For Salvation and Spiritual Growth for Young Daughter

Introducing Your Child to God

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No maps. No GPS. Few street signs. Those are three important reasons why I don't drive in developing countries. I'd get lost.

Raising our kids to follow Christ is a lot trying to navigate in an under-developed country — there is no parenting map, no spiritual GPS.

We head in the direction that seems best, trying to find our way by trial and error.

But we don't need to feel lost. As we journey through each stage of our children's development, we can point them toward spiritual markers that will help them find true faith — becoming vibrant followers of Christ.

Spiritual marker for early childhood: respect

For parents of young children, the journey of raising Christ followers starts with the task of instilling respect for God and His authority. The psalmist tells us, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10).

While most of us enjoy teaching toddlers fun Bible stories, we can't stop there. Early childhood materials may solely emphasize how “Jesus is your friend.” Warm fuzzy feelings build affection for Jesus, but they don't build the foundation for spiritual wisdom. Awe, wonder and respectful fear of God lay that groundwork.

So how do you instill this respect? Teach your young children these truths:

• God is strong. He can do anything.
• God always keeps His promises.
• God gives us rules that we must obey.
• Even if Mommy or Daddy can't see what you are doing, God sees it.
• God disciplines us because He loves us.

Spiritual marker for early elementary years: wisdom

Wisdom is the ability to apply God's Word to life situations. So to grow in wisdom, your children must first learn God's Word. From ages 5 to 8, add biblical teaching to your daily routine. At this age, your children probably love to learn. Make sure you emphasize the following four areas:

Who is God? Is He an angry ogre ready to club you when you disobey? Is He a passive observer who is tolerant of everything? Is God what you make Him to be? Or is He the righteous, powerful and loving Creator found in the Bible?

Use Bible stories to teach about God. Take the story of David and Goliath for example. What can we learn about God from it? Many children's materials conclude, “You can do anything if God is on your side.” But that is backward. The story's application ought to be, “Make sure you are on God's side.”

What is truth? Your kids will be bombarded throughout life by truth claims from the media, teachers and friends. If you are not successful in teaching them that truth and wisdom come from the Bible, they will struggle greatly with faith challenges later.

This means you must regularly include statements the following in your conversation: “We can always trust what God says”; “God's Word is always right”; “Obey the Bible, and you'll never be sorry.”

Who is man? Our humanistic culture treats man as basically good. That's why children often struggle with accepting the Bible's claim that man is sinful.

Your children will not appreciate the need for a savior until they see themselves and others as sinners.

Who is Jesus? Growing up in a society that professes to value tolerance will challenge your children's faith. They may be called “intolerant” and “hateful” for claiming that Jesus is the only way to God.

When your children sit in a classroom of Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and atheists, will their faith in Jesus stick? To withstand this pressure, your children need a secure knowledge of who Jesus is and why He is the only Way.

Spiritual marker for late elementary: grace

The primary goal for 9- to 11-year-olds is to receive God's grace. The majority of people who trust Christ as Savior do so before they are teens. Said another way, if your children do not come to faith in Christ by the time they are teens, the lihood begins to quickly decrease that they will do so.

That means you must do two things: First, make certain that your children fully understand the Gospel. Second, ask God to help you discern the authenticity of their decision. Countless kids “respond” to the Gospel outwardly because of pressure from a Sunday school teacher or parent, while in their hearts they remain reluctant to submit to Christ.

To understand your children's faith, ask questions: “Can you explain why Jesus died on the Cross?” “What does someone have to do to go to heaven?” “Why do you think you are a Christian?” Responses such as “I prayed a prayer” or “The teacher told me I was a Christian” may indicate they are trusting in the wrong thing.

Beyond accepting God's grace, your children also need to learn how to give grace to others. “That's not fair” may be the most common complaint of middle elementary kids.

Siblings war over the size of a piece of pie, who sits in what seat in the van and who has to do the most chores. This age group is especially concerned with getting their fair share.

But grace — forgetting what's fair and giving others more than they deserve — is the best way to be Jesus.

Teaching your kids grace is a tall order. Their selfish nature will battle it. Friends will take advantage of it. So if they are going to learn how to give grace, they will need to see it consistently modeled by you.

Spiritual marker for middle school: trust

Young adolescents are beginning to wonder what their lives will hold. These years are a prime time for discussing the importance of trusting God with their future.

Here's one way to begin that conversation: Discuss Proverbs 3:5-6 with your children. Talk through it carefully: “What does it mean to 'trust in the Lord'? How about 'with all your heart'? Why is God's understanding so much better than yours? What does it mean, 'He will make your paths straight'?”

When I was 13, I told God I wanted Him to have complete control of my life. I strongly believe that decision kept me all sorts of trouble during my teen years. In the same way, God can use your middle schoolers' commitment to Him to guide your children through the coming years.

Spiritual marker for high school: perspective

Older teens may begin wrestling with tough questions for the first time: “Why is there evil in the world?” “Why is my teacher so unfair?” “Why did God let my best friend die in a car accident?” The lack of adequate answers can send their faith tumbling.

First, provide the perspective that God is sovereign in all things. Your teens need to hear your stories about the times when God worked difficult things out for good. They need to see you trust in God. Always stay open to your teens' questions, even if they are hard to hear. If you don't have an answer, admit it — then find the answer together.

As your children grow, take note of their life stage and adjust your spiritual training accordingly. My prayer is that each of your children will grow up to be, as author George Barna puts it, “an irrepressible follower of Jesus Christ who accepts the Bible as truth, lives by its principles, seeks ways to impact the world and continually deepen his or her relationship with God.”

Larry Fowler is the former executive director of global training for Awana Clubs international and an author.

Источник: //www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/spiritual-growth-for-kids/salvation-leading-your-child-to-jesus/introducing-your-child-to-god

Time for change

With spirituality, we designate our relationship with the spiritual world, i.e. with the non incarnated world.

The term spirituality has to be understood in a very broad way, it comprises our relation to invisible beings, for example God, angels, spiritual guides, non incarnated souls and other non incarnated beings.

Spirituality also comprises questions about the meaning of life and about our personal attitude towards life as a whole and all its related goals and cycles.

Before we continue, let's have a look at the definition of spirituality according to Wikipedia :

«Spirituality, in a narrow sense, concerns itself with matters of the spirit. The spiritual, involving (as it may) perceived eternal verities regarding humankind's ultimate nature, often contrasts with the temporal, with the material, or with the worldly.

A sense of connection forms a central defining characteristic of spirituality – connection to something greater than oneself, which includes an emotional experience of religious awe and reverence. Equally importantly, spirituality relates to matters of sanity and of psychological health.

some forms of religion, spirituality often focuses on personal experience.

Spirituality may involve perceiving life as higher, more complex or more integrated with one's world view; as contrasted with the merely sensual. …»

Why do we show interest in spiritual growth and spiritual information?

According to the definition of spirituality further above, this term comprises not only religiosity of human beings but also very fundamental questions about the meaning of life in a larger context. For obvious reasons these questions have always concerned humankind and philosophy. Everybody gets confronted with these questions, at the latest on the occasion of births and deaths.

Meaningful dealing with spirituality

Some people strictly refuse to acknowledge the existence of spiritual beings (non incarnated beings). Often, the same people dismiss anything, which has not been stringently proven according to scientific rules.

They only accept a rational founded world – irrational things or concepts (e.g. the spirituality) are being suppressed and denied.

By the way, these persons should also for the very same reasons deny the existence of such everyday happenings affection, antipathy, love, hate, fear and so on.

On the other hand, there are many people, who are trying to explain every little event in life with irrational, mystical explanations. Everything has been planned a long time in advance with the help of stars, karmas or whatever.

Often, such persons have at least at times lost their touch to the ground and live in a different world. Their theory that everything is predetermined is not compatible with our free will: I can decide on my own whether I will watch a film at the cinema or whether I stay at home.

The “stars” – or whatever higher influence they are talking about – won't push me to the cinema nor will they hold me back at home.

A meaningful dealing with spirituality is of course somewhere in between these two extreme positions. It does not make sense to deny or discredit spirituality. Neither does it make sense to suppress our material (incarnated) world and to devote oneself exclusively to a spiritual world (see also further below).

What is the benefit of spirituality and spiritual growth?

Spiritual information should serve to understand our life and our life's tasks better and thereby to achieve our purpose of life more easily. A contact to the spiritual world can be in particularly helpful to sense and confirm one's goals and tasks of life. In addition, this spiritual contact can be a tremendously important guide and assistance in our daily life.

We should realize again that the purpose of our incarnation is to live in the material world, to gain some experiences and to develop some of our qualities further (personal growth ).

These experiences are to be made in the material world, therefore it does not make sense and it is even counterproductive to suppress the material world, already mentioned further above. Our qualities, which are to be developed further, are difficult or even impossible to comprehend with our rational intellect.

For this learning process of concepts, which are difficult to grasp by our rational intellect, we can get very important help and assistance from the spiritual world. Therefore it does absolutely make sense to integrate the spiritual world – in other words spirituality – in our daily life.

Spirituality: Information and integration in our daily life

From the above, it can easily be concluded that spirituality should always be integrated in our daily life, in everything we do or do not do. “Always” is to be understood as in all our decisions and deeds both in business and private life.

This is in contradiction to applying or living spirituality a leisure activity only on evenings, or for two hours on Sundays or for two weeks per year in a seminar.

To integrate spirituality in the daily life is somehow similar to wearing clothing: You most ly wear clothes and make sure you are adequately dressed all day round and not just on some rare occasions. You don't walk around naked.

wise you should try to be connected with the spiritual world all day as well in business as in private life. Of course you cannot achieve this from one day to the other – a lot of training is needed.

We have already discussed in a different text that all beings on earth should respect certain cosmic laws. We have called the most important of these cosmic laws «the basic rights of existence».

It states: «The basis of all life on our planet is the equal right of all beings to live here, to develop here and to carry out their tasks here». We automatically train our above mentioned qualities of unconditional love, joy, self-honesty, modesty and humility when we follow this cosmic law.

In other words: The meaning of life is training the above mentioned qualities (or spiritual growth).

Spiritual growth: Information from and about spiritual beings

There are a high number of publications and web pages about spiritual topics and there are an equally high number of publications containing information from spiritual beings, which have been received through channelling. The quality, truthfulness and reliability of such information must be assessed case by case. An universal judgement is not possible.

It can be very fascinating to hear or read about the work, purpose and tasks of non incarnated beings. However for most of us, such information is useful at best for entertainment.

If we, respectively our soul, wanted to learn about the interrelations in the spiritual (non incarnated) world, why then should we incarnate at all? Our soul could have stayed in the spiritual world. The interrelations of the spiritual world are certainly easier to grasp while you indeed are in the spiritual world.

It is little help to our daily life if we know whether we are being supported by three or by five angels. However, it is extremely important to know that we are indeed supported in our daily life by angels and other spiritual beings and that we can ask these beings for help.

Support from spiritual beings for spiritual growth

How do you feel and understand the above mentioned support from the spiritual world? And how can you make sure that this support is real and not just imaginary?

We all have a sensor in us for this purpose. This sensor can and should be trained, however.

Since it is not easy – or even impossible – to understand with our rational intellect, we have given this sensor many different and quite vague names, intuition, gut feeling, heart, inner sense, sixth sense, instinct, etc. As a general rule, this sensor is available to everyone.

Children's sensor is usually much more developed than the ones of adults, however. This is one of the reasons why children can be very important for the personal development of their parents, see here .

Once a certain level of personal consciousness is reached, further development is hardly possible without a good contact to the spiritual world. Dismissing spirituality therefore can have severe consequences for the respective person and soul.

Re-establishing a good contact to the spiritual world is part of our personal growth. For that reason we ought to train this ability ourselves, we should not try to outsource or buy this ability, it won't work.

The development and training of our personal sensor to communicate with the spiritual world has further important advantages:

• In our incarnated world, there is information of different kind available, some of it is perfectly correct and valuable but an awful lot of information is wrong or does not make sense. It would be quite foolish to believe that whatever information you receive from a non incarnated being, should automatically be correct and meaningful. In other words you have to be able to judge the trustworthiness of the information received.

• It might be tempting to ask someone else to get spiritual information on your behalf. While this is not generally bad or dangerous, you have to realize that you make your decisions depending on the abilities and correct interpretation of other people. To finally be able to assess spiritual information yourself is an invaluable advantage for spiritual growth. You thereby minimise the risk of getting manipulated by others.

Spiritual growth: Information on timeforchange.org

the reasoning outlined above, it is of very high concern for us as publishers of timeforchange.org to put spirituality back on the right place in our daily life.

We would to help re-establishing a meaningful integration of spiritual concepts not as interesting leisure activity but as integral part of everything we do or do not do.

What matters in the end, is to be able to live a meaningful life, which allows the soul to develop qualities as planned for the respective incarnation.

Therefore you will on timeforchange.org find some relatively simple and down-to-earth explanations for the general comprehension what life is about and for personal growth as the meaning of life. Additional texts are regularly being added.

Where do you go from here?

A good starting point is the book «ABC of awareness – personal development as the meaning of life». You can read it online or download as pdf (it's free!). But be warned: To read the book, you really need to spend some time. You should be prepared to make some thoughts about personal growth and meaning of our being here.

You may want to register for our free web seminar «Spiritual growth for a higher consciousness».

You may want to read some of our comments to current issues, where we try to assess and discuss current problems of our society with our own higher consciousness.

Источник: //timeforchange.org/spirituality-daily-spiritual-growth

Five Keys to Spiritual Growth for Your Family

In the summer of 2004, God brought me to a deep place of brokenness. I had served as a youth pastor for ten years. Amy and I had been married for the same amount of time, and God had blessed us with four children. The problem was that my heart was at work, not at home.

My passion was to make disciples of the children and youth at church! But I had no vision, and no plan to disciple my own children. I was a spiritual leader at church, but passive at home.

God brought me to repentance, and turned my heart to my most important ministry – leading my family to love and follow God.

The church in North America is facing a crisis. We are losing the majority of our children to the world. According to a range of studies, between 60-80% of children growing up in our churches today are leaving the faith when they become adults. [1]  How could this happen? What can we do about it? Can anything be done to keep our children these statistics?

For many, the first response to this crisis is an urgent call to improve the youth and children’s ministries in our local churches. But the reality is that we have the biggest and best children’s and youth ministries the world has ever seen.

We have paid church staff, caring volunteers, Christian education rooms, great curriculum, and more. The fundamental problem is not the local church, but rather the Christian family.

Up until the early 20th century it was commonly understood that the spiritual training of children was the responsibility of parents and grandparents in the home.

Loving God begins at home

In Matthew 22, Jesus points us to the most important commandment in the Bible, which is found in Deuteronomy 6.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. – Deuteronomy 6:5-7

Immediately following the Great Commandment, God focuses our attention on family life. He speaks specifically to parents to live out their love for Him by doing all in their power to pass their faith to their children. Are we serious about loving God? Then we must be serious about teaching God’s Word diligently to our children.

At the heart of the Great Commandment is family discipleship, with parents being the primary spiritual trainers of their children.

What Can Parents Do?

There are many habits and practices that can spiritually enrich and strengthen your family. Share meals together. Serve your neighbors. Volunteer at church together. Participate in short-term family mission trips. But these are all “icing on the cake.” In order for the icing to “stick” you first have to make a cake.

Bible reading is the heart of family worship.

God calls heads of households to bring the family together in the home for what is referred to in Christian history as “family worship.” “You shall talk of [the Word of God] when you sit in your house.

” Family worship is the time when a household gathers for prayer, Bible reading, and spiritual conversation. Your family eats physical food together in order to nourish your bodies.

Family worship is a spiritual meal to nourish your souls.

Five Keys to “Family Worship”

Has God convicted you to increase the spiritual life in your home? Has God convicted you to take the lead in seeking to impress the hearts of your children with a love for God? Consider mixing and matching these five elements as you grow in the practice of family worship.

1. Activity

Some of the best times of family worship in our home are when we put some energy into preparing a simple activity which helps us get into our Bible reading. This is particularly helpful for younger children. We often play Bible charades.

Invite someone to act out a story from the Bible while others try and guess what it is. Look for simple object lessons which explain spiritual principles.

Do you have children with a wide range of ages? Ask the older children to plan an activity for the younger ones.

2. Singing

God loves it when we sing to Him! When we sing we draw close to Him and to one another. You don’t need to be musically gifted. Put in a worship CD or DVD and sing along. If you begin singing with your children when they are young, you will grow into a family that sings together for generations to come.

3. Bible reading

This is the heart of family worship. What your children need more than anything else is to see you open God’s book and read it with a believing heart! Some days you may simply read a single proverb. Other days you may read a few chapters from a Gospel.

The Word of God is living and active (Hebrews 4:12). The Word of God is able to make you wise unto salvation (1 Timothy 3:15). The enemy will do everything he can to keep your family from reading the Bible together.

This is where the power is to transform your hearts and renew your minds!

4. Discussion

Talk about the Scriptures you read. What truth did you learn from God’s Word? How does that truth apply to your life? Some parents are afraid their children will ask questions to which they don’t know the answers. Don’t worry! Encourage all kinds of questions. Take them to your pastor. Take them to the Lord in prayer.

5. Prayer

My favorite part of the day is when our family of eight get on our knees around our coffee table (our prayer table). We confess our sins. We thank God for His goodness and faithfulness. We pray for those who are sick and suffering. We pray for those who are lost, for them to repent and trust Christ. We pray for God to use our family and our church for His glory around the world.

Just start!

Don’t wait to start family worship in your home until you are a “better Christian.” Don’t wait for your schedule to become less chaotic. Don’t wait for your children to be a little older. Take action today to increase the prayer and Scripture in your home. Family worship is the most important “spiritual meal” your children need – without it they will ly be malnourished in their faith.

True change begins with true repentance. If, me, you have not been leading your family and your children spiritually, confess that to the Lord. Receive His forgiveness through Christ! Ask God to turn your heart to the ministry of your children. Ask Him to make it the number one mission of your life to impress the hearts of your children with a love for God.

Confess also to your family. Tell them how God has convicted you and called you to grow in the practice of family worship. Share with them your fears and anxieties. Invite them to follow you, as you seek to follow Christ.

Guest post by Dr. Rob Rienow

Dr. Rob Rienow’s most important ministry is loving his wife and leading his six children to know and love God. He serves as the founder of Visionary Family Ministries (www.visionaryfam.

com), as a pastor at Gospel Fellowship Church, and is the author of six books including Visionary Parenting, and Limited Church: Unlimited Kingdom: Uniting Church and Family in the Great Commission.

The Rienow family lives in Wheaton, IL

Find a free MP3 and Ebook from Dr. Rob Rienow here (www.visionaryfam.com/free)

Teaching Children About Prayer

Resource – The Holy Bible, English Standard Version “Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.” [1] Rob Rienow, When They Turn Away, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2011).

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Источник: //www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/five-keys-to-spiritual-growth-for-your-family/

Spiritual Growth

Spiritual Growth – What is it? Spiritual growth is detailed in 2 Peter 1:3-8, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.

For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

”

So, spiritual growth includes: (1) increasing in your knowledge and understanding of God's Word, (2) decreasing in your frequency and severity of sin, (3) increasing in your practice of Christ- qualities, and (4) increasing in your faith and trust in God. Perhaps the best summary of spiritual growth is becoming more Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians 11:1, Paul says, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” Jesus Christ is the ultimate example of what it truly means to be spiritual.

Spiritual Growth – How is it done? In order for spiritual growth to occur, you first need to make sure you possess a true spiritual life through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11-12).

When you believe in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit lives inside of you (John 14:16-17) and you are a new creation in Christ! 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” Your old nature, which is dominated by sin, is replaced with a new nature that is under the influence of God's Spirit (Romans 6-7). Spiritual growth can only occur in a person who knows the Lord Jesus Christ as his or her Savior. Learning how to grow spiritually is a life-long journey which occurs as you read and apply God's Word to your life. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 teaches us, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” In order for spiritual growth to occur, we must be taught, rebuked, corrected, and trained by God's Word. Then we will be thoroughly equipped for every good work. This is the essence of spiritual growth. Another key to Christian growth is walking in the Spirit. Galatians 5:16-18, 24-26 explains, “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law…Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”

Walking in the Spirit is allowing Him to fill you (Ephesians 5:18), control you, and guide you. This is brought about by consciously choosing by faith to rely on the Holy Spirit to guide you in thought, word, and deed (Romans 6:11-14). Failure to rely on the Holy Spirit's guidance will result in a believer not living up to the calling and standing that salvation provides. Ephesians 4:1 says, “…I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”

Spiritual Growth – What are the results? Spiritual growth is a life-long process of manifesting the acts of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) less and less and producing the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) more and more. Notice that it is the Holy Spirit who produces the fruit in us.

Yes, we must submit ourselves to the Spirit's leading, but it is the Spirit who produces the fruit of spiritual growth in our lives.

, then you can rest assured that spiritual growth is genuinely occurring in your life.

God works in different people in different ways. Some people grow rapidly, while others grow slowly, but steadily. Our focus should not be on comparing ourselves with others, but on comparing ourselves with God's Word.

The Scriptures are the mirror to show us what we are spiritually and to shine light on the areas that need to experience and learn spiritual growth.

James 1:23-25 declares, “Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks . But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it – he will be blessed in what he does.”

Grow More!

WHAT DO YOU THINK? – We have all sinned and deserve God's judgment. God, the Father, sent His only Son to satisfy that judgment for those who believe in Him. Jesus, the creator and eternal Son of God, who lived a sinless life, loves us so much that He died for our sins, taking the punishment that we deserve, was buried, and rose from the dead according to the Bible. If you truly believe and trust this in your heart, receiving Jesus alone as your Savior, declaring, “Jesus is Lord,” you will be saved from judgment and spend eternity with God in heaven.What is your response?

Yes, today I am deciding to follow Jesus

Yes, I am already a follower of Jesus

I still have questions

Источник: //www.allaboutgod.com/spiritual-growth.htm