Let Love Guide Us by Mary Akinyemi

   Each child, each young person was carefully crafted in their mother’s womb with love in the mind of their Crafter. Each child is the apple of the very eye of their Maker. They are precious, valuable and irreplaceable in His sight and He does not ever give up on them. He does not put them to one side when they disappoint Him. He will certainly rebuke them and He will do so in everlasting, unconditional love, willing them to see His heart and to give Him theirs, that He might strip it of all that is not healthy for their lives as a whole.

God loves His children, young and old. He loves the people that He designed to sing His praise and He wills them to Him, calling to them to surrender their hearts, their minds, their bodies, their spirits, their souls, their lives to Him, that He may use each and every aspect of their very selves for His ultimate glory.

In their sin, in their evil state, He calls to them, He knocks on the doors of their hearts, urging them to hear His call and respond quickly, respond sooner rather than later, that He may enter in and take His rightful place as King. He knocks on these doors, He pursues them, He chases them, He calls to them, and yet He does not push Himself into their lives, He does not force His way in, for He waits patiently for them to come to Him of their own will. He waits for them to return to their Maker, that He might cleanse them, wash them, purge and purify them.

   So what can we do to aid God in His pursuit of the ones He steadily runs after? For we ourselves are not perfect, we ourselves who have accepted His salvation are still flawed, we ourselves are still rebuked by the One we have allowed into our lives, for we have not yet attained perfection. We can remember that we too were once sinners, lost and unwashed by the precious blood of the Lamb. We can be reminded that God too once called to us and that we too went through the process of responding to Him and were then saved. As such, we can continue to pray fervently that the ones we love find their way to the Father sooner rather than later.  We can love them ardently just like the Father loves them. We can surely rebuke them, for the Father asks that we exhort those we know. We can be patient with them just as the Father was and still is patient with us.

   We too are human and can fall at any time, but grace keeps us steady, grace keeps us true, grace keeps us pure, and grace, and grace alone, keeps us holding onto those things that are honest, those things that are just, pure, lovely and of good report. Thus, since Christ’s redemption has turned us into people who are of virtue and owners of lives worthy of God’s praise and honour, we can extend the same grace to those who are yet to fully accept and embrace this grace.

   God did not appoint any of us to wrath, neither did He send His Son into the world to condemn the world, thus we ought not to subconsciously appoint any man, woman, boy or girl to wrath, nor condemnation, nor judgement of our own design. No, we ought not do so, rather, we should speak words of love, speak words of confidence and Christ’s hope into their  lives. We should remind them of how beautiful, how handsome, how intelligent, how brilliant, how worthy, how  valuable, and how very, very loved they are. Each child, each young person deserves to hear disciplinary words rooted in Christ-centred love more than they hear chastening words of human rebuke and disappointment, for the words they hear can leave them rest assured that they are cherished and loved and are deserving of all that is good or it can tear them down, erode the little confidence they have and leave them more discouraged then they already may be.

   What words are we speaking into the lives of our young people? What type of words are we speaking into the lives of our young ones? Are our words building them up or tearing down the little confidence they may have?

   Let us rethink the way in which we rebuke our youth, our teenagers and our little ones. Let us rethink our discipline, rethink our approach to discipline and admonish, exhort, encourage and rebuke them in God’s love and God’s love alone.

Mary Akinyemi is a woman who desires to see young women and men thriving in their spiritual lives. She believes each person is called to have a personal walk and individual relationship with their Maker, for it is in that calling they find the strength, courage and joy to live the lives God has called them to live. She writes about her faith at www.thisgoldensoul.wordpress.com.