Mrs. Long and I made some New Year’s resolutions and one of our resolutions for 2019 is to read together through Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening every morning and evening. The benefit that often comes with reading older Christian authors is how they break through surface level authenticity and expose our wayward hearts. January 8th’s morning devotional described various sinful motives for living righteously, and sadly many were applicable to me. This impressed upon me the necessity of the Holy Spirit to bear His fruit in my life and how easy it can be to live the “Christian” life for all the wrong reasons.
I am afraid this living the “Christian” life for all the wrong reasons can easily apply to our young people as well. To address this, they will need to be asked the why question when we catch them doing right. Are students doing right to get something, or to avoid something, or to please someone? When the right thing is done, not to glorify the Saviour, it is feeding our pride, our vanity or our selfishness. How do we/they, make the necessary paradigm shift and truly live the Christian life motivated and empowered by the third person of the Trinity rather than themselves/ourselves. Ask your children how people can do what is right for sinful reasons. Tell them how you do what is right for wrong, sinful motivations and strive together to obey for the right motivations.
