Here and There on the www...

A few worthwhile reads from around the world wide web, with little excerpts to spark your interest... *wink*

On Parenting:

"Kids...need to learn that the root issue is their sin, and they need to be taught the remedy for their sin. Chastisement is not for the benefit of frustrated parents. It's supposed to be for the benefit of the child. And in order to get the full benefit, they need to understand that the real problem is their sin - sin that offends God." ~John MacArthur

Parenting: It's Never an Interruption

"The sin, weakness, rebellion, or failure of your children is never an imposition on your parenting. It is never an interruption. It is never a hassle. It is always grace. God loves your children. He has put them in a family of faith, and in relentless grace he will reveal their need to you again and again so that you can be his tool of awareness, conviction, repentance, faith, and change. And because in these moments he asks you to forsake your agenda for his, this opportunity of grace is not just for your children, it’s for you as well.

But my problem is that there are moments when I tend to love my little kingdom of one more than I love his. So I’m impatient, discouraged, or irritated not because my children have broken the laws of God’s kingdom, but the laws of mine. In my kingdom there shall be no parenting on family vacation days, or when I am reading the paper on my iPad, or after ten o’clock at night, or during a good meal, or . . . I could go on."

Read the entire article here.

On Womanhood:

A Challenge to Women (John Piper)

That you develop a wartime mentality and lifestyle; that you never forget that life is short, that billions of people hang in the balance of heaven and hell every day, that the love of money is spiritual suicide, that the goals of upward mobility (nicer clothes, cars, houses, vacations, food, hobbies) are a poor and dangerous substitute for the goals of living for Christ with all your might, and maximizing your joy in ministry to people's needs.

When All the Ducks Are In A Row

What I'm learning lately is not that the decisions we make are not important. They are. But I'm learning that they mean nothing when they are not offered up to the Lord as humbly as the prayer of that second man:

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ {Luke 18:13}

If our convictions do not flow from a heart that realizes daily that it is only by God's grace that we evendesire to please him... if the choices we make come from a prideful need to exalt ourselves above others... if we cannot reach out to others with the glorious news of the gospel because we somehow feel they are beneath us... if we are speaking with more authority and dogmatism than God's Word... if our gospel begins to include steps that will make the hearers look more like us than like Christ...

In essence our righteousness does not exceed those empty works of the Pharisee (Matthew 5:20), and unless our hope is solely in the righteousness of Christ Jesus (Romans 3:20, 1 John 2:2)...

We are no longer walking in grace. We are offering filthy rags (Isaiah 4:6). We are loveless, whitewashed tombs (Matthew 23:27, 1 Corinthians 13:1-3)