Looking Beyond The Flesh ... To The Soul

Common Sense Commentary: "Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart."  1 Sam.16:7.  Dottie Rambo wrote a song ... "He looked beyond my faults and saw my need." My friends, only love can do that and only God can know our hearts .... "For God so loved the world (us) that He gave His only begotten Son..." to answer our need.  The best parents not only love their children but must also learn to "look beyond their faults and see their needs".  Look beyond the "outward appearances" of selfishness, disobedience, anger and lying and see the root cause of their fault.  In some cases their fault may be my fault.  That is to say, I am too impatient with them, too busy to spend time with them, to teach them, to help them, to pray with them, to share God's Word with them.  In other cases, those same faults are their very own, fleshly, human faults.  Still, a parent must look beyond the fault and see them ..., and everyone else for that matter, as an eternal soul created by God in His own image, but with an inborn sin nature dating back to Adam and Eve.  A person cannot help being born with a sin nature but, we can help neglecting to deal with it.  We are all, children and adults, responsible to God to deal with our fleshly faults.  Now, let us shift gears.  Fleshly faults, whether physical, mental, emotional or spiritual are usually, simply ... SIN.   A parent must deal, not only with their own sins but teach their children to deal with theirs.  There are several methods of doing that, but just one remedy.  Let us first deal with parental "methods".  A parent must be patient but not so patient as to be tolerant of the seeds of evil in themselves or their children.  A parent must be loving but not mistake love for their lack of painful discipline applied to their child.... "Chasten thy son while there is hope ..." Prov.19:18.  Another admonition is,
"Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." Prov.22:15.

A good way to gauge the seriousness of your "little angel's" transgression is to imagine it being done by the "little devil" next door.  The "methods" a parent has of dealing with the sin nature in their children's flesh are, first... by example, prayer, and Holy Scripture.  Secondly... teaching, talking, listening, correcting, practice, encouragement and praise for doing well.  Third ... punishment.  Disciplinary  punishment is an absolutely, indispensable necessity in raising children.  Though it is a "last resort", in the training of a child, if it is not part of the program, all else, though correctly applied, is without authority and powerless.  There must always be, in the child's mind, the likelihood of painful punishment for disobedience and bad behaviour. Otherwise their little individuality and self will rise up in rebellion and chaos.  A parent must put this need, in their child's life ahead of the parent's need for love and appreciation from the child.  The greater need of the parent is for their child to grow up a mature and balanced adult who is honest, diligent, dependable, successful and who respects authority and loves their parents too.  Parental discipline should include stern warning, withdrawal of privilege, and an effective (painful) spanking to enforce their God given authority and responsibility. 

Finally, the remedy which lasts a lifetime.  The one remedy for sin is spiritual conversion and redemption from our sins by the acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Lord, Saviour and sin bearer.  I neither believe that a little child is accountable to God for his/her actions in infantsy and early childhood, nor that they are on an equal basis of accountability to God, as are teenagers and adults. I believe that accountability to God  begins at the "age of accountability", which varies with each child, but is usually at puberty between ages 9 and 13.  I have known retarded people who, after being in church all their lives, suddenly realized they were a lost sinner and needed to be saved. One was 40 years old but had a little child's mind.  It took 40 years for him to reach the age of accountability.   His name was Gene Brown and I had the honor of showing him the way of salvation.  That was over 50 years ago. He is in heaven now.

I believe that if a child is not old enough to go to hell, he/she is not old enough to be saved.  A child is "safe" for heaven until they reach a point of suddenly being convicted by the Holy Spirit that  they are now sinners and need God's forgiveness.  No one can be saved unless and until they realize they are guilty of sin before God ... not
because Mommy or Daddy said so but because they felt guilt in their own heart when the Holy Spirit told them so.  True repentance must be a spiritual response to conscious guilt, regret and desire for forgiveness from God, a higher power than Mom or Dad.  As I said, I believe that personal guilt, before God, probably happens during puberty, usually somewhere between 8 or 9 and 13 years of age.  However, if a child asks to be saved or baptized at a younger age, there is no real harm in "leading them to the Lord".
You can't take the chance of not responding to their request and even if they are too young, it may at least keep them in church until they are convicted by the Holy spirit that they are really not saved and they, with good foundation, accept Christ.  This has happened hundreds of times under my own ministry.

God's law, in the Old Testament required that young boys accompany their parents to the Passover HolyDay Feast at age 12.  It was at this age that Jesus first attended the Jerusalem Passover and then remained in Jerusalem, instead of following Mary and Joseph in the crowd of worshipers traveling back to Nazareth and home.  When they realized Jesus was not with them, they finally found him in the Temple, back in Jerusalem, "in the midst" of the greatest Old Testament Scholars in the world ... both listening to their expositions of Scripture and himself answering some of their theological questions which astounded them.  It was at this time that Jesus, during the average time of puberty in boys, was asked by Mary,  "Son, why have you thus dealt with us? Your father and I have sought you sorrowing." Lk.2:48.  At twelve years old, Jesus gave an astonishing answer to Mary .... in effect, "Have you forgotten who I am? Don't you know that "I must be about my  Father's business?"  Luke 2:49   In these words, Jesus made a clear distinction between His step father (little f) and His Heavenly Father (cap F) and between Himself as Mary's son and as the Son of God.  So, the age of twelve is shown to be very significant in the development of a child's mind and body.  It did not, however, change the fact that Jesus was still a child and remained an obedient child to his mother and Joseph.  Lk.2:51 says that Jesus continued to be, "subject unto them."

I must add, here, that we, as Christians, must grow in grace to a level of spiritual maturity that we are able to see everybody as more than young or old, good looking or bad looking, skinny or fat, black or white, well dressed or in rags. We must, as did Jesus, look beyond their flesh and "appearance" and see them as eternal souls created in God's own "image and likeness",  but in need of a Saviour ...God's Son, Jesus.  "Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart."  1 Sam.16:7.

Pass it on. RB