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Dear Student (A Letter of Encouragement from the Heart of a Pastor)

Dear Student,

Remember when you were born? It was a pretty rough time back then: Bush and Gore had an election standoff, the WorldTrade Centers fell, people were losing their jobs, dads were going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. When you were born, you brought hope. People were so excited you would have thought mom and dad had just built an epic house in Minecraft or won free music downloads for life. They even made you a birthday cake with Psalm 139:14 written on it: “I will praise You because I have been remarkably and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, and I know this very well.” (HCSB).

It’s been fascinating watching you grow up. Congratulations on learning to walk, talk, and eat with a fork (well, most of the time). You’ve downed your milk, ate your Flinstones, swallowed six bites of veggies, and took your shots (or, if you parents are “earthy,” you endured the mumps). You’ve also managed to learn to reed and right (even learned to spell); your math goes well beyond your toes, and despite your mother’s fears, you really do know how to hear. You’ve scored the goal, achieved the belt, rounded the bases, and remembered the notes.  You’ve worn the crown, found the treasure, solved the puzzle, and built the fort. It’s time to play the anthem and raise the flag; congratulations, you’ve earned it: childhood gold.

So when did it happen? When did the familiar smile in the mirror lose its teeth? When did your joyful eyes become critical? Here’s my guess: you started comparing yourself to others. The little boy in the mirror discovered that he’s really not Spider-Man, that some guys have more to talk about than video games, score more touchdowns, make better grades, collect more laughs, and receive more texts with girly emoticons in them. The little girl learned that Cinderella ends with a lie. She discovered that some girls have straighter A’s, take better pictures, have cuter clothes, get more invitations, and cause more boys to act a fool.

The tragedy in this is that when you lose your smile you’re donating your self-image to a bunch of people who really don’t care about you. Even worse, you’re rejecting God’s design for you. The Psalm was true when you were born, and it’s also true for you today. You are “remarkably and wonderfully made.” Instead of placing your trust in others to tell you how you’re supposed to feel, place your trust in Christ. God loves you, and God has a life-story for you. God has carefully designed you and equipped you to live out your own story. Pursue God’s best in your life; the best you is the one that God made.

Please don’t spend life trying to be like everyone else, and please don’t waste life trying to gain approval from everyone. Instead, live your life in God’s approval; pursue Christ’s reflection when you gaze at the mirror. Do you realize that when you believe in Christ, you belong to God?  The cross has been raised and you stand beneath it graced with eternal gold. Through Christ, you have the approval of the One who made you. Live in that approval; grow in that approval; love in that approval. So, give yourself consent to smile again, because you were, are, and always will be remarkably and wonderfully made.

 Lash Banks is Lead Pastor at Murphy Road Baptist Church (murphychurch.com). Lash’s weekly podcast/sermon can be heard at http://www.buzzsprout.com/17504 

by Lash Banks

5 Things This Dad Wants His Kids to Learn BEFORE Kindergarten (or at least by age 40).

It may be the most amazing moment life has to offer: that moment when you hold your son or daughter in your arms for the first time. At that moment, love drenches your heart. Your arms are filled with hopes and dreams. It’s a celebration which quickly turns into a staggering responsibility. During those first five years, a foundation is built which must be strong enough to sustain a century of living. It’s enough to make you swallow hard and pray for wisdom. Lord, what are the most important things for me to teach?

I am blessed with 3 little ones ages 6 and under. I’m just a dad like any other dad trying to navigate the foreign world of diapers, cartoons, and organic cheese-sticks, with my gorgeous wife who now holds the additional title of mom.  Recently, our church asked the question, “What is it that you really want your children to learn before kindergarten?” Here is my attempt to answer that humbling question.

God’s Grace—I want my kids to understand Christianity through the lens of grace. It’s easy when kids are young to teach a “do this and don’t do that” view of Christianity. In our efforts to teach children obedience, we have to be careful not to teach them that God’s love for them is based on their loveliness. When my children reach that moment of salvation, I want them to believe in a God that loves them so much that He sent His son so that whoever believes has eternal life, not a God who’s “making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty and nice.” It’s the difference between gospel grace and performance moralism.

Dad’s Grace—The most frightening reality of fatherhood for me is that my children are forming their images of God the Father from watching their own father. How can I teach them that God is graceful if I am not? My kids have to know that their Dad loves them unconditionally whether they are being good or bad. “Daddy loves you kid, now go to timeout.” I want my children to understand there are consequences, but beyond the consequences I want them to know that grace abounds and love endures.

To Listen from Their Heart—Among the greatest accomplishments of parenthood is the ability to speak to the heart of your child. When my kids are young I can control their behavior, because I’m bigger than they are, and I control their source of Goldfish, milk, and bunk beds. As children grow older an amazing deafness to wisdom occurs when they have never learned to listen from the heart. If, as father, I don’t learn to speak to their heart in toddlerhood, then I fear they will grow deaf to the Heavenly Father’s voice in adolescence.

Reality—Repeat after me “It’s okay for my children to be disappointed and sad, to know the word ‘no,’ and to have boundaries. It’s okay for my child to cry, to lose, and to struggle in their work. It’s even okay for my child to understand that life is precious and loved ones die.” Like you, I never like to see my kids hurt or struggle; daddy wants to make it better, but making it easier is not always making it better. The harsh moments are life’s greatest classroom. When life grows hard, faith, hope, and love must be my curriculum.

To Love Others—My first child rocked my world. That little one took my time, my money, my energy, even my sleep! That first year of fatherhood caused me to take a grueling look within and face my selfishness, but my love for my daughter motivated me to give her my all. The scriptures reveal the soul’s default of selfishness. If I don’t teach and model for my children what it means to love others, who will? Every night as they go to bed I pray a simple prayer over them: “Lord, help us to love you, love one another, and love others.

Parenting is hard work and there are no guarantees. We can’t be the Holy Spirit in the lives of our children. Children are gifts from God, and God is the author of their life’s story. But God has also called Moms and Dads to the amazing journey of guiding the heart of a child that He dearly loves. When you hold that little hand, you are holding a heart. Of all the people on planet earth, God has chosen you and equipped you to drench that little heart with love. You can do this!

 Lash Banks is Lead Pastor at Murphy Road Baptist Church (murphychurch.com). Lash’s weekly podcast/sermon can be heard at http://www.buzzsprout.com/17504 

When Pride Meets Love

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Pride is an interesting word. You can’t say pride without saying I and without saying ride. We all ride pride sometimes through the streets of life. Pride is odd in that it can be a positive word conveying love or admiration, or it can be a distasteful word conveying egotism, vanity, rebellion, and sin.  

In pride, I am the object of my faith. Pride elevates me to a position that rightfully belongs to God. Pride focuses on my needs and selfishly views God and others as existing to serve me. Pride is confusing; it shuffles my perspective and causes me to embrace rational lies. I see my arrogance as confidence. My superiority expresses itself in cynical humor. The ride of pride leads me to a fictional world where I am all knowing and everyone around me is trapped in foolishness. Pride draws me in with that new car smell and soft ride. Pride drives fast and reckless; the law does not apply when I grip the wheel of pride. But in the end, the ride of pride leaves nothing more than a mangled mess of broken dreams, manipulated relationships, and a cold soul. 

 The Bible teaches, “Pride comes before destruction, and an arrogant spirit before a fall (Proverbs 16:18).” Three times in Scripture we are reminded that “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (Proverbs 3:34, James 4:6, I Peter 5:5). By contrast, “Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited. . . (I Corinthians 13:4).” Pride is to sin what love is to grace.  

The ringing of Calvary’s hammer is a collision of pride and love. The cross is necessary because of my pride, but it also necessary because of God’s love. The cross is a clumsy display of my hideous pride and a graceful display of God’s forgiving grace. On the cross, love is pierced by pride and grace is crowned by evil. On the cross pride drains the veins of love: drop by drop pride’s antidote puddles below. When His head bowed in death, pride raised his head in victory. But when the earth stood still and the tomb stood opened, it was pride that had died and love that was alive. 

The antidote to pride is the cross. When I look upon the humility and love of the cross, I see the magnificence of His love for me and I have nothing left in which to boast. From the cross the purity of His righteousness shines into the corners of my heart exposing the darkness of my sin and contempt is poured on my pride. From the cross the glories of money, power, and fame lose their allure and my richest gain I count but lost. At the cross, my broken dreams, my manipulated relationships, my cold soul collide with love. When my pride surveys His love, I bow beneath the cross, my faith is transferred from me to Him, and the drops of grace cleanse me and make me fully whole. At the cross, pride dies and love comes alive. 

Lash Banks is Lead Pastor at Murphy Road Baptist Church (murphychurch.com).  For more on this subject you can listen to Lash’s sermon When Pride Meets Love http://www.buzzsprout.com/17504/151296-faces-when-pride-meets-love  

Inspired by Isaac Watts’ great hymn When I Survey the Wondrous Cross