Pastor Tyler TeBrink, Cornerstone Baptist Church
Raising children has been both one of the best and at the same time the most challenging thing God has given Lauren and I. As of late, raising our children in the Lord has been on Lauren and I’s heart more and more. This must have been on the heart and mind of some of those who call Cornerstone home because last week I had several conversations about how to teach our children and grandchildren about Jesus. How do we know if they’re saved? What should we look for? How can we discern if they have been actually born again or if they are just regurgitating the right words without the genuine transformation from the Holy Spirit? These are questions I ask myself as Lauren and I try to raise and teach our own children.
As Cornerstone has studied through 1 John, the disciple whom Jesus loved gives his audience some black and white indicators of what it means to be a Christ follower. He offers such indicators because this church had been attacked by wolves, false teachers, who would attempt to lead the brethren astray. I think we can take some of the truths John offers in chapter four and apply them to our children to help understand if they have been born again or not and then, depending on the answer to that question, we can determine how we are to disciple them. After all, our children and grandchildren are our little disciples.
For the complete article, see this week’s edition of the Centralia Fireside Guard.