Last month I talked about the importance of starting a family ministry and how we need to prioritize this appropriately.
Galatians 5:13 says, “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.”
Most of us mothers have carved out time in our schedules for activities with our children, toddlers, and maybe even our babies. We have carefully examined and then selected various classes or programs for them to “experience.” We have scheduled these extracurricular activities as priorities for one reason or another, and then we work most everything else around those activities. When we work around the activities, we have knowingly or unknowingly made them priorities that they might be not need to be.
Lest anyone jump all over me and reason with me why their children should be in this activity and that, let me say that my children are and always have been in some sort of extracurricular activity. However, those activities have never been placed before “God time,” church time, family time, dinner time, or our commitments to serve others. Those are the priorities that a Christ-centered and Great-Commission-Focused home should have…God, family, and then us.
I will always remember my mother telling us that true joy is achieved when we use this acronym for the word, Joy, in order…Jesus, Others, You. Is that the life we are portraying by allowing our children to see that their classes and activities are the main priorities in our family? Is it right that they believe that their hobbies and passions should come before family time, before serving others or before….Jesus? No. How will they know true joy if they do not know that it can only come when placing servitude above self? They can’t.
Think of all the empty lives of Christians you know. Those men and women are so caught up in themselves and their own feelings, needs, and desires. They focus so much on how to make their own lives better, easier, and less stressful. They focus on me-time, instead of giving of themselves and showing Christ through their selflessness.
The bottom line is that they are self-centered and only can see as far as their own pain and suffering. Most of those people would find that their trials pale in comparison to the pains of most others in the world. However unfortunate it might be, their parents failed to instill in them a sense of duty – a Christian duty and privilege – to serve others. Sadly, because of this mistake their children grew up to reap the harvest of self-centeredness.
In order to resist the all-to-common temptation to fall into the world’s trap of entitlement and egocentricity, we need to evaluate what our choices in parenting are teaching our children in the long-run. Do the activities we choose for our children reflect the priorities that they are made out to be in reality? Should we be using our freedom to indulge in these self-centered programs or classes instead of using our freedom to serve others?
1 Peter 4:10 “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.”
I love the JOY analogy…Jesus,Others,You…I enjoyed reading your piece today!
How awesome! I think I need to do a study on Galatians 5 (If not all of it)! I found my very favorite Bible verse a few weeks ago (5:22)
This was a very enjoyable post and I like the JOY acronym. I fully agree with you and hope others will too!
I love you!