Generation RX

Fascinating documentary about the over medication of our children. A Dr in this film calls the use of psychiatric prescription drugs the equivalent of administering *Chemical Lobotomies*.

You cant be prescribed a psychotropic drug until you are diagnosed with a mental disorder. There is a book called the DSM that list all the mental disorders Drs can use to label their patients. There are over 300 labels and the list grows every year. Pharmaceutical reps write research and publish the disorders in this book. Talk about a conflict of interest!!!

Very sick scary system, run by money money money.

There is no blood test or xray that can be used to determine a childs need for drugs. Drs are guessing. Here is a supposed expert Dr Mark Vonnegut trying to explain how to diagnose a child with ADHD.



I wonder how many of the 10 million children on these powerful drugs really need to be? How much bad behavior is due to sin, bad parenting, negative peer pressure, just boys that need to run around. Could our childrens depression be a result of a lack of love training and attention? The film doesnt mention the parents responsibility or role in helping train or mold these children, but I know when my children are restless, and disobedient it can almost always be remedied by a shift in my own parenting

Is God Emotional?

How does God want to be worshiped? He has an opinion you know. How would He like me to interact with Him/others? Does He like tears of joy, shouts of praise? When does our sincere praise become carnal emotionalism? Just a few questions I have been considering.

The greatest commandment is to 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' Is it significant that God wants our hearts first, because if He has our hearts our souls and minds will follow?

I think God is indeed emotional, never out of control but never neutral or apathetic. He is a mighty God who is both good and severe. His thoughts are deep and He is touched by the feelings of our infirmities. He is grieved and rejoices. He is at times angry. Jesus wept. If we dont praise Him, rocks will. Angels cry Holy Holy Holy day and night. Paul said if he *got beside himself* it was unto the Lord. The longest book of the Bible is full of emotion, Psalms. We are to worship Him how? In spirit and in truth, forget intellectual theories. He clearly wants our emotions to be alive and well, shouting His praises and declaring His glory.

I think He appreciates when we praise Him with our whole hearts. I cant imagine that He made us feel and experience emotions for any other reason than to give Him glory. Is He jealous when we shout and dance at the ball game but stand still and rigid during church? My tear ducts were made for His glory, that we might cry when we repent and weep when we worship. I have the ability to smile, laugh, and frown all to the glory of God. The Apostles talked about their hearts burning within them when they walked with Jesus.

I understand that there are many people and even whole churches that have turned emotionalism into a selfish act of carnality. Charles Spurgeon said....Ah! dear friends, one half of the emotions excited in our places of worship are of no more value than those excited at the theatre. I love CHS.

I think there may be a fine line between carnal emotionalism and God Glorifying emotionalism, I am looking for that balance. I understand that our emotions will lie to us and out of our hearts come every evil. I also know that our hearts must be subject to His word, but isn't it true that the more we immerse ourselves in His Word the more emotional we become? Doesn't His word fill our hearts with hope and love? I want every tear, shout, frown, laugh, prick of guilt, fear, joy, every emotion I have to glorify God. Hes not impressed with our intellect but a heart that is full of joyful adoration, now that He can work with!

Modest Teens

“We wouldn’t dream of dropping our daughters off at college and saying: ‘Study hard and floss every night, honey—and for heaven’s sake, get laid!’ But that’s essentially what we’re saying by allowing them to dress the way they do while they’re still living under our own roofs.”—Jennifer Moses.

Entertainment #2

Pastor preached a message about reining in our obsession with entertainment. Here are the questions he laid out that we should use to determine if our entertainment glorifies God.

#1Does it celebrate or glorify sin? Romans 1:32 Not only do we need to abstain from sin we dont need to approve of or celebrate those who are sinning.
#2 Does it Help or hurt in your walk with God? 1 Cor 10:23 1 Cor 6:12
#3 Does it build up: edify or tear down? Not just myself but others, those I am watching and those in my life that are affected by my use of time, and those I influence by my entertainment choices? 1Cor 10:2
#4 Does it control you? Do you control it? Are you brought *under its power*?
#5 Does it redeem the time or waste it? Ephesians 5:16 Col 4:5

Entertainment

Hope John Piper doesnt mind if I use some of his wisdom here.....

#1 Recognize if you are consumed/obsessed with entertainment. This could be videos, sport, internet, Facebook, card games....anything that is frivolous and doesnt redeem the time.

#2 Seek the Lord about your obsession. Confess, repent and pray earnestly for deliverance. We have no real self control without the Spirit of God. Self control is a fruit of HIS Spirit not something we can muster up.

#3 Immerse yourself in the Word, ask the Lord to make His word come alive and thrill us in a more genuine way than any worldly entertainment. Read it when you would rather be entertained.

#4 Hang out with Godly people who love God and His ways and Word. Avoid carnal people who just want to be entertained by the sludge of this world.

#5 Think about your death. How do you want to spend you few precious days here. Redeem your fleeting days on earth for HIS GLORY!

God awakened in me a fear and a passion not to waste my life. The thought of coming to my old age and saying through tears,"I've wasted it! I've wasted it!" was a fearful and horrible thought to me.~J Piper

Parenting Myths

#1 You can immerse a foolish child in a room full of foolish children and expect something wise to come out of it.

#2 There are 2 Bibles one for adults and one for children.

#3 Children need to be segregated with other same aged children in church, and school.

#4 Children are too dumb, carnal, hyper (insert any excuse) to understand Biblical principals, the things of God need to be presented in an entertaining way as to compete with the world.

#5 Children are best taught about Jesus by the church and arithmetic by the government schools. All training should be outsourced by experts and professionals.

#6 If my child is not responding to Godly training then I should let that dictate how I train. I should cater my methods to how my child responds, and not the Bible.

#7 If I home school, spank, shelter and listen to Voddie Bauchman my children will turn out well and live for God. Wrong. I am starting to think smiling at them is more important than all the above combined.

#8 If children aren't socialized with worldly peers they wont know how to relate to them when they leave home.

#9 My children are called to be soul winners and they cant be light and salt unless they are immersed in public school and other age segregated cattle programs.

#10 All children go through stages of tantrum throwing , rebellion, hyper activity, (insert any sinful behavior) so I'm justified to ignore it and chalk it up as *just a stage*.

Word Search

The Bible talks about people who strain at gnats and swallow camels, they obsess and fuss over small issues while neglecting the weightier issues like faith, justice and mercy.

I did a quick word search to try to find out what God thinks important enough to mention over and over again in His word. I pray these ongoing themes would be the ongoing themes of my heart. God let my actions words and deeds scream where your Words screams and let my life whisper where your Word whispers.

These are the most common nouns in the Bible.

Lord 7970 times

God 4094 times

Man 3323 times

King 2504 times

Sin 1016 times

New Testament

Jesus-1310
Say-442

Glory-338
Faith-287
Brother-275
Law-275
Love-261
Good-238
Kingdom-155
Grace-114
Sin-104
One Another-100
Pharisee-99
Poor-41
Trinity-0

Single Purpose

This passage seems like a bit of a contradiction.

The Bible tells us to look at this example, this perfect example, Jesus, who was able to find joy, in the midst of the shame He endured on the cross. Naked, isolated, tortured, yet He was able to find joy because to give God glory is why Christ was created. His single purpose was being fulfilled. Joy. Something about obedience, obeying His commands, giving Him glory brings JOY, and isn't it true that so much of our joy is indeed found in the midst of suffering he has orchestrated for His glory?

Hebrews 12:2

2Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Lacking ANY value in restraining sensual indulgence

Colossians 2:18-23
18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. 19 They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Wanna Be Great?

So you want to be great? You want to be first? Sure you do, I do, my kids do. We all want significance and we'd like to be first in line to get it please.

I find it amazing that when the disciples argued about this desire for greatness our Lord didnt rebuke them or correct that desire in them, rather He told them how to go about it. Called all 12 of them together for a mandatory How to Be Great Meeting, because like I said, it seems we all want to be great...all 12 of 'em needed to hear Jesus on this subject.

Jesus didnt tell his disciples that their desire to be great was wrong He just explained that in Gods economy the first shall be last and if you want to be great you have to serve. Beautiful huh? Clear instructions from the Lord himself on how to be great. Really great. Significant and worth something.

Now doesnt this help remove the guilt for feeling like our need for significance is a sin, and it removes the pressure to elevate ourselves through worldly measures, because honestly there are plenty of openings for servant positions. Get in line...the last of the line. ;-)

33 Jesus asked them....“What were you arguing about on the road?” 34 But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. 35 Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

Outside Influences

Heres a quote about socializing our children by L E Krueger, from her book Raising Godly Tomatoes...

"Removing the TV and choosing to homeschool are two of the most obvious and effective solutions to the problem of wrong influences, but beyond those, one of the most enjoyable and simple things you can do to produce godly, loving children, is to keep them doing more things with you and fewer things with other children outside of your family. If you keep them with you and teach them all you know about godliness, AND you keep them away from wrong influences when they are young, you will scarcely have to worry about anything else. You will eliminate a myriad of problems that result from allowing or encouraging your children to frequently socialize with other children.

If anyone doubts how much good this can do, just read carefully the many desperate stories of Christian mothers whose children are straying, and pay strict attention to how much the matter of "outside influences" factored into the problems they are having. If you are honest in your assessment, you will find that a vast number of these problems are the direct result of the influence of "friends" outside the family. This is where your children will learn values other than yours. This is where your children will pick up attitudes that are anti-family and anti-authority. This is where your children will be exposed to many things you never wanted them to be have anything to do with. This is where they will lose their loyalty toward you and God and turn their loyalty toward the world. If you want to raise your children to choose the Lord as their God, you must reject the world's unrelenting chant that your children "need" to socialize outside your home. Instead, you must believe the Lord when He says, "Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate."

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

Just read this fascinating article Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior . I dont agree with all of it and certainly dont admire the Chinese Mothers motives which are based on pride and selfish ambition but I do agree with some of the techniques and reasoning behind what makes a Chinese Mother Superior. Heres the portion that really stood out to me...

"Sucess often require fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America... "

I think this paragraph holds the key, pushing past the initial challenges until the challenge becomes our childrens character.

I think the secret to success or failure in parenting lies in our willingness to invest huge amounts of time and energy initially in order to enjoy fruit later. Training, disciplining, teaching at home, ...all take alot of time initially.

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Hebrew 12:11

I think the Chasten your son while there is hope...scripture points to this theory. We have a limited window of oppurtunity to train and correct our children, just a set amount of time while there is hope. If we are lazy and not diligent during those crucial training years then there really isnt much hope that we can or ever will influence our children. Chinese moms dont waste that time, their motives are often selfish and perhaps even a bit evil but still the law of the harvest is a law God has ordained, it works....you plant, water sow ect...you reap. For Chinese moms its a harvest of academic excellence, but I think we could certainly apply these principals to training little hearts for God.

Passive Christianity?

I love it when I feel Jesus teaching me, I know He is always teaching me and the times when I dont feel Him are sometimes His most teachable moments, but isnt it nice when we can hear, see and feel Him?

I feel Him teaching me that living for God is not passive, cant be. We cant say a prayer of repentance and move on, repentance needs a plan. Wisdom is something to be desired but a simple prayer for wisdom wont produce it. In regards to obtaining wisdom the Word makes it clear that we are to diligently seek wisdom....Proverbs 2 tells us to do these thing in order to obtain wisdom.

• accept
• store up
• turn your ear
• apply your heart
• call out
• cry aloud
• search for it as silver

Christianity cant be passive, its impossible for His Spirit to sit stagnant. He ever liveth.

Ephesians 4:14,15 - Be no longer children, but grow up in Christ.

2 Peter 3:18 - but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

2 Thessalonians 1:3 - The Thessalonians grew exceedingly in faith.

Philippians 1:9 - Paul prayed for their love to abound more and more.

Forgive Our Debts AS We Forgive

Forgive our debts, as we also forgive our debtors... Matthew 6:12.

I am constantly in need of forgiveness, I need the Lord to replace my nature with His Spirit. This scripture tells me that my sins will be forgiven in direct proportion to how I have forgiven others. As. One word. So significant. Also significant to me is the fact that this prayer about forgiveness is supposed to be prayed every.single.day. It helps me to know that Christ knew I would *daily* struggle with this forgiveness thing. No becoming discouraged, Christ makes provisions doesnt He?

For if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive you your sins" Matthew 6:14-15