A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

christianity

Parenting Series: False Gods

By 2 Comments

Have you ever asked yourself these questions.
1. Why do my children do the things they do?
2. How does change take place in children’s hearts and lives?
3. How can I be a tool of change in the hearts and lives of my children?

The answer to all these questions is this: worship.

Everything children do is related to what they worship most in that moment. 

Is it outward appearance?  Making other people happy?   Wanting to do their own thing?   Wanting more stuff?   What is at the root of their behaviour?

I  was recently reading in Romans that when one gives glory to God it makes your faith stronger.   Mr. Tripp talks about how worship is something that we live everyday.  It’s an attitude and choice.  Worship is that inner desire to wonder and amazement that we all possess. It’s part of our life long hunt for God. 

So tying these thoughts together… as we increase the chances for our children to worship God, we will grow their faith.  Makes sense eh?  So we need to see the bigger struggles and not just the surface stuff.  We need to build on that connection to God.

Mr. Tripp lists off seven things in our goal to do that.
1. The capacity of the heart of our children to worship is meant to drive them to God.
2. The capacity of your children to worship is the most important biblical insight for parents.
3. Since your children are worshippers, you must be committed to being an instrument of seeing.
4. Since your children are worshippers, a vital skill for you is to learn how to lead them to confession. 
5. To say your children are worshippers means you have no power to free them from their biggest problems.
6. Because your children are worshippers, your only ope for them is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
7. We are more like our children than unlike them.

Remember.. God has given you the grace to parent the children he gave you.  Search their hearts, help them search their hearts, help them to see God more clearly so they can worship him all the more.

Want to follow along?  Amazon affiliate links below.

Amazon.ca:  Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

Amazon.com: Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

Adam’s Disobedience, Christ’s Obedience

By 2 Comments

 Today we are reading from Romans 5:12-21.

12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
Remember from Genesis, how sin came into the world?  The temptation of the devil, Adam falling into it?  Sin was brought into the world through one person.  And so it spread to all mankind through that one person.  I found this line interesting “for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law”.  So I thought I’d check out other translations NCV says it this way “Sin was in the world before the law of Moses, but sin is not counted against us as breaking a command when there is no law.”
So until the law of Moses was set into place, sin was not counted against the people, even though it existed.   And since sin existed… so did death.  Adam was a type of the one who is to come (being Jesus) we know from the rest of the New Testament.

15 But
the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one
man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the
grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For
if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man,
much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free
gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
Then God’s free gift happened. And it wasn’t like the result of Adam’s action.  It caused the death of many BUT Christ’s redemptive work.. resulted in grace and life to so many more!  This free gift brought about justification, and life to so many more.
 
18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
This is what we have
One trespass = condemnation for all men.
One act of righteousness = justification and life for all people.
One person’s disobedience created sinners.
One person’s obedience created righteous people. 
Then the law showed all the more sin, but where we saw more sin we also see something else now.. MORE GRACE!  Grace abounding!

Sin reigns in death.
BUT grace.. see grace reigns in righteousness that leads to eternal life though Jesus Christ our Lord.

 To follow along with the rest of this devotional series in Romans Click Here. 

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

Parenting Series: Character

By 4 Comments

Imagine you are working hard, getting frazzled because you have too much to do with not enough time to do it.  Your family is home and is just letting you do your thing (being frazzled and worried) as they do their own thing.  Is this right?

No.  They are showing their lack of concern for you by their lack of action.

I have to admit, I struggle with this one in my household.  Both my fellows will say “but if you want our help just ask”….And it seems to me uncaring that they don’t volunteer… or they will do as very little as they can get away with.   Drives me nuts.

Is that a character thing?   I don’t know.   So I struggle with it.  I can see their point.  If I’m struggling I should “man up” and just ask for help cause honestly…how are they supposed to read my mind?   They can’t.  They know I am fully capable of getting things done and sometimes I do so in a frazzled manner as just part of me living life.  (and I’m sure many other folks do the same). Their point is valid then is it not?  Shouldn’t that frazzled mom say “HEY!  Kids, I need some help in here, I can’t manage it all.  You Joey, sweep the floor.  Amy, set the table.  Jeff… get this dog out of my way!”.   

Could it be a character flaw?  hmm..  can be argued.  🙂   Doesn’t change Mr. Tripp’s premise though.  Sometimes lack of character is why children don’t do (and adults) don’t do some of the things they aught to.   So how does one deal with it?

Step one: admit that you need the Lord to help you with your character as well. Seriously, we all have “stuff” that we mess up with.

Step two: don’t be afraid to admit this to your children.

Step three: see lack of character for what it is… a lack of worship and connection to God. Romans 1 tells us that people make a choice to turn away from God.  They want to be in control, doing what they want, believing a lie, but content within that.  When people show a lack of character they are revealing who is most important in their lives AT THAT MOMENT.

Step Four: point out that idolatry of self.  Point the way back to seeing God in his grace, God giving up his son for us, so that we can have a right relationship with him. 

Step Five: see that just as God is molding you into his image, you can help your children see how they too need to be molded into the image of God.

Character Development.  See God or see yourself?  Be molded.
Want to follow along?  Amazon affiliate links below.

Amazon.ca:  Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

Amazon.com: Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

Rejoice! Stand in THIS Grace.

By 2 Comments

 Today our passage is Romans 5:1-11.

  Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

You know what that word therefore means right?   It means that remember what you have just learned.. keep that in mind..  cause now there will be a new thing to add in.

Remember that we have been justified because of our faith.  Got that right?
The result of that is this:  we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And not only that. 

  •  access to the grace in which we stand 
  • we can rejoice in hope of the glory of God
  • we can rejoice in our sufferings BECAUSE suffering eventually leads to hope, a hope because of God’s love. 

I have to admit that I don’t get this all.  I don’t.  How does one live in the God’s grace?  How does one stand within that grace?  I looked it up in other translations and that was no help.
So I leaned on hubby who helped me understand that it’s grace, a tangible thing that we see in our hope, and in how we deal with suffering and build character and overall live within that hope of God’s glory.   It’s is not just God’s kindness, but it THE GRACE…the grace that is God and is a tangible thing that we can hold on to.  And I’m probably not explaining it well, but it’s real and it’s there and it’s what helps us rejoice in our sufferings because we can see the end result of it  all.

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

These verses point out to us that Christ died at just the right time.  God knew you know?  How all these cultures would merge in Rome. The Passover which brings people into Jerusalem so all these people would see the mighty work that God had done.  God’s timing was perfect.

Our weakness was still there, a people so prone to turning away from God, a people so ungodly. A people full of sin. BUT read this: but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners.  Showing love to us.. sinners!  And we already know how God sees sin right?  God sent his son to DIE for us. 

 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Since we’ve been justified by his blood, we are also saved from the wrath of God. Think about what that means.  While we were in that horrible icky state, enemies of God, and he chose to reconcile us to him by the death of his Son.    So now we’ve been made right with God just think about how much more we will be saved by his life.  Just think about that!  We have that reconciliation.  We have the joy in God. What am I saying.. doesn’t all this give you reason, give me reason to REJOICE in the Lord God.  That tremendous gift he gave us in reconciliation.   We were horrible in our sin and God knew that and yet, and yet he chose to bring us back to himself.   If that isn’t a reason to rejoice what is?
 
 To follow along with the rest of this devotional series in Romans Click Here.

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

Grace,Righteouness and The Promises of God

By 2 Comments

Today our passage is Romans 4: 13-25.

13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.
Oh, think about that.  Just THINK about that.  Abraham, we already know he’s been declared righteous because of his faith.  WE got that right?  HE will be heir to the world because of the righteousness of his faith.   He is our father in the faith.. so think about what that means.  Ponder it.

Cause it just kinda hit me tonight as I was reading.

Those that stick to the law are not the inheritors of the earth.  The law brings wrath.
BUT those who have faith… THEY inherit the earth.    

16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring
Why? So that God’s promise rests on grace and is a guarantee to all the offspring of Abraham.  Faith and grace… so intertwined.
 
—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
Abraham…the father of many physical descendants as well as many spiritual descendants.   God kept his promise to Abraham and all his descendents, and that means to us to eh?   As believers God’s promises to Abraham… those promises based on grace, and our faith. 

  18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” 23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
These verses are amazing. See Abraham’s faith in action.  Against the odds his faith stayed strong.  Old age and the unbelief of others didn’t stop his faith in God.  Unswerving. 

But read these words: he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God.   Do you see it?  As he gave glory to God his faith grew stronger.   Wow.   Just WOW.  Think about that.  I’m thinking about that.   

Praising God, giving glory to God, means our faith grows stronger.

Makes me think about how in a marriage, if you act in a loving way toward your spouse it increases the depth of your love for him/her.   It does.  It changes your love and makes it grow.  Like an echo of how.. if we act in a loving way toward God, if we give him glory and honour, our faith in him grows becoming stronger and fuller.   And it counts to us as righteousness.

When the bible tells us that Abraham’s faith was counted to him as righteousness it wasn’t only for the sake of Abraham eh?   See these words:   But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

Abraham’s faith, that faith seen in those who believe in Jesus raised from the dead.  Jesus the very son of God who was delivered up for OUR sins, who was raised for OUR justification.   If we believe this… then OUR faith is counted as righteousness.  Not just Abraham.. but US TOO!   

I read these words and I think to Martin Luther and how reading Romans changed his entire life.  See faith and righteousness and God’s grace so intertwined…and how it passes through the generations so that not only Abraham’s faith is counted as righteous…but ours too, if we truly believe.
  
To follow along with the rest of this devotional series in Romans Click Here. 

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

Abraham: Father of Faith

By 2 Comments

Today we are studying from Romans 4:1-12.   

Does doing good works justify us?   NO! 
We are told this clearly.  Abraham believed God and IT (his belief) was counted as righteousness.  It was his FAITH that mattered. 

 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

Does that mean that doing good works is meaningless?  Of course not.  It’s part of what is due to God.   He made a way for us to be righteous.  Should we not then live according to the law that he has painted on our hearts?

 4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.

What matters is the belief in the saving work of Jesus Christ.  God provided the way for us. All we have to do is believe it!  That faith makes us righteous.   Pretty cool eh?
5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
    and whose sins are covered;
8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

Again Paul raises the question.  Is this determination only for the circumcised (ie… only for the Jewish people).   Abrahman’s faith was counted BEFORE he was circumcised.   His circumcision was only the sign of his faith. 

9 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. 10 How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. 11 He
received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that
he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.

Circumcision’s point with Abraham was a seal of his faith.  His faith, was counted as righteouness before he was circumcised, making Abraham then the father of those who believe without circumcision, AND the circumcision made him the father of the believers who are circumcised. 
 The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, 12 and
to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely
circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our
father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

Abraham, father of faith for all.  Circumcised or not, as long as you have faith, Abraham is our father in the faith.   

I have to admit I’ve not really thought about this before.   Like it’s not that I don’t KNOW that Abraham is a father in the faith.  But it’s more that I’ve never really sat and pondered what that means for me personally.  Abraham is MY father in the faith.  He’s part of the line that leads all the way back to the first covenant God made with his people.  Of Jewish origin or not, he is out father of faith. 

To follow along with the rest of this devotional series in Romans Click Here. 

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

Righteousness, faith and the law

By 2 Comments

Do you remember the sadness of yesterday?
Of no one being righteous?  Not a single one. 

But listen to this:
21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

Righteousness doesn’t come based on the law.  Righteousness come through FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST!!

 For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. 

See, we know from the previous verses the depravity of mankind.  How we all turned away from him.   That horrible picture of what sin is. 

But now there is hope for us right?   Hope  because God’s righteousness is now found in our faith in his SON.  It doesn’t matter if you are Jew or Greek.  There is no distinction between people.    All have sinned.  All fall short of God’s glory.  ALL.  No exceptions to this fact.   But just as all have fallen, so all CAN come to faith in Christ Jesus.  All can receive the gift of God’s grace in his son.Christ is our redemption.  Christ paid for our sin.  God put him forward as an atonement.  Christ, to be received by faith.
 
This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It
was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be
just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Why did God do this?   To show his righteousness.  God is ever so patient with us but he can’t keep letting us sin and not giving us a way through it.   He needs to be just you know?
 
27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.
This gift is received in faith.  So Paul is clear.  There is not boasting.  How can you boast about faith?  Either you have it or you don’t.  Works you can point at and say SEE.. See what I did?  But faith is faith.  
 
28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

So having faith doesn’t negate the law right?    Remember.. it’s written on our hearts.  Having faith causes us to want to follow the law, to uphold it, to not turn aside from it. Paul affirms how God is God to everyone, doesn’t matter if Jew or Greek.  The offer is the same, our faith is the same, It’s all about our faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ, God’s gift of Grace offered to us.   So our faith will naturally cause us to want to stick to the law of God written on our hearts.   (and yes I know.. the old sinful nature will cause us to want to fight that…but that’s another lesson).  🙂

To follow along with the rest of this devotional series in Romans Click Here. 

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites