HERE ARE SOME THINGS TO PONDER, IF YOU ARE RAISING A LITTLE GIRL

          If you are raising a little girl who will one day be a woman, having raised a little girl myself who is now a beautiful young woman inside and out, I have some things on my mind to share with you.

          When your daughter is a little girl, she is precious in your eyes. It seems she can't do no wrong because you love her so much. You wouldn't even think of ever hurting her. I was there 23 years ago when my little girl was only 3 years old. I had never spanked her up until that point. All I did was yell at her. Then I got saved, started going to church, and took a parentlng Bible study class. This Bible study really opened my eyes. That day I went outside to a little tree and broke off a little switch. From that day on, when my little girl didn't listen to me, instead of yelling at her or giving in to her, I spanked her with this little switch. An amazing thing happened to my little girl, she started to listen to me, of course, all because of the little switch, but nonetheless, she listened to me instead of insisting on having her own way.

"Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him."  Proverbs 22:15


          She didn't like this, of course. Who does? Who likes to have to listen to anyone? We want to have it our own way and most of the time, we want it right now. We don't want to have to listen to anyone. It's just our nature. The nature we inherited from Adam.

          The only way to change this nature in a little girl's heart is to make her obey you. You are the parent. You are her authority. In fact, you are the only authority she knows. This is why it's so important to not let our little girls get their way all the time, because once they go out into the world, whether it's a teacher, or an employer, or even a policeman, she will not obey them and continue to think she should get her own way.

          Here is something else to think about that is very important, especially for little girls. If you have a tendency to give in to your little girl, instead of making her obey you, you are actually teaching her how to manipulate people. This will be especially evident in her teen years, because she will learn to tell you what you want to hear in order for her to get what she wants. She will then use those same manipulation tactics on others to get her way for the rest of her life. Stop and think about what I just said, "for the rest of her life."

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."  Proverbs 22:6
          Now for some good news. Your little girl will love and respect you for the rest of your life, if you discipline her. If you make your little girl obey you, she will not only listen to you, she will respect you and learn to respect other authority figures in her life.

          So now the question is how do I discipline my little girl. Your goal is to break her will, but not her spirit. In other words, you just spank her hard enough so it hurts enough so that she will not want to have that spanking again. If you spank her too hard, that will break her spirit and that is not your goal.

          There is one more thing I want to address, because I encountered this and you may also. Once your little girl becomes a teenager, even though you have taught her to listen to you, she may challenge your authority once again because she thinks she is now old enough to make her own decisions. And yes, there are some decisions that you may need to let her make, so she learns how to make decisions, but she is still too young to make every decision on her own. You still need to protect her from the world by making most of the decisions for her. If you are unsure which decisions you should make or which decisions you need to let her make, go to the throne of grace and ask for wisdom.

          I'll leave you with this. Please do me a favor and read Proverbs 7 and Proverbs 31, because these Proverbs talk about two different types of women. One uses manipulation to get her way and the other woman is a blessing to her family and community. Which one of these women do you want your little girl to grow up to be? The choice is literally yours.

ARE YOU STILL TRYING TO CLEAN UP YOUR FLESH?

          Something to really think about: It doesn't matter how much you clean up the flesh, it will never please God. If your flesh could be cleaned up, Jesus would not have had to die. Jesus didn't die so your flesh could be cleaned up. Jesus died because your flesh couldn't be cleaned up. That is the problem with religion, it keeps trying to clean up our flesh.

          That is why missionaries leave the field. That is why people leave churches. They are trying to clean up their flesh and after failing over and over again, they finally give up. It is not in trying, but in trusting.

          When you accepted Jesus Christ as your Saviour, your spirit was redeemed immediately and that is why God's Spirit can live there. But your soul and body won't be redeemed until you die or until the rapture. So what do you do?

          Here is what you do and actually how you live the Christian life. You let Christ live it through you. You could actually say a Christian is a person whom Christ lives through. Galatians 2:20

          So how do you let Christ live his life through you? You spend time with him and his Word every day. You listen for his Spirit to guide you because our Shepherd's plan is to lead us down the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. You obey what God puts on your heart to do instead of what your flesh wants to do and every time you obey the Holy Spirit's leading, you are letting Christ live his life through you.