You see me how?

The Menold Minutes:
"Our encouragement should always stimulate praise for God’s grace rather than for our goodness."


This quote is from Elyse M. Fritzpatrick in her book Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus .  I am reading this great book on how to infuse the gospel into our childrens lives.  I am realizing that all my compliments of telling them how good they are may be misleading their thoughts of themselves.  I may be creating a self inflation which may result in self hatred one day when they realize that they can not measure up.  They cannot control their sin without the power of the omnipotent God.  I am bound and determined to change the way I speak to them so that they understand that they are not good because of something they have done.  We are sinners.  They are sinners.  We sin, that is what sinners do.  We trick ourselves into believing that if we pray more, have consistent time with the Lord, go to church, or are in a bible study that we are good.  Those are good things, but that is not what makes us good.  Paul talks of our 




Have you ever been so frustrated over your sin you think you hate yourself? Maybe not you, but I have been there.  Recently.  What really happened was I fell into the lie that I was a horrible believer because I couldn't control my sin nature.   I let the thoughts of my weaknesses overwhelm me.  It is kind of silly looking back.  Did I really think that I would master not sinning?  It is funny how one can think one understands the gospel and yet in the midst of refining, the Spirit reveals to you that you really don't understand because you find yourself in self-hatred. God doesn't want us to walk in self-hatred,  nor a sense of self-inflation.   Tim Keller says, "                        ".  


So I wrestle with God.  If I need His strength to have victory, then why am I feeling like a failure.  






I confess to going through a period recently of self-hatred which felt like fire burning in my heart.  Every sin was illuminated.  The more illuminated sin was, the more I began to hate who I was.  I fell into the lie that I was a horrible believer because I couldn't control my sin nature.  Unconsciously, I was saying that God needed my help in bringing Glory to Himself.  Knowing that He is my power is much different than my actions showing that He is my Power.    But the truth is I had to  believe that in my weakness He is my strength and only He can give that strength to me.  Therefore, He will be glorified in my  weakness.   I am a sinner.  I struggled with accepting my imperfections, not believing that I was justified and redeemed. The result was self-hatred.  I am reading a book,                                .  With one simple sentence in that book, the Spirit spoke to me:  God looks at you as obedient children.  The 'ah-ha' moment for me.  This simple truth has been transforming my heart since.  It is ironic that I felt bad that because of my sin that God was not getting Glory, when Ephesians (          ) tells us (  ) and God is getting glory in those moments of my weakness.  Paul tells us, "            ".


Our encouragement should always stimulate praise for God’s grace rather than for our goodness.

Fitzpatrick, Elyse M. / Thompson, Jessica (2011-05-06). Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus (p. 43). Good News Publishers/Crossway Books. Kindle Edition.





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