Cultivating self-respect, purity, and reverence

<p>Cultivating self-respect, purity, and reverence</p>

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Restoration International

Cultivating Christian Character in Children

Alane Waters

The Gardener

Cultivating Obedience & Self-Control

Self-respect, Purity, Reverence & Gratitude

Honesty, Courage, Kindness & Meekness

Patience, Perseverance, Initiative & Mercy

Orderliness, Diligence, Faithfulness & Generosity

Cultivating Christian Character in Children.

That's the title of the series I did, because as a mother, I wanted my children to become Christ-like.

Just like every parent wants their children to learn how to be like Jesus.

And isn't that what needs to happen to prepare our young ones for the heavenly kingdom?

No 1 will be in the kingdom except they have the character of Jesus Christ and it's he that will put it in us as we cooperate with him in his spirit working in us and through us cultivating Christian character We're going to be talking about 4 character qualities this morning.

And I appreciated what Kent and Delora shared because for me as a parent, I studied these on my own.

And then week by week we would take a different character quality and we would learn how to experience that in our home with everyone giving input and it became something not just for our children to learn but as important for us as adults and as parents in our home to learn.

We want our child to be respectful, we need to learn how to be respectful ourselves.

And so we did this through the weeks and months and then as our children grew older and what stimulated this entire series to be put together was when my children were all in their youth, I still knew that there were areas of weakness in their character, and God was calling to my heart, and so my children and I studied together again these qualities and we went through the Bible and we found references that had to deal with those particular qualities.

So today we're just going to talk about 4 and I would encourage you if you have paper and pencil to take notes because we're going to be giving some practical ideas on how we begin to cultivate the garden of the heart in our young people.

So if they're young or if they're older and youth, we all need that cultivation.

So if any of you need a sheet of paper, I have a few pieces of notebook paper I did bring along.

Josiah, if you want to just put your hand up and as we, as I begin, Josiah will come by.

Today we want to start with cultivating self-respect.

Now self-respect and self-dignity is not self-esteem And I think it's very important for us as Christians, as Bible-believing Christians, to recognize that self-esteem, which we're all very familiar with, is not a part of the kingdom of God.

That may come as a shock to some of you here today, because you can go into any Christian bookstore anywhere in the world and you can find out how self-esteem and the Christian go hand in hand.

We're gonna be sharing a very powerful principle from the word of God.

We wanna talk about God's principle and the true characteristic that God wants us to cultivate in our children and in our hearts as parents, as adults, is that of self-dignity and self-respect, not self-esteem.

I'll define self-esteem by typical comments.

They build up the self nature, don't they?

And almost always, they're putting someone else down in order to put self up.

It's a, they go hand in hand and it's quite a contrast.

When I lift myself up, almost always, human nature then does that by putting someone else down and it comes natural to all of us and that is not a part of the kingdom of God it is a counterfeit to what is true and holy The Apostle Paul says it like this, and of course he's inspired by God's Spirit to put into these words a representation of the character of God.

He said, Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory.

Self-esteem is vainglory and it causes strife because you're putting someone down in order to build yourself up.

He said let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves.

Self-esteem is a counterfeit, a very close counterfeit to the true principle of God's Word.

He says, let us esteem others better than ourselves, and let's not let anything be done through vainglory or through strife.

So let's talk then about self-dignity and self-respect, because I believe this is the true aspect that God wants to cultivate in all our hearts, and man has come up with a very close counterfeit that Christians by the thousands and hundreds of thousands worldwide have accepted that is a counterfeit to what is real.

Self-dignity and self-respect, let's define those.

It is a conscious recognition that we are the children of God that we were created in his image And that we not only were created in His image, but through our choices lost what God had intended for us to have.

In Christ, we can have new life, fulfillment, and we can experience true dignity and respect self-dignity and respect recognizing that we are children of God, created and redeemed by Him.

So I would like to share a few ways that we begin to build self-dignity and respect in our young people.

How do we cultivate this character quality in our young people?

1 of the things that's the strongest to build it is wholesome, useful occupation.

In contrast, what destroys self-dignity and respect is that a child has all the free time that they want.

They can do anything they want, whenever they want, and they don't feel good about themselves.

And that's why you find children getting into conflicts with 1 another.

They haven't found the fulfillment of being useful, needed, and wanted.

And Therefore, when self, nature takes over, that self-esteem, which is the opposite of self-dignity and respect, the child begins to become more and more difficult, more and more self-centered, more and more selfish, more and more irritable, and self-esteem grows and self-dignity and respect gets lower and lower and lower.

In our home, when our children were very young, I didn't understand this.

And I let them have lots of playtime because that's what I read and was told that good mothers did.

But I found that I had a lot of contention even amongst toddlers.

The irritability and the fussiness and the discontent and the arguing and even fighting, maybe not aggressively at that age but as they get older, if that has been allowed as they get older, becomes more aggressive and more violent.

And so I started inviting my children to help me in the kitchen.

We were living in a 35-foot travel trailer and you know if you've ever been in a travel trailer everything is mini size isn't it?

We had these tiny little sinks there in the little kitchen which was probably about 4 feet long the counter with these 2 little sinks in it and here was Emily 3 years old and she's standing up at the sink to help do the dishes.

I didn't think a three-year-old had the ability to know how to do a dish.

And she was so happy, she was so content, she was so enjoying herself.

She was more obedient, more willing, more cheerful because she had found just in that 1 situation a new experience of self-dignity and respect.

The second way we can build self-esteem in our children is teaching the child to help themself.

And when your, as your children are young, and you take a lot of time, remember in your first teaching, to tie their shoe and when they learn how to do it, they are so excited they can hardly wait for daddy to come home because they want to show daddy what they've learned how to do, right?

Helping our child to gain the ability to help themselves.

And we see it in many lines and we think that's wonderful and it is good training, but it has to incorporate everything in the child's life.

And so, for me, tackling homeschooling, trying to learn how to be a teacher when I was a nurse by training, and I began to see things in my children they come, mommy mommy help me with this, mother mother how do I do that, mother mother.

Because I remembered how I used to be as a student in school.

If it was hard, you just simply ask somebody what the answer was or how to do it and you usually got it.

And you never had to really learn how to, what?

And so, it works pretty good, but as you get older and older and older and your schooling gets harder and harder and harder, pretty soon you're going to find out that what was cultivated here to be helpful actually cultivated a strong weakness in the child.

And so I said to my children, I'm happy to help you with anything and everything in your school lesson, but when you have a question, the first thing, if they brought it to me, mother, can you help me on this math problem?

The very first thing I'd ask them is, how many times have they tried to figure it out on their own?

If they had a question on the directions and they didn't know how to do something, I would say, how many times have you read the directions?

And my children learned very quickly that before they ever came for help, they read the directions 2 times and they worked to apply themselves to the best of their ability.

And do you know I found out that most of the time my children were able to answer their own questions.

Mother, this reading question I don't understand.

It says, and then they give me the question out of the workbook and I said, what did your reader say?

Well, they read the whole chapter in the reader and now 10-15 minutes later they're working in the workbook, I will not help you with that until you go back and read it.

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Series

Cultivating Christian Character in Children

Self-respect, Purity, Reverence & Gratitude

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

WYC 2013 Seminar: Always Ready for Family

Prepared to Serve, Part 2

1h

Prepare to Meet thy God

3- The Counter Attack

1h 48m

A Sacred Trust: Character

58m

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Experiencing Biblical Purity: Practical Tips Regarding Sexuality

54m

The Battle for Purity

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Abraham

Abraham: Lot and Sodom

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Whole Marriages in Broken World

Raising Godly Children in a Ungodly World

36m

Phil Mills Sr., Israel Ramos, and Judy Ramos ~ Date of Destiny: Finding and Keeping Your Love

Ingredients of Happiness

59m

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03 What’s in a name? The Restoration of Integrity in the Christian Life

50m

From Home to Eternity

03 Capturing the Joy of an Adventist Home

1h 10m

Proverbs

Proverbs: From Ears to Feet

58m

Sound Doctrine