Parent Devo - Camp Day 4
We have got to let God off the hook for everyone else’s mistakes. Let’s face it: each of us has been let down by people too often to count. So many people live in a constant state of disappointment. With each disillusionment, we grow ever more hesitant to trust another again.
From family members to friends, we have been hurt numerous times. Whether it was an individual or an institution, we know the pain of getting close enough to something and becoming discouraged by what we discovered behind the veil. For so many people, their letdowns became almost too expected and normative. Each of us can struggle with thinking that the only sure thing in this life is that people will disappoint you.
“We confuse God’s reliability with our expectations of how and when He should act.”
Along the way, we make God pay for the mistakes of others. For all the people who have proven to be unreliable, we associate their nature with God’s nature. We confuse God’s reliability with our expectations of how and when He should act.
What would be the leading reasons that your child would distrust authority figures?
Do you think anything in your child’s past distorts his or her perception of God?
In today’s focus, we will look at the faithfulness of Jesus. Not only is this topic a critical point for your child, but you might need to be reminded of it as well.
In John chapter 11, Jesus called outside the tomb, and Lazarus’s dead heart began to beat again. He walked out of the grave not because he discovered a way to cheat death but because of the Lord over all defeated death for him. Jesus had repeatedly shown what He could do. If they believed in Him, they would see the unbelievable come true. Belief in the faithfulness of Jesus is the step to beholding the glory of God (John 11:40).
Just as Lazarus’s physical body came back to life due to the voice of Jesus, our spiritual souls can only come back to life by that same voice. Since the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), every person in this world committed spiritual suicide when we transgressed against God (Eph. 2:1). We cannot make ourselves come back to life; someone outside the tomb will have to do that for us.
How confident are you of your salvation?
How confident are you of your child’s salvation?
The gospel is the message that Jesus was willing to take your place on the cross to bring you back to God.
Have you ever trusted in that message? Has your child? Just as Lazarus came out of that tomb, we are called to walk out of the grave and cast away those graveclothes (John 11:44). If you have been resurrected, don’t go back to your former dead way of living.
PRAY
At camp today, your child is going to hear the gospel. Pray that your child will clearly understand the call of Jesus or clearly hear the affirmation of Jesus. Use Psalm 46 as a prayer guide.
“Come, seek the works of the Lord, who brings devastation on the earth. He makes wars cease throughout the earth. He shatters bows and cuts spears to pieces; he sets wagons ablaze” (Ps. 46:8-9).
Pray that your child would see the works of the Lord this very day. Maybe he or she will see it personally or in the life of someone else at camp. Pray that God causes them to surrender their arms and forfeit the wars they have been fighting. Pray that He discards their weapons and eliminates their vehicles of escape. Pray that today is the day of salvation. Pray that your child understands that, in an unreliable world, God is still faithful.
This devotional is adapted from FUGE’s Parent Devotions. You can find the complete resource here.
