for the beautiful heritage You have given me, and for the privilege of passing it on to my children. I pray that I would be more and more effective in passing it on to my spiritual children, since my physical children are raising their own families. May I be fully useful to You in destroying the works of the devil, (1 John 3:8) for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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