April 13, 2010

Millstones

Mark 9:42

EARS TO HEAR is the radio ministry of FAMILIES. BY GOD. For EARS TO HEAR, here’s Tim Glisson.

From a very early age most kids are sent out into a world they are ill-prepared to handle. Elementary school brings a host of influences: different values, offensive language, secular dress, and that’s just from one’s peers, there’s also always a host of adults shaping your child’s world-view.

With high school comes the presence of more mature stalkers: drugs, alcohol, sex and fashion to name a few. All designed to control and ruin a child’s developing body.

Then it’s on to college or university where the devil targets the brain. Billed as bastions of higher education once existing to extol Christ’s name they now seem to subsist simply to deny it.

What’s the point?

We often think of a good education as the foundation of our child’s life. And it is: but the wrong education can lay down the wrong foundation. And it’s a parent’s job to get it right. In Mark chapter 9 Jesus tells His disciples it’s better to tie a millstone around your neck and be cast into the sea than to lead one of His children astray.

If we’re not leading our kids to Christ, we’re leading them astray. No matter what teams they play for or colleges we pay for our first and only priority needs to be our children’s relationship with their Savior. If we’re not leading our children to Christ, Christ says we’re better off jumping off a pier with a ton of stone tied to our neck.

That’s a thought worth thinking about.

If you have EARS to HEAR God’s heart for His children, please visit our website at FAMILIESBYGOD.org. For EARS TO HEAR, I’m Tim Glisson.

April 12, 2010
Mike
1 Corinthians 4

EARS TO HEAR is the radio ministry of FAMILIES. BY GOD. For EARS TO HEAR, here’s Tim Glisson.

Mike was three years old when a child protective worker found he and his five year old sister alone in an inner-city apartment. The one room flat was notable only for its strewn debris and awful stench.

In the twelve years since, Mike has lived in 8 different foster homes and two residential treatment facilities.

In a couple of years Mike will “age out” of foster care. With few skills, less motivation and virtually no support, his prospects will be poor. In fact, Mike and the 30 thousand teenagers just like him around the country are already being called the next wave of the homeless.

With so many facing such dismal futures it’s common to point a finger of blame at the government which essentially raised Mike and the others. That would be wrong. It should surprise no one that government can’t raise children, that’s the families job. And when the family breaks down, it’s the church’s.

Mike isn’t merely one of the orphans that God’s heart aches for; he’s also a stranger that God so much wants US to protect.

In first Corinthians chapter 4, Paul raises the question: are we using the gifts God gave us to further His kingdom, or for our own pleasure?

Teenaged orphans need you to show them God just as much as infant ones do.

If you have EARS TO HEAR the cry of the fatherless please visit our website at FAMILIESBYGOD.org. For EARS TO HEAR, I’m Tim Glisson.

April 9, 2010
Mission Field – Of The Fatherless

EARS TO HEAR is the radio ministry of FAMILIES. BY GOD. For EARS TO HEAR, here’s Tim Glisson.

The Greek word for sin; hamartia means to “miss the mark”, and many metaphors spring to mind. But a common one is the archers task: to shoot a bulls-eye or miss; close doesn’t count is the idea.

So it is with America’s Child Welfare System, which has plenty of sins to choose from.

But rather than sit around and complain about how the system itself oppresses kids; or grouse how if its workers did less paperwork and more legwork, kids would have families to raise them instead of psychiatrists. Rather than gripe about how bueuraucratic the system is, how controlling it is, how demeaning it is and how ugly adopting kids from America can get, how about we look at the fields of America’s fatherless in the same way we look at any other mission field.

What if each church in America was a sending church – to America?

What if each church in America designated a mission team – a husband and wife – to go into America’s fields of the fatherless and make a difference for Jesus one life at a time? Only this time, through adoption.

What if we raised support for them as a congregation? What if we prayed for them, daily? What if we were as intently interested in their activities as when we send a team to Guatamala? What if we craved their newsletter; hung their photos on our refrigerator; and told all our friends about them, all the time?

What if? There wouldn’t be 120 thousand orphans desperately waiting adoption in America anymore.

If you have EARS to HEAR God’s heart for His children, please visit our website at FAMILIESBYGOD.org. For EARS TO HEAR, I’m Tim Glisson.

April 8, 2010
Family Well-Being
Deuteronomy 6

EARS TO HEAR is the radio ministry of FAMILIES. BY GOD. For EARS TO HEAR, here’s Tim Glisson.

Two fundamentals of the Child Welfare System are the concepts of “child well-being” and “family well-being”.

Child well-being sounds pretty obvious and it is. It simply means that a child’s basic needs are being met having the opportunity to grow and develop in an environment that provides consistent nurture, support, and stimulation.

Family well-being may also sound obvious but what the American Humane Association and the National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators have to say about it may surprise you.

According to these two groups ‘family well-being” means that a family has the capacity to care for its children and fulfill their basic developmental, health, educational, social, cultural, spiritual, and housing needs.

Did you catch that? Spiritual needs in the eyes of the Humane Association are on par with health, education and housing. Imagine that?

When was the last time a child in America was taken from his parents because they weren’t taking him to church? The ranks sure would swell wouldn’t they? But that’s what that is suggesting isn’t it? And isn’t that correct?

Yes, health care, school and a safe house are important; but nothing compares with a child knowing who his Savior is and accepting His free gift of salvation. And whose job is it to teach a child that? Not a school, nor a village; not even a community; no, God tells us in Deuteronomy chapter 6 it’s the families job. The family. God’s strategy for Victory. No wonder the devil is working so hard to keep kids fatherless.

If you have EARS to HEAR God’s heart for His children, please visit our website at FAMILIESBYGOD.org. For EARS TO HEAR, I’m Tim Glisson.

April 7, 2010
Outbursts of Love
Hebrews 10:24

EARS TO HEAR is the radio ministry of FAMILIES. BY GOD. For EARS TO HEAR, here’s Tim Glisson.

The Golden rule guides us to treat others the way we want to be treated. So when friends are going through a stressful time, Jesus would have us be there for them.

If you have friends who are foster parents or are adopting from the Child Welfare System, that time is probably now.

Raising someone else’s child is simply different from producing your own: simply the strain of the courts added to the interferences of government exasperated by a child’s past can tax the most ardent Christian warrior.

The book of Hebrews has a suggestion for how we can help. “Think of ways” it reads “to encourage one another to outbursts of love and good deeds” .

“Think” is a key word because it’s both active and creative. A thoughtful gift is much more appreciated than a token. I know of a couple that doesn’t just babysit another family’s kids, they actually swap houses with them for the night as well. That’s thoughtful.

And imagine the impact on a family if we encourage kids and adults alike to “outbursts” of love and good deeds? Cycles will certainly be broken – dysfunction will be displaced – and lives will be changed.

They will be because it’s God will – but He wants us to listen and obey.

Do you have EARS to HEAR? If so, won’t you please visit our website at FAMILIESBYGOD.org. For EARS TO HEAR, I’m Tim Glisson.