How Can I Get My Thoughts to Match What I Believe in My Heart?

Spiritual Disciplines

How Can I Get My Thoughts to Match What I Believe in My Heart?

25 min

Spiritual Disciplines

How Can I Get My Thoughts to Match What I Believe in My Heart?

25 min

Episode 438 Show Notes

From the Show

We really have to rest in the fact that God is the one who is sovereign in salvation, and that God loves our children more than we ever can or will. He is good. There is this promise that we see throughout the Scriptures that God promises to be a God to us and to our children. His intention is for his salvation to visit the whole family. He loves your kids.

—Adriel Sanchez

Questions in this Episode

1. I believe with all my heart that God is sovereign over salvation and that he alone must open the eyes of the dead. The problem is that practically I have a difficult time applying that to my children. I spend a lot of time worrying obsessively about whether I am doing something that will exasperate them and make them leave the faith. It has left me either paralyzed over making parenting decisions for fear of being too legalistic or too free or full of anxiety after I make a decision. This anxiety makes me panic and I’m fighting the constant urge to “fruit inspect” my children and I probably expect maturity that is unreasonable for their ages (I’m in the throes of the teen years). I also find my mood alters according to how they are acting in a single moment rather than my joy being in Christ. How do I practically get my head to match what my heart knows so that I can actually enjoy these years rather than wishing them away because they cause me so much anxiety?

2. My son who is 11 keeps asking me is, if God predestined people for heaven, does that mean he also predestined people for hell?

3. Some believe that one can lose their salvation, that is, even if they truly are a believer. What sin or sins must they commit in order for that to happen?

4. Why is having faith so difficult? 20 years and still have same thorn in flesh.

5. How do you understand Matthew 24:20 were it says, “let your flight not be on the sabbath nor in the winter?”

Resources

Knowing God by J. I. Packer

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Michael Horton (Ph.D., Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and Coventry University) is the J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California and Founder & Editor-in-Chief of Sola Media.

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