\u201cAre you Jesus?\u201d the child asked me.<\/p>\n
I was teaching a Sunday school class when a four-year-old asked me this revealing question. Authority figures are all in the same concrete, mental category for a child. All are good or all are bad. Since I was in authority, then I must be good just like Jesus.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s difficult for a child to imagine the invisible or to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Children are concrete thinkers. So, I must represent all that Jesus is or does. A parent is the first picture of God a child sees.<\/p>\n
The character transfers from my personality to God\u2019s are almost automatic for the young child. If I yell, God must yell. If I am critical, God must be critical. If I love, God must love.<\/p>\n
As a child matures, he begins to distinguish between God and a parent. If a parent\u2019s actions conform to God\u2019s character, then a child isn\u2019t confused when a parent teaches and trains him in right or wrong. But if glaring inconsistencies exist or if the parent never admits to being wrong, then a child faces a moral dilemma. Who am I to trust? God? My parent? Neither?<\/i><\/p>\n
Paul writes, \u201cImitate me as I imitate Christ\u201d (1 Cor. 11:1). That\u2019s bold. That\u2019s real. That\u2019s the way parents must live out life before their children.<\/p>\n
Be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity <\/i>(1 Tim. 4:12).<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cAre you Jesus?\u201d the child asked me. I was teaching a Sunday school class when a four-year-old asked me this revealing question. Authority figures are all in the same concrete, mental category for a child. All are good or all are bad. Since I was in authority, then I must be good just like Jesus. … Continue reading “29 YOU BECOME AN EXAMPLE WHEN YOUR WORD AND
\nWAY LINE UP WITH GOD\u2019S WORD AND WAY.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}