Note: The final devos of 2024 will be based on Pastor Mark & Grace’s new workbook “Parenting on Point.” To get a physical copy, visit realfaith.com/donate through the end of the year.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” — Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)
Parenting often brings with it a roller coaster of emotions. From the overwhelming joy of a newborn to the challenges of disciplining a teenager, our hearts are tested daily. But God calls us to love Him with our whole heart, allowing His love to shape our responses, reactions, and relationships.
As we parent our child, it’s helpful to remember that God the Father also sees us as His child. As we are seeking to raise our child, He is using everything in our life, including the trials of being a parent, to parent and raise us. The good news is that our God loves us, and our relationship with Him begins with His love. 1 John 4:10 says, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Before we loved God, He loved us and sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the penalty for our sin so that we could be forgiven by the grace of God. This is the heart of how God parents us and should be the heart of how we parent our child. Like our Father, we should start with loving our child so that they are living from our love and not working for our love, and forgive our kids when they sin, giving them the kind of grace that the Father gives us because He loves us.
We first need to focus on what it means to love God with all our heart. The heart represents our emotional life, the seat of our passions, desires, and deepest feelings. To love God with all our heart means bringing every emotion, joy, sorrow, desire, and ambition into alignment with His will.
The story of Jesus from Mark 12 shows us the greatest commandment: to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Today, let’s meditate on loving God emotionally, even in the chaos of family life. A heart turned toward God becomes a wellspring of love for others, starting with our spouse and then our children. Consider this: the emotions you feel as a parent—frustration, anger, exhaustion—are real, but they are also an opportunity to rely on God’s grace and strength. He understands the depths of our hearts, having created them, and He wants us to invite Him into every aspect of our emotional life.
Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal any areas of your heart that are not aligned with God’s love. Is there any fear, unforgiveness, or sin that has polluted your heart that needs to be repented of?
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