Is Jesus just your imaginary friend or is He an unseen constant reality of your life?
You just might want to think about that for a minute. The next generation may hinge on that answer.
Generational faith training requires that parents take an active role in shaping the faith of the next generation. It is following the Biblical mandate from Deuteronomy 6:1-12 where Moses commanded :
A new aspect, however, has come to my feeble-minded attention span via AW Tozer's The Pursuit of God. While laying out the case for incorporating a deeper and passionate relationship with God that many Christians miss, Tozer notes the following:
A clear distinction needs to be made here though. God is not an imaginary friend that you talk to when you are bored.
How you interact with God on a daily basis will impact your child's view of God. If you treat Jesus as a mystery person that you talk to about once a week that becomes the reality for your kids. Jesus joins the holiday posse of Santa and the E Bunny as imaginary beings that do nice things for you on occasion.
One of the great challenges of faith training the next generation is incorporating Jesus into every aspect of life and making kids realize that HE IS REAL. Kids need to understand that faith is not the same as imagination. We don't project our version of Jesus. We learn to see the truth Jesus through His Scripture and communion with the Holy Spirit. Through faith we can see the invisible as it actually exists not as our imagination crafts it to be. Sometimes that truth is uncomfortable but it doesn't make it any less true.
If one of the sad truths of the modern church era is that statistically the largest percentage of folks who walk away from church do so upon entering college for the primary reason of faith not being applicable to their lives, we need to do a better job at helping kids uncover the REALITY of Jesus before its too late.
Sadly, for many of us (myself included) this means uncovering the REALITY of Jesus for ourselves first. Too often we compartmentalize and allow the temporal physical aspects of this world to define our ambitions, our priorities and our lifestyle. Like Adam and Eve's feast on forbidden fruit (and quite frankly like cats chasing a laser pointer) we get easily distracted by the newest and brightest shiny object in front of us.
That veil of "imagination" shrouding the true reality of the spiritual world needs to be torn down. We can't afford to continue to drape our beliefs into warm and cozy images that we construct ourselves.
Jesus came both to bring a SWORD and ABUNDANT LIFE.
So Deuteronomy Six-ize your faith first and then your kids will follow. Pray for deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit and deeper revelation of who Jesus is.
Don't settle for Santa.
Imagination is great and fun and provides for hours of entertainment. It does not, however, provide salvation. Only spiritual truth can uncover that reality of God found in Christ.
That is the ultimate adventure that no fairy tale could touch and it ain't hopping down no bunny trail or shimmying down the chimney.
You just might want to think about that for a minute. The next generation may hinge on that answer.
Generational faith training requires that parents take an active role in shaping the faith of the next generation. It is following the Biblical mandate from Deuteronomy 6:1-12 where Moses commanded :
“1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all His decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. “3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you. 4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. 10 When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you--a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, 11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant--then when you eat and are satisfied, 12 be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”Now, I have talked ad nauseam about this passage. I've blogged about it. I'm writing a book about it.
A new aspect, however, has come to my feeble-minded attention span via AW Tozer's The Pursuit of God. While laying out the case for incorporating a deeper and passionate relationship with God that many Christians miss, Tozer notes the following:
"Imagination is not faith. The two are not only different from, but stand in sharp opposition to, each other. Imagination projects unreal images out of the mind and seeks to attach reality to them. Faith creates nothing: It simply reckons upon that which is already there. God and the spiritual world are real. We can reckon upon them with as much assurance as we reckon upon the familiar world around us."Tozer goes on to say that we can't really comprehension the realness and authenticity of God and the spiritual world because of our sin nature:
"But sin has so clouded the lenses of our hearts that we cannot see that other reality, the City of God, shining around us. The world of sense triumphs. The visible becomes the enemy of the invisible; the temporal, of the eternal. That is the curse inherited by every member of Adam's tragic race. At the root of the Christian life lies belief in the invisible. The object of the Christian's faith is unseen reality. Our uncorrected thinking, influenced by the blindness of our natural hearts and the intrusive ubiquity of visible things tends to draw a contrast between the spiritual and the real; but actually no such contrast exists. The antithesis lies elsewhere: between the real and the imaginary, between the temporal and the eternal; but between the spiritual and the real, never. The spiritual IS real."Those of us entrusted with cultivating the faith view of the next generation (see all of us) must keep these truths in mind. Our Homeboy Jesus often chatted about the importance of child-like faith. He chastised the crew to let the little kids come to him. Kids have that natural ability to believe in the unseen. You've got your Santa Claus, Easter Bunny and monsters under the bed as just a few examples.
A clear distinction needs to be made here though. God is not an imaginary friend that you talk to when you are bored.
How you interact with God on a daily basis will impact your child's view of God. If you treat Jesus as a mystery person that you talk to about once a week that becomes the reality for your kids. Jesus joins the holiday posse of Santa and the E Bunny as imaginary beings that do nice things for you on occasion.
One of the great challenges of faith training the next generation is incorporating Jesus into every aspect of life and making kids realize that HE IS REAL. Kids need to understand that faith is not the same as imagination. We don't project our version of Jesus. We learn to see the truth Jesus through His Scripture and communion with the Holy Spirit. Through faith we can see the invisible as it actually exists not as our imagination crafts it to be. Sometimes that truth is uncomfortable but it doesn't make it any less true.
If one of the sad truths of the modern church era is that statistically the largest percentage of folks who walk away from church do so upon entering college for the primary reason of faith not being applicable to their lives, we need to do a better job at helping kids uncover the REALITY of Jesus before its too late.
Sadly, for many of us (myself included) this means uncovering the REALITY of Jesus for ourselves first. Too often we compartmentalize and allow the temporal physical aspects of this world to define our ambitions, our priorities and our lifestyle. Like Adam and Eve's feast on forbidden fruit (and quite frankly like cats chasing a laser pointer) we get easily distracted by the newest and brightest shiny object in front of us.
That veil of "imagination" shrouding the true reality of the spiritual world needs to be torn down. We can't afford to continue to drape our beliefs into warm and cozy images that we construct ourselves.
Jesus came both to bring a SWORD and ABUNDANT LIFE.
So Deuteronomy Six-ize your faith first and then your kids will follow. Pray for deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit and deeper revelation of who Jesus is.
Don't settle for Santa.
Imagination is great and fun and provides for hours of entertainment. It does not, however, provide salvation. Only spiritual truth can uncover that reality of God found in Christ.
That is the ultimate adventure that no fairy tale could touch and it ain't hopping down no bunny trail or shimmying down the chimney.
