Parenting Week 4 - How Do I Discipline My Kids?
This week in our series we tackled the tough question of discipline and parenting... that's a tough one!
Here are a few of the things that we discovered primarily from Hebrews 12:
1) God Disciplines His Children. Of course we know that God is good, perfect, holy, and just - therefore, godly discipline is also good, perfect, holy and just. Discipline, God's way, is good.
2) Discipline is NOT Punishment. Punishment is a penalty that we inflict on someone (our child) for an offense that they committed. Punishment is payback, the just reward for wrong doing. The goal of punishment is strict obedience to rules and guidelines.
Discipline is training - training for correction, training for direction, training for maturity. The ultimate goal of discipline for Christian parents is children who love and follow Jesus.
3) Discipline is an Act of Love God, our Father thanks to Christ, disciplines us in love! in part, the Good News of the Gospel is that Jesus paid our penalty for wrong doing. He took away our sin and He took God's anger toward sin that we deserve. This means that when we are in Christ, our Father sees us, filled with love! He is not angry with us. He is not frustrated with us. And any punishment that we have deserved has been taken care of by Jesus! In love and with the goal of our happy holiness, God trains us, teaches us, disciplines us to walk with Jesus.
4) Discipline is not an Event but a Lifetime Everything that we do with our children is in some sense connected to their discipline. We are intentionally and unintentionally always teaching them what it looks like to love and follow Jesus (or not to). Structures, roles, authority, rules, our words, the consequences of our children's failings - they also serve as tools for training.
I then listed a few things that I promised to share with our North Macon site that I found to be helpful. Don't take this as an endorsement of the authors or sources as a whole... just some helpful and practical helps. They can be found at the following links:
