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Q: How do you teach immature children the truth of the Gospel and a Christian life?
A: The same way you taught them how to use a fork.

I recently inherited my brand new baby sheep. With the start of every school year i get all the new 6th graders. It is always culture shock for them as well as for myself. They are used to children’s church and now they are being forced out of their proverbial nest into a whole new world of “mature” youth group. I know as adults looking back it is much harder to see the difference in maturity levels from children to youth but for those stuck in the middle, it is night and day. Last night was youth group and i remembered quickly that i am now entrusted with these special treasures, full of energy and short of attention spans. The initial split second re-action to the constant wiggling and whispering is first to pause and wonder what that noise is, then silently question why they can’t act like all the older kids (well not all the older kids) but that thought quickly dissolves in the wonderful memory of the elation when i was in 6th grade and getting to graduate up to the youth group. I love my 6th graders and honestly it isn’t at all hard for me to be patient with them. When it comes to teaching the immature, let’s face it, there is a right way and a wrong way, just like everything else, there is life and death. At times, this task may be overwhelming, difficult and/or frustrating, however, i like to think of it in these terms…

When your child didn’t at all know how to use a fork or use it very well, did you lower your standards for your own fork use? Did you make a mess on purpose and use your utensils poorly to teach them the proper ways or to make them feel better about where they were in their forking abilities or lack there of? No!

We, as shepherds, and as parents both biological and spiritual, are to walk uprightly and teach a true, whole gospel to our children; the generation that is following in our footsteps. Not water it down for the immature thereby prolonging the ignorance and adolescence. We are to meet people where they are just like Jesus did for us; becoming all things to all men. Now think for a moment what exactly that means, what shape that takes, when it comes to teaching a child how to use a fork.

There are the tricks, we had the mutations of the fork into wonderfully imaginative representations, we did the songs, and the games etc. It is made fun at times but the fun is always kept in a well balanced perspective to what was really important – teaching them how to feed themselves and greater yet, them eating! Eventually they were able to hold it on their own for a little while even if it was just to spread their mush around on their tray, and eventually in the course of the meal revert back to using their pudgy little fingers all the while making a wonderfully cute, yet inconvenient mess of the food provided them. More time goes on, and what do ya know, they are getting better and better at this whole fork business! All the while as parents and adults we never stopped eating properly how we know to eat, mostly mess free and yes we drop our forks at times, but in retrospect we have come a long way from where we started, making a mess now is the exception not the rule…

Let us eat well, and teach well! Amen.

Watch an excerpt of Piper protesting the prosperity gospel and exulting in God, whose glory shines in suffering.

The audio in this clip is from the message “Where Is God? (UCF).”

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One: Thank God in my weakness You are Strength

All: Praise God You are Strength

Thank God in my shadow You are Light

Praise God You are Light

Thank God in my sorrow You are Joy

Praise God You are Joy

Thank God in my struggle You are Peace

Praise God You are Peace

Thank God in my guilt You are mercy

Praise God You are Mercy

Thank God in the grave You overcome

Praise God You overcome

Thank God through the cross i must cease

Praise God it’s You who live

Thank God through the cross i am freed

Praise God it’s You who live

Thank God through the cross it’s You who live

Praise God it’s You who live

©2009 Caleb Ripple

Fishing is not necessarily something that i would say i love doing although i enjoy it. Probably more so for the evoked memories and reminiscent experience rather the the actual practice of ‘tricking and killing’ as Mr. Martin so eloquently phrased it.

As i was preparing to fish in something other than our tiny pond, for the first time in a good while i was reminded that i being older than seventeen must have a fishing license… whatever. So i went to Wal-Mart where they can be obtained, and just as i suspected the theiving, greedy, wicked america showed her true colors… Now you may think i am just really upset about having to pay thirty-five dollars for a ridiculously large piece of paper that has completely make-believe value seeing as this public water belongs just as much to me as it does to the ignorant game warden enforcing the preposterous rules i.e. the fishing license and it’s included restrictions, but that is not it at all. In fact when the kind sir behind the counter told me how much it was i politely turned around and walked away without purchasing one.

The reason behind my righteous indignation is that the supposed ‘christian nation’ that is america puts more value on the life of a fish or a sea turtle, or some freaking salt grass than it does on the invaluable life of an unborn child. So lets get this straight, i can pay the thirty-five dollar fee for a license to kill a fish but of corse only if it is within the proper restrictions. And if i am caught without one of these licenses’ then i am entitled to a citation for violation of the law of the state put in place to protect the right of the fish that is otherwise perfectly legal for me to kill, or better yet even if i have a license and i kill a fish that is under the ‘legal length’ aka to young (ironic i know) as deemed so by our thoughtful authorities or any variety of special species, then i am violating the right of nature via the fish, to properly run it’s corse. But abortion as Mr. Wilson articulately referred to as, “this sick war that adults have declared on children” is completely legal just because it is my so-called choice or right?!? Says who… oh yea the same people who gave me my fishing license.

Oh the wretched state she is in! Know this, the wickedness is not due to or proceeding from a singularly Democratic or Republican party, for the blood of the innocent is very much bipartisan and judgement will come to the unjust where ever they may lie. We the people… must urgently embrace repentance and turn from our wicked ways individually and corporately knowing that judgement will begin in the house of the Lord. Amen.

By Jonathan Dodson