Why are you lying to your children?

Ever wonder when christian parents, who take their children to church, bible study, prayed, and read the word of God with their children, and teach them about Jesus. Then take photos of Santa Clause, the Easter bunny, and get money from the tooth fairy. The child then grows up walks away from the faith and may denounce Jesus. The parents then say "I'm not sure what went wrong we took them to Church, read the bible, told them about Jesus." STOP lying to your children.

Proverbs 12:22(NKJV) 22 Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD, But those who deal truthfully are His delight.

It is amazing to me some of the negative response to this, there have been Christ followers who admit they love their children but yet want to deceive them and continue to lie to them.

John 8:44(NKJV) 44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

2 Thessalonians 2:9-11(NKJV) 9 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, 10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie,

Some want to bend God's word to fit their life.

2 Timothy 4:1-5

New King James Version (NKJV) 1 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at[a] His appearing and His kingdom: 2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

Do you really love your children? STOP lying to them.

If your pastor, teacher tell you it is OK to tell your children about santa clause please leave that church and do NOT go back.

Proverbs 12:22 (NKJV)22 Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD, But those who deal truthfully are His delight.

A friends loss of their baby

I didn’t tell very many people that my wife was pregnant due to complications with the pregnancy, and this morning we found out from the doctor that the baby died. Those of you who knew we thank you for your prayers and support. We don’t write this as a plea for sympathy, but to update you on the status of the pregnancy and to edify you through our personal testimony of the sovereignty of God.

We find our comfort knowing that God is both good and sovereign and that He did not merely see into the future that this would happen but that He actually foreordained/caused our child to die in the womb. It is God who actively knits a baby together in his mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13) and it is He who gives life and it is He who has every right to take it away, still He is good (Job 1:21). We know that death is the direct result of sin (Genesis 2:17, Romans 5:12) and that our baby could not have died if he did not have a sin nature (Psalm 51:5). My wife and I both affirm that we all deserved to die in the womb and that we all deserve Hell for our personal rebellion against God (our own sin) and our inherited rebellion against God (Adam’s sin), and anything less than that is God’s mercy, love and grace. Not only did God allow us to live up until this point, but He also sacrificed the Son of God in our place for our sins and gave us His infinite righteousness as a free gift by our faith (Ephesians 2:8) so that we will have eternal life and not experience God’s wrath in Hell!

Although the Bible is silent as to whether all babies who die go to heaven, we know that God chooses at least some to, like King David said when his child died, “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Samuel 12:23). Whether God has chosen to apply Christ’s blood to our baby because of his ignorance of the Gospel, or whether He has chosen to mold our child as a “vessel of wrath prepared for destruction” (Romans 9:22), still “blessed be the name of the Lord!” We believe that whatever God chooses to do with our baby’s soul it is the most righteous judgment: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Genesis 18:25). Through this we better understand God’s mercy toward us as guilty sinners, and even His mercy that this miscarriage wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Please keep my wife and I in your prayers as we grieve the loss of our child and pray that He will see it fit to give us more children like He gave Solomon to David (2 Samuel 12:24).

I've lived a pretty good life. I'll go to heaven, if there is one, won't I?

Some people say, "Well, I'm a Christian. I believe in the Ten Commandments. I try to keep the Golden Rule."

The belief that goodness earns eternal salvation is the single most prevalent misconception about Christian teaching. The question is, by whose standard are you "good"—God's perfect standard or man's imperfect one? Jesus commands us to "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). Yet, as Jesus was implying, no one can meet this standard. No one is good enough to earn salvation. Paul, in Romans 3:10b-11 says, "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God."

You either think you are perfect, or you are asking God to accept some evil, some imperfection. In either case, the sin of pride would condemn us. Sin is anything that fails to meet God's perfect standard. It is sin that separates us from God.

In law and in theology, even a single violation renders a guilty verdict. Christianity recognizes the further truth that our guilt is more than just one or two trespasses, but a continual condition of sinfulness. Not a day passes but each person fails to measure up in some way.

Most people who say they try to follow the Ten Commandments couldn't even name more than two or three of them. Certainly nobody keeps all the Ten Commandments all the time. Yet Christ teaches us an even more profound meaning of sin. He made us aware of the sins of the heart. If we hate or are angry with our brother we have committed murder in our heart. The sin of lust is adultery in the heart.

These characteristics expose the true nature of what is in each of us: prejudice, resentment, jealousy, envy, arrogance, self-centeredness, self-indulgence, greed, covetousness, malice, backbiting, deceit, sloth, unfaithfulness, thoughtlessness, hurtfulness, failure to forgive, rejection of God, and idolatry. If these things were not enough by themselves, our failure to admit our shortcomings is lying. An aspect of our sin is our effort to justify our failings.

Christianity teaches that the sins of omission are as important as the sins of commission. For example, failure to do something good for one's neighbor is as much of a sin as harming one's neighbor. Whom do you know that loves every person in the world as much as he loves himself, and loves God with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30-31)? That is the standard of goodness set by Jesus!

Of all religions or worldviews, only Christianity has as its foundation an understanding that all men are sinners and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23, also Genesis 6:5, 8:21, 1 Kings 8:46, Job 25:4-6, Psalm 14, 51:5, 53:1-3, 58:3, 130:3, Proverbs 14:12, 20:9, Ecclesiastes 7:20, 7:29, 9:3, Isaiah 53:6, 55:8-9, 64:6, Jeremiah 17:9, Mark 7:20-23, John 3:19, 8:34, 44, Romans 3:9-12, 5:12-21, 7:14-25, Ephesians 2:1-3, 1 John 1:8). The question is—Is this true?

Consider this. Would you be willing to let everyone see your thoughts for the last 24 hours projected on the wall in living color? Samuel Johnson used a one-liner, "Every man knows that of himself which he dare not tell his dearest friend."And G.K. Chesterton in his book Orthodoxy, p.15, states, "Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved."

There is a dark side to humanity. God's light reveals everything about us, including our dark side. Yet we tend to run away from the light.

One way to expose the lie that man is really basically good, is to look at communism. Based on the notion that man will work toward the common good (or is at least perfectible through law and evolution), communism has been the greatest failure to those under its ideology.

The evidence of man's sinful nature is overwhelming, as world history cries out to this truth. Anthropologists tell us that one-third of all humans who ever lived died at the hands of other humans. In the twentieth century alone, the most advanced ("enlightened") in all history, well over 100 million people have been murdered by their own governments (Russia, Germany, China, Cambodia, etc). Every day the newspaper headlines prove the truth of man's sin nature. Ninety-nine percent of Americans will be a victim of theft at least once. John Stott (see resource list) notes that every house in America not only has a door, but a lock as well.

We are reminded that hell is a reality. Jesus discussed hell more than any other biblical writer. Hell was in fact his most discussed topic (with angels being number two and love number three). It cannot be overstated that we are so far from the standard of God's holiness that we all deserve eternal punishment in hell. This is very serious business indeed.

The Christian message is one of human beings created "very good" by God, but who are separated from God by their own sin and must be redeemed to become what they were meant to be. Ask yourself whether you are perfect and living a life pleasing to a holy God. Are you absolutely honest, pure, loving, and selfless? Do you love your neighbor as yourself? The human condition is that there are no innocent people. The need for a Savior is evident. Only Christianity provides an ultimate resolution to this dilemma (Romans 3:23-24, 5:8, 6:23, Colossians 1:13-14).

"Because morality has been sublimated into ideology, great numbers of people, the young and educated especially, feel they have an adequate moral identity merely because they hold the 'right' views....They may lead narrow, self-indulgent lives, obsessed with their physical health, material comforts, and personal growth, yet still feel a moral advantage over those who actively work to help the needy but who are, in their eyes, ideologically unsound." --Christina Hoff Summers, "Where Have All the Good Deeds Gone?"

"He that wishes to attain right views about Christian holiness must begin by examining the vast and solemn subject of sin. He must dig down very low if he would build high. A mistake here is most mischievous. Wrong views about holiness are generally traceable to wrong views about human corruption. I make no apology for beginning this volume of papers about holiness by making some plain statements about sin.

"The plain truth is that a right knowledge of sin lies at the root of all saving Christianity. Without it such doctrines as justification, conversion, sanctification, are 'words and names' which convey no meaning to the mind. The first thing, therefore, that God does when he makes anyone a new creature in Christ, is to send light into his heart, and show him that he is a guilty sinner." --J.C. Ryle, Holiness, James Clarke, Cambridge, 1952, p. 1