Beyond and Above Circumstances

1) Beyond and Above Circumstances

These words from God recorded for you by Peter will cause you to smile, clap, shout and enjoy imparting truth to your children: “knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” (1Peter: 1:18-19)

Just knowing that puts everything else into perspective. Go and teach on that sure foundation.

2) Teachable Spirit

Many Scriptures warn us of failing to be teachable, such as: Proverbs 13:18, “Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuses instruction but he that regards reproof shall be honored.”

One of the great resources I’ve found for showing an example of a teachable spirit is Sockdolager! A Tale of Davy Crockett (also known as “Not Yours to Give”). This tale is from his 1827-31 time in Congress in the United States. It is available in booklet form fairly inexpensively at sites such as Amazon and Ebay, and also for free on websites such as https://history.fee.org/media/3328/490-introducing-horatio-bunce.pdf and http://truthbasedlogic.com/sock.htm .

Reading this of Davy Crockett will not only give you an excellent example of being teachable but also will help you with discussions and critical thinking. You may also be led to do some U.S. history research.

3) Training Children

Susannah Spurgeon, wife to Charles and mother to Charles Jr. and Thomas, gave these suggestions for training children, as recorded in the biography: Susie: The Life and Legacy of Susannah Spurgeon, by Ray Rhodes, Jr.

1. Read the Bible

2. Pray

3. Sing around the piano

4. Teach the importance of integrity.

After compiling this list from her biography, I thought that we might ask, “How would we do those ideas listed?” Then I realized that we often look for more and more detail just to avoid the obvious. So, let’s begin by training in these areas if we find them congruent with the Bible. As we proceed, we will be encouraged!

4) Facing Difficulties

All around us we see troubles. But “]m]ay the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Romans 15:13

If you are teaching your children that there is life after death and hope after sorrow, you may be interested in the booklet: Bulbs and Blossoms by Amy Le Feuvre. This is a short story booklet of a brother and sister sent from India to live with wealthy aunts in England. They are concerned for the dark and dreary winter and meet an old man at a nearby cottage who tells them that spring is coming. He teaches them the beauty in his ugly pots and the life given because of Easter.

Amy Le Feuvre also wrote Teddy’s Button from Lamplighter that you may have read.

This booklet is free on both Amazon and Project Gutenberg as an eBook.

5) Image Bearers

We’ve been discussing image bearing from time to time. We’ve talked about the extreme honor to be granted the assignment of image bearer of Christ. Today let’s consider that it helps in image bearing if we are very familiar with the Image.

We know that now we are becoming like Him as in 1John 3:2-3 we read, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.” These verses help us encourage our children now in image bearing. What they now know they can share. Where they fail Him, they can be forgiven. And we can all anticipate growth.

One of the growth techniques can be to continue the growth by searching the Scriptures. Recently I’ve been pondering getting a red letter bible and studying each of those portions of Scripture.

Remember this: We want to grow in knowing Him so that those around us can be encouraged to grow as image bearers.

Love, Becky