G Notes

Christians are entrusted by God with an amazing task: not only to care for our children but to teach them to walk in accordance with God’s ways. Christian parenting is not about behavior modification but about gospel-transformation. It’s introducing our children to Jesus that they may taste of God’s grace and be radically changed from the inside out. Christian parenting is shepherding. It’s leading and guiding our children to be love-filled, faith-filled, hope-filled followers of Jesus. Toward that end Christian parents are to employ two key strategies: 1) corrective discipline and 2) formative instruction. Both are needed. Formative instruction is teaching so that it forms a specific kind of life. It’s speaking God’s Word into the hearts of our children that their hearts may be transformed. Jesus said in John 17:17 that we are sanctified by God’s truth and that God’s word is truth. The way we become mature love-filled, faith-filled, and hope-filled followers of Jesus is through God...

Last week I started a blog series in hopes of helping parents with the grand, God-given task of discipling their children. It's a wonderful privilege, but also an overwhelming one. I find that many parents are a bit intimidated by the thought of discipling their kids. After all, discipleship is about guiding our children to grow as followers of Jesus. That's a huge responsibility. One of the main challenges is knowing precisely what to teach. I've distilled it down to six topics. These are the irreducible minimums of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. These are the absolute musts of the Christian faith. These are the six topics parents should focus on. There are many ways to teach these six topics to your kids. You can pick a topic each week and concentrate on that one topic the whole week; and rotate through the topics every six weeks. You can teach a different topic each day of the week (focusing on a different one Monday through Saturday). You decide what's...

One of the most important tasks given to us is leading our children to become followers of Jesus. Psalm 78 tells us to teach our children about God and about His glorious deeds so that they may learn to set their hope in Him and learn to faithfully walk in all His ways. This is a great privilege and responsibility that has been bestowed upon us: raising up the next generation of disciples. While this is a wonderful privilege, it is also one the most intimidating challenges we face. As parents we desire for our children to grow into mature followers of Jesus but we struggle with the task. What do I say? What do I teach them? What do they need to learn? How do I go about it? In an attempt to give a little guidance to parents I'm writing a seven part blog series. This will be by no means exhaustive. My goal is simply to provide a big picture for how to approach discipleship. The goal of discipleship is teaching our children to live as Christians. So here's the big question: Wh...

Getting to present God's Word to others is an amazing privilege. I love every opportunity to do so whether it's preaching on Sundays, teaching a small group, or doing one-on-one discipleship. It's a source of great joy for me, but it's also a heavy responsibility. Not only must I be a good steward of God's Word, not only will I one day be held accountable for my preaching/teaching, but on top of that, I always feel the need to improve as a preacher and teacher. Learning to preach and to teach can be overwhelming, and growing in those disciplines can feel a bit daunting. I have a long way to go, but God is teaching me along the way. He is providing me with more and more insight, sharpening me as a communicator of His truth. Below are nine P's (excuse the old school alliteration) of preaching/teaching which God is keeping at the forefront of my preparation. This isn't an exhaustive list, but I hope thinking through these nine P's will help you as you pre...

Here's installment number three in this current blog series. What I am doing is providing a basic summary of the sermon series which we concluded a few weeks ago. The series was entitled Freedom. Many of us struggle to live a life of spiritual freedom, and one of the main reasons that is often the case is because we neglect to practice the spiritual disciplines (i.e. worship, prayer, giving, Bible study, serving, and Christian community). Practicing these disciplines doesn't make us free. Faith in Jesus is what makes us free. It's trusting in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that makes us free. However, it's through the disciplines that we enjoy the freedom that Christ won for us. I recommend taking the time to listen (or re-listen) to the messages in the series. To do so simply click here: FREEDOM . What I am doing in my blog is simply summarizing some of the key points we made in regard to the six spiritual disciplines that we discussed during the se...

Last week I began a six week blog series in which I am summarizing the six spiritual disciplines we recently covered in a sermon series entitled Freedom . If you did not read last week's blog post, I recommend starting there. I also suggest listening to the sermons. The summaries I am posting are simply...summaries. Listening to the specific messages, whether for the first time or as a reminder, should help you to better understand and apply the spiritual disciplines into your daily life. To listen to our sermons, click here: Freedom . The second spiritual discipline we discussed in our sermon series was prayer. What is prayer? I personally find prayer to be a mystery. A child can do it yet adults stumble over it. It's simple yet profound. It's the easiest thing in the world to do yet the hardest thing to do. It's very practical yet very theological. Anyone can do it yet many don't. Prayer is a mystery. So what is prayer? I'm not sure that's the right qu...

In war, all things being equal, the army that is able to secure its supply lines is going to win. The army that is able to cut-off the other side from its supply lines is going to win. In war, armies have to be able to re-arm and re-fuel. If they can't do so, they'll lose.  For followers of Jesus, the war is won. Jesus has definitively won the war on our behalf. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus defeated sin, death, darkness, and the devil. However, despite the war having been won, we still face lingering battles this side of heaven. Each day we face spiritual battles. On the battlefield of our heart two armies have filed into ranks. One army is safeguarding our enjoyment of the freedom we have in Christ and the other is trying to disrupt our enjoyment of that freedom. And in these daily battles we have a large say in which army advances. We get to choose which army we're going to supply and which one we're going to cut-off. When we spend time in God's...

This past Sunday during the sermon I made reference to my concerns about how we present the gospel. I saw eye brows being raised and smoke coming out of people's ears as their mental gears started grinding. I'd like to take a little time to further articulate my thoughts for three reasons. First of all, I don't want there to be any confusion or misunderstanding about what was said. Secondly, I am concerned that we may not be communicating the gospel very well. Our choice of words do matter. Thus, I think it's a good idea from time to time to challenge our choice of words. We need to make sure that what we're saying is in fact what we mean; and we need to make sure that those we're talking to understand what we mean. Our mission is to make disciples and that requires using language that explains God's truth properly, adequately, and fully. And thirdly, it's a matter of worship. As followers of Jesus, our ambition is to please the Lord, and included i...

Edie recently celebrated her 2nd birthday, and her big gift was a playhouse. The look on her face was priceless when she saw her gift. With childlike exuberance, she took off toward the playhouse. But then something unexpected happened..she stopped, turned around, and came running back... As she ran back she started yelling, "Lita," short for "abuelita," which is Spanish for "grandmother." Filled with excitement she not only yelled for Lita but she ran toward Lita, grabbed her by the hand and led her to her playhouse.  Edie was so overjoyed with her gift that she had to share it. She wanted for others to enjoy it along with her. It was as if it didn't occur to her to keep the gift to herself. If you're a Christian, then you have received the greatest gift imaginable. It's the gift of eternal and abundant life. It's a gift freely and generously given by God for simply believing in His Son. It's an amazing gift received through faith ...

I was wrestling with Edie when out of nowhere she bit me on the chest. This would not have been a problem had it been a little love gnaw but she applied a bite force of about 1500 psi (equivalent to a pitbull). The only bright side was that she missed the nipple. I'm not sure I would have ever recovered from the physical and emotional scarring had she not missed. Unfortunately, the bite was not a one time incident. Edie has shown herself to be an unpredictable and ferocious biting force, one moment playing nicely and the next launching her incisors at a helpless victim. Jamie and I now live in fear that at any moment we may be on the receiving end of an Edie bite attack. We've begun the arduous process of correcting Edie's animalistic behavior. Each time she bites we hold her firmly, put our face close up to hers (not so close she can bite it), and say, "No biting." Honestly, I'm so afraid of Edie's biting that there have been a few mornings when instead...

There's a word which hands-down gets the most use in my home. I wish I could say it's "love," or "thanks," or "please," but apparently my home isn't that positive of an environment. Without question the most popular word at the casa de Gutierrez is "no." It's not even close. Whatever word ranks 2nd in use in my home, I'm certain that it's surpassed by "no" by a factor of 10. All day long the house is filled with "no." It comes in all sorts of forms. Sometimes it's a very matter of fact "no." Sometimes it's a firm but tempered "no." Sometimes it's an emotionally charged "no." Sometimes it's a shocked and horrified "no." Every night I go to bed with the echoes of the day's no s ringing in my ears. All of the no s come from one of two sources: 1) Edie, or 2) Edie's parents. Edie's no s sound like this. Edie, eat some chicken. "No!...