Quite often family gatherings or holidays are a little stressful for us, me especially. There are some folks who do not agree with or appreciate that we live for the Lord. When you try to avoid worldly ways and seek to please Jesus in all that you do there will be conflict with those who disagree.
When a Christian shares about their lifestyle we are often accused of trying to shove that “God stuff” on someone. But when they want to share their lifestyle with us or flaunt it in front of our children we are supposed to remain silent, they think. But I don’t see that lining up with God’s Word. And if I have to hear about their god, they are certainly going to hear about my God.
All in love of course, and that is the key. We have to walk in the Spirit, His Spirit, at all times. So when someone says something rude or worldly or even uses profanity, how do you handle it? Do you stay in the Spirit?
Operating in His Spirit means behaving in a way that you are not ashamed of the next day. The enemy will try his best to get you in the flesh. He wants you to blow your Christian witness. He wants you to mess up. So we have to be in constant fellowship with God to stand strong.
Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit …
Galatians 5:25
Recently someone used a foul word in front of one of my daughters. It was not what some would call a cuss word, and in fact it is used in the King James bible. But we don’t use those words and this person was thinking they could get away with it since it was said in front of a teen. I mean teens don’t mind that stuff they thought. But this girl minded. And she very much in love said, “Hey, I am still a child and I don’t want to hear that.” That was walking in the Spirit.
I am finally finding peace with this situation. I can rebuke or confront what needs to be confronted as long as I stay in the Spirit, as long as I stay within the boundaries of what Jesus expects of me. That means that worry and strife and fear must be far away from me. I cannot force my loved ones to worship the same God I do, but at the same time I do not have to bow down to theirs either.
Here are your questions…….
How can you react when someone tries to undermine you as a parent or encourages something with your children that you do not agree with? Do you get mad or angry like a momma bear? (I used to.) How can you better react and still stay in the Spirit?
What ways can we rebuke un-Godliness and still be loving? Maybe it is a display of an un-Godly relationship or public drinking or something else that you have taught your children displeases the Lord?
How do you react when your small child asks a family member who is doing something wrong why they do that? Do you hush the child or make excuses? Is your reaction understandable to the child and in the Spirit?
Blessings, Penny Raine
You can find Penny Raine blogging daily at PennyRaine.com.
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This post blew me away. I have many family members who believe and live very differently from the way my husband and I try to live. Some of them very much try to flaunt godless and very liberal ideologies and then clam up and get stone-faced when I so much as mention church. I'm embarrassed to say that I tend to react about the same way when confronted with many of their ideas purely because I don't know how to react and what to say. This is a problem now, but after my daughter is born, it will be a bigger problem. If someone questions my beliefs in front of my child or, worse yet, tries to convince my child to believe the way they do, I need to know how to handle that without getting angry and huffy and making a fool of myself. Until I read this post, none of this had even occurred to me yet. Thank you so much for posting this.
Thank you for this. God must know that my family is coming to visit. As the only Christian in my family, I am constantly at odds with them and their lifestyle. I usually stay silent and only rebuke when it gets "ridiculous". However, I have been recently convicted to stand up and correct misinformation. I know that through prayer I can do this with love.
Very encouraging words for situations we face. Thank you for sharing today and encouraging us to stay in the Spirit.
This is a tricky one. The end goal of our relationships with our loved ones is to lead them to the Lord. My husband's entire family is unsaved.
I find that putting them on the defensive does not help move them towards listening to the gospel. And I can't expect them to act like a Christian when they are not - they do not have the Holy Spirit in their lives and are sadly hanging by a thread over hell.
I use family together times to just shine as lights in love, thoughtfulness, service and gentleness. I also forewarn the children about what daddy's family does not believe and how they are different and then debrief them after - pointing out the flaws privately so we can talk about them and be sure the kids understand what God's word says about these things.
As a result I have had many many many spiritual discussions with my husband's family and well, no one has gotten saved yet - but there's always hope for tomorrow :-)
I must admit that I do not pursue a close relationship with them all for fear of their influence on the kids - but on the flip side - I do embrace them as they are... just like Christ embraced me warts and all before I became his precious child.
Courtney
http://www.womenlivingwell-courtney.blogspot.com
I blogged about this today...thank you! http://busymama7.blogspot.com/2009/07/at-well-living-in-spirit.html very thought provoking discussion. I didn't even have time to put down all my thoughts on the matter, and I'm sure I will be pondering it for several days.
I think that with family it can be very tough. When I first came to Christ I ran off my friends with the gospel, they weren't calling to talk about God and stopped calling, but with family they have an opinion to everything you do and feel as though we as believers are holding our children somewhat captive if we teach them in the way of the Lord.
Not too long ago I was having a discussion with my mother when she clearly stated that she let my siblings and myself do whatever we wanted and we still found the Lord, when I had to remind her that by the grace of God am I saved not by anything that I or she did. I also told her that because I am born again my children belong to the Lord and I am responsible for their spiritual lives until they grow older. So my duty is to live and raise my child in the example of my Heavenly Father not of my Carnal parents.
We have to reflect the love of Christ wherever we go. I think it was a great example that the previous post said that she discussed with her children the flaws of the family members in private and shared what the Word of God said, I also think that when children are small it's very important to speak to them right then and there maybe taking them into another room to let them know that we don't use "worldly language + cuss words, rude words, and slang) that we speak like the Lord.
So with family I think we need to ask the Holy Spirit to guide us in our speech and in our attitudes as well. The world of God says that the Holy Spirit is the one who convinces us of sin, justice and judgement.
Another thing we have to remember is that our family members amy get a little stone faced when we speak and may not agree with us completely but if they are knowledgable of the word of God or of Christians in general they know that we are suppose to be different and set apart for God, so when they do things like that to 'provoke" or "see what we will do" it's our opportunity to share the Word of God with them also without judging them, and we are suppose to react to it just not with anger.
I have had family members look at another Christian in my family which walks and talks just like them (pagans) and they have commented that for them to be like so and so (Christian) family member they will stay unsaved.
So we have to guard our testimony and have to look at ever opportunity to share the message of Christ and extend His love to them without conforming to their beliefs.
May God Bless you all.
We do not hush our children when they question things so long as their tone and attitude are in check.
Sometimes it's more effective for a child to "call someone out" because they really are doing it innocently. We've taught them what God says about said issue and then they see contradiction to it and they want to know why those persons do not obey God.
It's innocent and a teaching moment. I've also found that my family members who are not Christians do not "lash" back at my children in defense when they question their actions, but if my husband or I even look uncomfortable then we are sometimes verbally stoned!
smooches,
Larie
I loved posting on this subject today thank you for thinking up such a great subject