TLP 268: Obedience that Knows, Part 1

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Your children are likely the shining example of the fact that children do not burst from the womb loving and obeying.

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So this series is called Teach Your Children to Obey. Welcome to Truth, Love, Parents, where we use

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God's Word to become intentional premeditated parents. Here's your host,

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AM Brewster. Lord willing, when you hear this episode, I and my family will be on vacation. We have the opportunity to see

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Niagara Falls this summer and it'll be the first time for all four of us. So we're really excited about that. Now when it comes to the next four episodes, to be honest, this was not my original plan.

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My deepest desire is to produce two brand new episodes every week of the year, but the

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Lord frequently has different plans for me. So despite my best efforts with the normal business of life, my recent injury and trying to wrap up the victory school year with family camp,

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I was completely unable to work ahead so that four new episodes could post while I was away.

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I failed. Oh, well, of course, this is actually good. You know, we're regularly gaining new listeners and not everyone chooses to go back to our pilot season and start from the beginning.

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So there are a ton of amazing past episodes that some listeners will never hear if they only listen to the new shows.

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So for the next two weeks, we're going to revisit our Teach Your Children to Obey series. If there's anything worth revisiting or learning for the first time,

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I'm pretty sure this is a good choice. So even though I'd rather have produced four original episodes, including our two -part

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Isaiah 11 parent for Father's Day, I believe the Lord will use these review episodes to be a blessing to many of you.

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And we'll get to the Isaiah 11 father and all the other episodes at the end of season 10 and into season 11.

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If you'd like to get the episode notes for today's series, just click on the link below and you'll be taken to the blog post for the original series.

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All right, let's learn how to teach our kids to do right. Let's jump into today's topic.

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It's a big deal and it's so incredibly important. We're going to discuss what obedience is and how we can help our children grow in their obedience to God and man.

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Let's start with a little review from our study in love. One of the most profound truths from that study that smacked me upside the head is that love demands obedience.

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Do you remember how many passages we read where Jesus made it perfectly clear that there is no way we can love

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Him if we're disobeying Him? Well, the same is true with you and your kids. They cannot say they love you if they're disobeying you.

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There's another foundation stone we have to lay as well. The first is that obedience requires love. The second is that obedience must be learned.

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Hebrews 5, 8 referring to Jesus says, although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.

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Referring to the same situation, Philippians 2, 8 tells us, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

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Think about that. This is very similar to Luke 2, 52 that tells us, and Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

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Now, we just don't have the time to discuss how it is that the perfect God, man, Jesus Christ increased in anything or learned anything.

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But the simple point I want to make is that like love, obedience must be learned. Your children do not come hardwired to agape and then by extension to obey.

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And no doubt, this truth does not surprise you. Your children are likely the shining example of the fact that children do not burst from the womb loving and obeying.

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So this series is called Teach Your Children to Obey. But today's subtitle is What Should They Do?

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Over the next four episodes, we're going to build a working definition of obedience. That definition is going to have four vital parts.

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I'd argue that obedience, quote unquote, that doesn't conform to all four parts of our definition isn't true obedience.

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And I believe that most of us are functioning off of an amputated understanding of biblical obedience.

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Now, with that said, the first part of our definition isn't going to seem that surprising. Here it is. Number one, obedience is doing the right thing.

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Again, that sounds simple enough, but let me tell you, just that one sentence causes a lot of trouble.

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What is right? How can we know what's right? What if parents tell their children to do something that's not right?

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Who's right when mom and toddler disagree? Who's right when dad and teen disagree? Who's right when mom and adult child disagree?

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Does the fact that you're older make you right? Let me start by saying that you cannot, it is impossible for you to teach the concept of true biblical obedience without first teaching biblical doctrine.

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Your children won't be able to understand what obedience is unless they learn some apologetics. It's always been the

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Christian parents' highest calling to teach their children the varied and deep truths of God. We saw that in episode 92,

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Christian Parenting 101. Thankfully, our Christian culture seems to be catching back up with that calling.

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We've seen the importance of teaching children apologetics coming back into the church. Now, if you want to learn more about teaching your children how to know, understand, and explain the truths of God, I strongly encourage you to read anything

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Natasha Crane has written. That includes her two books and her blog at ChristianMomThoughts .com.

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I'm going to include a link to her blog in the description. And you can learn more about Natasha and her work by listening to episodes 66 and 105.

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But here's the reason your children will need to learn some doctrine before they can truly understand obedience.

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If obedience is doing what's right, we must grapple with the doctrine of truth.

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This is Philosophy 101. Do you remember my definition of philosophy from the Mirrors Christianity series? I said that philosophy is why you do what you do.

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In that series, we discovered why people in general, and your children in particular, do what they do. We learned how to determine what their philosophy of life is.

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We learned how to know what they believe. In John 18, 38, Pilate looked into the eyes of the way, the truth, and the life, and he asked, what is truth?

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That question has echoed down the annals of time as it has been asked and re -asked by every human who's ever lived.

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And until Christ comes back, that question will continue to be asked. It must be asked.

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Whether or not truth exists, whether or not right exists, and what that truth happens to be will directly and powerfully affect every human alive today.

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It will affect your children, especially in this area of obedience. What is truth?

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What is right? Why do your children have to obey? Do they have to obey?

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Well, we don't really have time to discuss this question at length to get super apologetical, so let's answer it by making one observation.

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Without God, right and wrong cannot exist. If we're just the product of evolution, if there are no absolute truths, if everyone does what's right in his own eyes, then there can be no objective definition for truth or right.

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The best you can hope for is to hang out with people who think like you do, but you likely will be outshouted by any group that's larger than yours and believes differently, so you better collect as many people to your side as possible if you want to be able to live the way you want to live.

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But you likely won't find anyone who thinks exactly like you do, so you're either going to have to convince them or threaten them to agree with you.

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Eventually, when your group is big enough to legislate your definition of right and enforce obedience to your definition of right, then you should congratulate yourself because you've done exactly what every culture and government has ever done.

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Of course, the same fate of every other nation will also be yours. Eventually, another group of people who believe that truth is different from your definition, they will overthrow you or their ideas will outlive you.

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And once you're gone, every other human will have to do what you did. They'll have to figure out what they think is right and hopefully find others who agree with them so they can live out the rest of their lives in some shallow semblance of peace.

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So basically, truth will have to be what you make it because there can be no objective, absolute truth without there being an objective, absolute authority.

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But since God is who he says he is, then as the creator of the universe, he gets to decide what is right and wrong.

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And since he never changes, his definition of right and wrong will never change. All truth then is

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God's truth because all truth, everything that is right, is anything and everything that God says to do.

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Why do your children have to do what you say? What makes what you want them to do right? Well, if it conforms to God's commands or principles, then you know it's right.

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Let's look at some biblical examples of this. In Genesis 4, 3 through 7, we read, Here we see that God is the one who decides what doing well is.

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He also gets to decide the consequences for doing right and wrong, and he helps us know how to overcome the temptation to do wrong.

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In Leviticus 10, 1 through 2, we read, And fire came out from before the

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Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. God gets to authorize what's right.

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And again, he gets to prescribe the consequences for not doing right. And in Acts 5, 1 through 11, we learn about a couple named

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Ananias and Sapphira. Most of you will be familiar with their story. They sold a piece of property and decided to give a portion of it to God.

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But when they presented it to Peter, they lied and said that they were giving the whole amount. Now, there would have been nothing wrong with them keeping the property.

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There would have been no problem with keeping all of the money, let alone only giving some of it to the church. But they lied.

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They lied to God, and he gets to decide what's right and wrong. And lying is wrong. Now, before we move on, this truth may concern some people.

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I believe it's one of the reasons many thoughtful individuals reject the conclusions to which I've come. If God gets to choose what's right and what's wrong, and if God were like us, we wouldn't have any more confidence in God than the

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Romans did in their capricious deities. But God is not only the ultimate authority who gets to choose what's right and wrong.

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He's the ultimate loving authority. That love compels him to do what's in our best interest.

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He's also the ultimate loving, holy authority. He will never change. What's right will always be right, and what's wrong will always be wrong.

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We have no need to fear the fact that God defines truth. In fact, as we saw earlier, that reality gives us purpose and peace and the ability to know that we're doing right and asking our children to do the same.

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Again, I highly suggest you read Natasha's first book, Keeping Your Kids on God's Side. Part two is all about truth and worldviews, so it deals with this question of truth in far more detail than we can here.

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So if obedience is doing what's right, then there are two responsibilities. The first one is on us as parents.

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We need to only ask our children to do what's right. That requires knowledge of God and consistency on our part.

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Listen, my friends, if you want to be the best parent you can be, you need to douse yourself in the

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Bible. You need to swim its length and breadth and wash in its purifying fathoms.

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You need to lead your children by following God. You need to command what he commands. You need to be his ambassador.

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And if you're a little confused because the Bible doesn't seem to say anything about whether our children should have to make their beds, then

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I highly suggest you listen to our last episode. I believe we did a good job of answering the question, what should our children love to do?

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And the second responsibility lands on our kids. If what they've been asked to do is right, then they must do it.

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To not do it would be disobedience. To not obey is sin. And based off what we learned today, a mature child will love to obey.

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If they love God, they'll obey him. If they're obeying God, they're going to love and obey you.

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It will be a joy. Of course, our children aren't mature. That's why God gave us to them.

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Now, our first big question was, what's the first part of our definition for obedience? Well, obedience is doing what's right.

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Our second big question is, how do I teach this to my children? But before we answer that second question,

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I want all of us parents to understand the severity of the issue we're discussing. It's not okay to let your children disobey.

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It's not loving to let them do whatever they want to do. Let's consider Romans 6, 16 through 18.

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Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

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Paul presents this as something we should all know. If you present yourself to someone as a slave, you belong to them.

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Now, with that seemingly obvious metaphor, Paul tells us that if we enslave ourselves to sin, we will earn death.

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But if we enslave ourselves to obedience, we inherit righteousness. Do you see how important this is?

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We are not loving parents when we encourage our children to enslave themselves to sin. How can we allow our child to throw a temper tantrum or listen to music that doesn't glorify

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God? Why would we let our daughter date that guy whom we've told her to stop hanging around?

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How can it be loving when we don't correct our children's unkind speech? Every time they disobey, they're enslaving themselves to sin.

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They're earning death. And then he goes on to give us the hope that should embolden us to teach our children to obey.

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He says, but thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

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Praise God that those of us who were slaves to sin and death can become servants of obedience.

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Now human slavery to humans is a terrible thing, and nearly everyone listening to me today has some very strong opinions on the subject, and rightly so.

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We all understand that it was nearly impossible for slaves to become free. War is him and fought on this battleground.

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Generally the only way a slave could gain a new master was if their previous master sold them. And that's exactly the picture we have in scripture.

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God graciously offers to buy back those who submit to him. Now still, this idea, no matter how beautiful and amazing it is, won't sit well with some of you.

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You don't like the idea of being set free from one master only to be enslaved to another. That flies in the face of our inherent desire to be our own

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God. And your kids are in the exact same position. But the reality is that there is no such thing as the freedom, quote unquote, defined by Hollywood.

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We are always subject to someone. I mean, seriously, there are a few humans who genuinely are free from any responsibility to other men, but everyone is responsible to God.

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We're either a slave to sin or a slave to God. There are no other options. But the joyous reality is that we get to be a slave of God.

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And when we stop being disobedient, we inherit righteousness and life. There is hope for all of us.

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There is hope for your children. And that's why we teach them to obey. God is worth it.

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He deserves your children's love and obedience. He wants to give them righteousness and life. We need to bless our kids by teaching them the joys of obedience to the right master.

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So how do we do this? Well, number one, it starts by teaching them who

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God is and how truth cannot exist without God. The atheist worldview is a depressing one indeed.

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Number two, we need to introduce them to God in a way that they are in awe of Him. He is an awesome

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God. Do you remember last time when we discussed teaching your kids how to love something? Do you remember the importance of passion?

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Are you passionate about the awesomeness of God? Do you want your kids to be passionate about obeying you, but you're not passionate about obeying

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Christ? We need to model for our kids the unfathomable amazingness of God.

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Number three, we need to teach them what love is. Have you taken your family through the four family loves study yet?

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You have to do that. Our kids need to understand what love truly is. Number four, as they study love, they'll learn that God demands obedience to Himself and to their parents.

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And five, then teach them what biblical obedience is. And we learned the first part of that today.

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Obedience is doing the right thing. Have them learn that sentence. They should be able to quote it before we meet again.

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What is obedience? Obedience is doing what's right. Were you doing right? No. Were you loving

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God and loving your Father? No. Okay, so what do you need to do now? Along these lines, please listen to episodes 115 and 116.

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They're all about speed parenting. They build off the principles shared in the Mirrors Christianity series and teach us how to get to the most important part of our parenting, even when there's very little time.

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But before we go, I want to posit one more question. Can we say that our children love us just because they do what we ask them to do?

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Is that obedience? Is that it? Just obedience is doing what's right. I think that question is so important to this discussion and hopefully by the time we're done discussing it, our understanding of obedience will deepen to such a degree that it first impacts our relationship with God and second equips us to teach our children what true obedience is.

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That's why our next episode is entitled, How Should They Do It? We'll see that it's not enough to do the right things if we don't do them the right way.

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I plan to not only help us understand the second facet of true obedience, but we'll walk away with a number of super practical helps for teaching it to your children.

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And I think it'd be awesome if you shared this episode. What parent doesn't want to help their children obey better?

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Throw this out there on social media and see how God uses it to bless some family. As always, we have episode notes for you over at truthloveparent .com,

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so feel free to click the link below. And if today's show was a blessing to you and you're interested in learning how you can be a blessing to us, please click on the five ways to support

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TLP link down below. We'd love for you to partner with us in our ministry to parents and families all over the world.

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Did you know that the four family love series has been listened to by families in over 30 different countries?

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Make sure you don't miss that great family study. As I observed before, your children may not know how to obey now, but they can learn.

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But we won't be able to teach them if we don't know what it is ourselves. So I'll see you next time.

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Truth. Love. Parents is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent.

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Join us next time as we search God's Word for the truth your family needs today.