Grace-Based Parenting

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)

Fathers and mothers have lost the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their children is for them to be wise—as priests, prophets or philosophers are wise. Specialized competence and success are all that they [most fathers and mothers] can imagine.6

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? . .

Grace understands that the only real solution for our children’s sin is the work of Christ on their behalf. It is not pristine spiritual conditions or their good behavior. Grace realizes that there is nothing any of us can do on our own to improve our chances with God. There is nothing any of us can do on our own to gain more of God’s love. There i

One of the worst things we can do for our children is to send them into their adult years as a one-dimensional person. The accolades they receive in their area of skill cannot offset the rejection they’ll receive in the other crucial dimensions of their life that were never developed. Many extraordinary athletes and entertainers struggle with this

Anything—minus hope—equals nothing. Hope is the human equivalent of oxygen when it comes to a person’s ability to live effectively. Take it away, and everything else becomes irrelevant. Without hope it is impossible to live a balanced life. Far worse, without hope, people surrender too soon and die too young.

reaching young people is a lot like fishing. When it comes to luring fish, it’s best to put on the hook something they like to eat, not what you like.

Your children have two choices and only two choices. They can give their lives to the Lord or not give their lives to the Lord. But if they choose not to, they—by default—are handing that area over to the forces of evil. Neutrality is not an option. No one is the captain of his or her own ship or the master of his or her own fate. That’s one of the

And what about the thieves who were crucified on either side of Him? You would think, what with the sins of the entire world on His shoulders, that He’d ignore these men. When you add to the equation that both men joined the crowd in hurling insults at Him,1 you would think He would have been justified to view these two condemned men as mere footno