Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Are Your Kids Old Enough To Date?

kids-to-young-to-dateThe other day, my two-year-old mentioned in passing that two of his friends “liked” each other. Now he probably did not know what he was saying, but his discussion reveals our kids are never too far away from thinking about dating and boyfriends and girlfriends. And when they do land on these topics and want our opinion, we should be ready with an answer.

Thankfully the Bible gives us direction on this subject. In Mark 10:6-8, we read:

But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh.

From this passage, we can extra three important principles for determining when are children are ready to date.

1. Our children will be ready to date when they are attracted to members of the opposite sex. As parents devoted to the Scriptures, we can only encourage our children to date members of the opposite sex. This is God’s design for the universe. We do not get to decide. God does. He has already declared that boys should date girls and that girls should date boys. Any variation upon this plan is wrong and sinful. As Godly parents, we should only encourage our children to date if they are willing to follow God’s design for gender and marriage.

2. Our children are ready to date if they are ready to leave and cleave. If your son is too young to get a job and to provide for his future wife, he is too young to date. If your daughter is too young to leave your house and set up a new home with her boyfriend, she is too young to date. If you are taking your daughter to the movie theatre and picking up your son from the ice cream shop, your kids are too young to date. They cannot in any meaningfully hope to leave and cling to that cute guy in school or to the pretty girl down the street. They lack the social and economic skills needed to create their own family. However, the high school senior that has a job and pays for all of his bills may be ready for marriage.

3. Our children are not controlled by animal impulses. We should be encouraged to see that our young men are attracted to young ladies and that our young ladies are attracted to young men. We must realize that such urges and desires to be with members of the opposite sex are good and right. But, we must also realize that these desires can come early and be perverted by all kinds of sin. Because we live in a fallen world, our kids will experience hormonal surges and desires for intimacy that they cannot implement without breaking God’s commands. Many children and youth will desire to express their physical urges before they have the ability to leave and cleave. When this happens, we must remind our kids that God’s commands do not conflict. Sexuality and intimacy between a man and woman are always supposed to occur in marriage. And until they are ready for marriage, our children must wait to express these things. As Josh McDowel tells teenagers,

Yes your hormones are strong. Yes, it can be difficult to wait, but the bottom line is sex is a choice. You are not an animal. You are a human being with God-given ability to love, to think , to create, and to make moral choices.

Consequently, the best way to handle the urges for marriage is to trust Christ. We should not encourage our kids to date before they are ready for a one flesh union. Rather, we should point them to Christ and tell them to wait, trusting that God will meet their needs and empower them to overcome temptation until they are ready for their spouse.

As I Corinthians 10:13 says,

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

God is always faithful.

Now, my two-year-old and his friends will not be dating anytime soon. Nor does he really want to. His greatest loves are basketball and Mickey Mouse. But at some point, he will want to talk about more than Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Your kids too will be interested in dating if they are not already. When the subject comes up, what will you tell them?

Peter Witkowski Pain & Suffering

Should Our Crisis Become Our Reason For Living?

crisis-blog-2When we experience tragedy, we long to make sense of our hardship. We long to find a positive reason for why we lost our loved one, for why our friends betrayed us, and for why the very core of our being was rocked by evil. We want a reason.  Like Job, we want to know why God allowed our hearts to be broken.

Quite often as the pain of the storm begins to recede, we start throwing ourselves into causes. Those who lost babies begin looking for ways to start a grieving mother ministry. Those who were unjustly fired begin employee advocacy groups, and those who lost a loved one to drugs begin championing every drug rehab facility in town. Often we do these things because we want to ascribe a cause to our suffering. We want to be able to say, “I suffered X Y and Z so that A, B, and D would happen.”

And at one level it is good for us to draw upon our experiences to help others. Paul says that he suffered many things in part, “so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Cor. 2:4).  Paul was almost killed for his faith so that he could care for others who are going through tragedy.

When we suffer and find comfort in Christ, we do have a powerful thing to share with others. Those who have lost babies have unique opportunities to care for others who have lost babies. Those who have had home destroyed by alcohol have an amazing platform from which to care for others who have been abused by a drunk husband. And those who have suffered through their wife’s infidelity can speak powerfully into the lives of other couples that have been rocked by sexual sin.

But notice what Paul says. He says that he suffered so that he could encourage others in ‘any affliction.’ Paul was implying that our dependence upon Christ through suffering is transferable to any and all suffering because the solution and the hope for all who suffer unbearable hardships is Jesus Christ.

Please do not miss this. The reason you suffer, the reason evil touches the very core of who we are is that God is calling us to himself. God is allowing evil into our lives so that we can draw closer and closer to him. This is the point of James 1, Romans 8, and the book of Job. As Kent Huges wrote,

The assurance that he can do all things and that no purpose of his can be thwarted is the comfort that I need in suffering and the encouragement I crave when terrified by evil.

The hope for those who suffer, the reason we get up in the morning, the ability to keep going after we have been touched by evil is this:

 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
 they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him

– Lamentations 3:22-24

God is our refuge, our reason for living, our meaning in the midst of despair. If we seek to finding meaning amidst our tragedy outside of Christ, we cheapen the very hope of the gospel.

 I know this first hand. There is no ministry, there is no success, and there is amount of recognition on this earth that makes the death of my first-born son worthwhile. I would happily sacrifice all of them and you to get him back.  I miss him dearly. But I have hope because I have God and because I know that God’s love for my son is even greater than mine because Christ died for him. The Lord is my portion, therefore I will hope in Him.

I hope and pray that you can say, “that the Lord is my portion.” Resist the temptation to make some part of you trial your portion. Resist the temptation to make sense out of your sorrow by your own actions. Trust the Lord.

Practically going forward, I encourage you to remember both your suffering and the fact that God is the solution to your suffering. And then, use the opportunities that God has given you to comfort others. If you are a NICU nurse who lost a baby, then by all means draw upon God’s faithfulness in your life to teach others how to care for grieving mothers and fathers. If you are a police officer who has seen God’s faithfulness on display through your son’s drug addiction, depend upon God’s faithfulness to shape your drug rehab program. But if you are cupcake store owner who just survived a patch of infidelity in your marriage do not give up your business to start a marriage counseling service. Minister to those whom God has put in your place. As Paul said, our suffering prepares us to help all others as they suffer hardships in a variety of complex ways.

God never intended for our crisis to become our passion. Christ is to be our passion. Is he yours?

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Don’t Trust These Christians

ask-more-questionsOur true friends are those who love Jesus. They are those who do great and small deeds to advance the kingdom of God. They are those who love God. For the Christian, friendship is always based on the gospel. We should never limit our friendships to our denomination, to our race, to our musical preferences, or to any other human definition. Godly friendship extends beyond all of our cultural boundaries. True friendship is based on shared experience of Christ’s work.

But true friendship and true acceptances is not blind. We are not called to accept and to befriend all who claim the name of Christ. In Mark 9:42, Christ says,

Whoever cause one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

Jesus wants false teachers to die. While we should befriend all who follow Christ, we must not befriend all who claim Christ. We must not entrust our souls to those who malign the Word of God. We must not trust those who do great works for the poor while looking the other way when men have affairs and when homosexuals ask to be church members. We must not befriend those who paint houses but deny the deity of Christ. We must not entrust ourselves to the pastor who tells great stories but proclaims that all roads lead to heaven. God is unified. God never approves of sin. And the one who claims Christ while simultaneous denying the power of the gospel should not be our friend even if she looks like us, goes to our church, and loves our denomination.  God does not look lightly on errors. He does not excuse sin or condone some lawless. No, God wishes such people dead, laying on the bottom of the ocean.

And when David was confronted with the choice of whether or not he should trust the soldier who claimed to have killed Saul, he thought about this exact thing. Back in 2 Samuel 26:9-11, David and one of his trusted soldiers had a chance to kill Saul. They had a chance to take the throne of Israel, and to take who God had promised David. But notice what David said and did.

But David said to Abishai, “Do not destroy him, for who can put out his hand against the Lord’s anointed and be guiltless?” And David said, “As the Lord lives, the Lord will strike him, or his day will come to die, or he will go down into battle and perish. The Lord forbid that I should put out my hand against the Lord’s anointed. But take now the spear that is at his head and the jar of water, and let us go.

David knew and understood that those who love the Lord obey the Lord. Those who are trustworthy never sin to attempt to get good things for themselves or for others. God has no place in his kingdom for situational ethics. The end does not justify the means. All who love God understand this axiom and obey God. David knew what he had to do. He killed the dishonorable soldier. David knew that the soldier should not be trusted because he boasted in his sin. In the same way, we must not partner with those who excuse and embrace sin in the name of Christ. God is unified. Those who love God will obey him.

Moreover, we must check our hearts. We must be sure that we are not one who causes other people to stumble. We must guard against leading others to sin sexually, against encouraging our kids to curse angrily, and against minimizing our pride. If we share blogs, send text, or have conversations that lead God’s people away from God, we are in danger. God doesn’t want your influence to grow. He wants you at the bottom of the lake. God will not tolerate those who cause others to walk away from truth. Do not be such a person.

Be a good friend. Workout your faith with fear and trembling and befriend those who are doing the same. Our friendships will shape us and influences us. What kind of friends do you have? What kind of friend are you?