"Getting Back To The Cross" by Fran Maynard

Sometimes I have seasons in my life when I feel off.  I still go through the motions but I’m just not connecting like I know I should be.  Maybe you can relate?  I know when life is like this it’s because my thoughts are drawn more towards the world (or the craziness of my day) and I have taken my eyes off Christ.  When this happens it calls for a realignment.

Recently I noticed my kids struggling with various behaviors and attitudes, so I started praying “Lord please show me how to get them back on track”.  I should have known the answer I was going to get.  The Lord graciously showed me, they too needed to be realigned!  I needed to put Christ back into the reason they do or don’t do something and the reason they are able to succeed at it.

So, I shifted my approach from my own means to Jesus.  I reminded my children that Jesus cares so much for them that He went to the cross for each of them personally.   And because of His great love and mercy and because He is living inside them, they too can live a life that reflects His heart with new behaviors and attitudes.    

“The way to progress as a Christian is continually to repent and uproot these systems in the same way that we became Christians-by the vivid depiction of Christ’s saving work for us, and the abandoning of self-trusting efforts to complete ourselves.  We must go back again and again to the gospel of Christ crucified, so that our hearts are more deeply gripped by the reality of what He did and who we are in Him”. Tim Keller 

My question to you is, have you gotten off track lately?  Have you been trying to fix things your own way?  If so, I would encourage you to get back to the cross and Jesus crucified!  Remind your little ones of who they are in HIM and that He loves them very much..  

Lastly, our family picked out a family bible verse.  How fun to learn and memorize the word together!  Do you have a family verse, maybe one for each child?  This is ours.

But the wisdom that comes from heaven is pure. That’s the most important thing about it.  And that’s not all.  It also loves peace.  It thinks about others.  It obeys.  It is full of mercy and good fruit.  It is fair.  It doesn’t pretend to be what it is not.  Those who make peace plant it like a seed.  They will harvest a crop of right living.  James 3:17-18