David Wilkerson, one of the great men of God in America over the last 80 years, died on Wednesday in a car crash.  To say that this is a great loss to the church is a massive understatement.  If you have never sat and listened to any of his teaching or read about his exploits of faith, you have truly missed out.  He is a rare man of a rare breed of great men who preach straight from the heart of God.  He did not walk in the fear of man nor preach to tickle men’s ears but instead preached a powerful gospel of salvation, a relationship with a holy God through Jesus Christ that brings true joy, true power, true victory.

I would recommend to every believer to get ahold of and listen to his sermon titled A Call to Anguish and listen to it at least twice a year.  It is prophetic and profound and is applicable with great urgency to the times we live in.  sermon index link

In my last post, I announced the birth of our son Malachi John and wrote about the desire that he walk in clear discernment and be a prophetic messenger to God’s people of repentance of a turning out of darkness and into light.  David Wilkerson was a man that walked in this understanding and this conviction.  My prayer for Malachi and all my boys is that they be this kind of man.

Below I am posting the contents of a sermon that Wilkerson preached in the 1990’s as a prophetic message to his denomination.  Is it not so clear the clarity of his understanding?  I think you will be sobered by this message. (BTW, I don’t wear a suit to church and I don’t particularly like choirs but that is not his point in this sermon, his point is that the message of the gospel has been changed to not offend people but to tickle their ears and that this message will keep people from finding true salvation)

The Dangers of The Gospel of Accommodation
A sermon given by David Wilkerson at an Assemblies of God headquarters chapel service.

By David Wilkerson

I am not coming to you as a pastor but with a prophetic word. God so shook me recently with this message that I should bring it somewhere, sometime in Springfield. This morning the Lord, by His Spirit, spoke to my heart that this is the time. He has called me to be one of His watchmen, and I have wept over this and prayed that He will help me deliver the message in a spirit of love. This is not a chastisement but a warning for the Assemblies of God.

A New Gospel

Accommodate means to adapt, to make suitable and acceptable, to make convenient. A gospel of accommodation is creeping into the United States. It’s an American cultural invention to appease the lifestyle of luxury and pleasure. Primarily a Caucasian, suburban gospel, it’s also in our major cities and is sweeping the nation, influencing ministers of every denomination, and giving birth to megachurches with thousands who come to hear a nonconfronting message. It’s an adaptable gospel that is spoon-fed through humorous skits, drama, and short, nonabrasive sermonettes on how to cope—called a seeker-friendly or sinner-friendly gospel.

To begin with, those terms are unscriptural. The gospel of Jesus Christ has always been confronting—there is no such thing as a friendly gospel but a friendly grace.

This new gospel is being propagated by bright, young, talented ministers. They have come upon a formula which states you can go into any town or city; and if you have the right formula, within a short time you can raise a megachurch.

If you are a young man and have certain skills, you find those skills and a part of the city that would best suit you. You move into that area, poll it, and find out what the nonchurchgoers want:

“You don’t like choirs. Well, would you go to a church that didn’t have a choir?” Yes.

“You don’t like to wear suits. Would you go where it’s informal?” Yes.

Then you go to your computer and design a gospel that will not confront but will shoot out the desires and the needs of the people. After you have gathered a handful of people, you keep interviewing them to find out what they want; then you design your message to help people cope with their needs. The program you design is intended to make the church comfortable and friendly for all sinners who wish to attend.

This gospel is fast becoming the most prosperous and flourishing of all religious movements. Thousands attend these churches. The pastor is the CEO, and it becomes a business. They make no bones about it: They are following Madison Avenue tactics and can make a success of it. Their formula for quick church growth is cleverly packaged and is being sold especially to young ministers—those who want to be a part of the big boys and what’s happening on a fast track. They want it to happen quickly.

Paul’s Warning

Paul warned of the coming of another gospel and another Jesus (2 Corinthians 11:4). He warned the church that it’s really not another gospel but a perversion of the true gospel of Jesus Christ. If you hear any other gospel, he said, let that preacher be accursed. In other words, no matter how pleasant, how pious, or how sincere, if the message is not the death of sin through the cross of Jesus Christ, let it be accursed.

I tremble when I read in the Scriptures that in the last days Satan is going to come right into the church posing as an angel of light. He’s going to take ministers who, at one time, had the touch of God, and he’s going to transform them into angels of light to become his tool of deception. That’s frightening. It causes me to fall on my face before God for such false, deceitful workers transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. No marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it’s no great thing if ministers also are transformed as the ministers of righteousness whose end shall be according to their works.

Paul said they are going to glory in the flesh, in their bigness, their numbers, their influence, and their contemporariness. They will boast they are contemporary, that there is a gospel that is out of style that doesn’t reach human need anymore. They will glory in the world’s acceptance. Jesus warned, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matthew 7:15). The context of that warning was: “Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth to life, and few there be that find it” (verse 14).

His warning was to beware of the wolves who are going to say it’s really not that narrow and straight—they are going to come posing as submissive sheep. Jesus put His finger on the cause: ambition—ambitious ravening wolves. In the Greek it means “starved for recognition and quick gratification, quick growth.”

Jesus left no doubt about His meaning. For example, He was addressing a struggling pastor who has worked for years and hasn’t seen the kind of growth he wants to see. A young man with an accommodating gospel moves into town and and within a very short time has a megachurch. People are flocking there because there is entertainment; it’s a gospel of fun. I’ve been in some of them. It’s the gospel of entertainment that has no conviction whatsoever. There is very little in their gospel that speaks to sinners of repentance, brokenness, and cross-bearing. A Christ is preached, Jesus’ name is mentioned, but Paul said their’s is another gospel, another Jesus.

Paul warned that if you are caught in this trap, if you want that hook of entertainment, that hook of sudden growth, this is the hook: The enemy will put in your path a teaching.

I have two preacher sons. One of them confessed to me, “Dad, I was that close to being sucked in because I fasted and prayed and didn’t see the growth I wanted to see, and I saw these others grow. That hook was there, and I almost bought it.”

That is something this Movement and every movement is going to have to look at and deal with: It is possible, through unholy ambition, to be transformed from a man of God, who has been seeking God and getting a word from heaven, to an unholy ambition and a tool of Satan. Let every pastor heed this warning: The moment you begin to consider the “competition,” seeds of accommodation will be planted in your heart. Suddenly, Satan will put in your path a wolf in sheep’s clothing—a man who will try to seduce you into ungodly ambition and achieving church growth at any cost. Yet the truth is, it could cost you your soul.

The Right Formula

If you find the right formula, according to the accommodation gospel, you can succeed in any field of endeavor.

An editorial in the New York Times (March 1, 1998) was entitled, How To Manufacture a Best-Seller. It told the story of John Baldwin, a 53-year-old carpenter and a would-be writer, who had struggled for years to make a living from writing. He determined to become famous and rich overnight by writing a best-selling medical thriller. He studied five or six best thrillers. After 7 years’ research he found 10 steps to producing a best-selling medical novel. He honed it with some Hollywood writers and agents, and here is the 10-step formula he used:

The hero is an expert.
The villain is an expert.
You must watch all the villain’s activities over his shoulder.
The hero has a team of experts behind him, working in various fields.
Two or more on the team must fall in love.
Two or more on the team must die.
The villain must turn his attention from his initial goal to the team.
The villain and the hero must live to do battle again in the sequel.
All deaths must proceed from the individual to the group.
If the story bogs down, just kill somebody.
John Baldwin had the formula but no story, so he read of research by John Marr who was studying the epidemiological causes of the 10 plagues, hoping to explain their causes scientifically. The two men formed a partnership, and using Baldwin’s 10–step formula, together wrote a 640 page manuscript called The Eleventh Plague. Harper Collins bought it for almost $2 million.

Baldwin, who has no passion for writing, said, “If I get the formula, I’m going to be a multimillionaire and famous.” Well, he’s going to make another $3 million on the movie rights, and he’s laughing all the way to the bank. His philosophy: “If you have the right formula, you can be a success at anything.”

You see, this is the gospel of accommodation—the formula. You get the formula, you get what people want, and you can be a success. I am here to tell you that a formula-based, accommodating gospel is contrary to everything in the Scriptures.

God’s Method

Certain men of God met at Antioch to send out men to preach the gospel and establish churches (Acts 13). Here is God’s method:

1. They ministered to the Lord and fasted. This was their planning session—worshiping, fasting, waiting on the Lord, and calling for direction from the Holy Ghost. They did not move until the Holy Ghost spoke. There were no formulas, no surveys, no door-to-door asking people what they wanted and then serving it to them.

2. They prayed—no strategizing, no network, and not one step until the Holy Ghost spoke His mind. Then and only then did they lay hands upon them, anoint them, and send them out in the power and demonstration of the Holy Ghost.

Paul lived his whole religious life on religious formulas, and he said they didn’t work. He gave up on formulas and said, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). Paul boasted unashamedly, “We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:23). He was saying, “Gentlemen (he was talking to his peers), they want us to accommodate. The Jews are looking for signs in our gospel. The Greeks want the wisdom. They want to know how to cope, but I’m not compromising. There’s only one message. Our gospel has been and will be the Cross and its demands as well as its victories. As for me, I’m determined to preach nothing among you but Christ and Him crucified.”

What the Gospel of Accommodation Does (1)

I see three things in the gospel of accommodation:

1. It is the accommodation of man’s love for pleasure.

“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers…of pleasures more than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:1–4). The Greek for pleasure is “sensuous, lustful, voluptuous, exciting, gratifying, sensual pleasure.” If you move toward this gospel of accommodation, you are going to have to accommodate the people’s lust because they are not going to give up their love for excitement. They’ve made gods of sports, pleasure, and lust. Unless that is confronted by the gospel of Jesus Christ, unless there is a truth that comes forth, you have to accommodate this lust that is in the American lifestyle.

I was shocked by an article in the New York Times.1 Philip Wogaman, President Clinton’s pastor, said, “Sexual misconduct does not automatically render a leader immoral. Morality should also be judged by indicators like courage, concern for the poor, fostering world peace, running the economy responsibly, and furthering racial equality. Heterosexuality and homosexuality are merely cultural expressions.” In other words, Mr. Clinton has been told that he has enough good indicators to overrule another that would be immoral in his life.

God said that men who preach doctrines like these resist the truth; they are men of corrupt minds counterfeiting the faith.

In disbelief I watched a televised Sunday night service of a seeker-friendly church—seeker-friendly by its own admission. To a packed church where thousands attend, the pastor said, “This is fun night, a David Letterman night.” The youth pastor came out and did his monologue as David Letterman. Then they showed 10 of the most boring things teenagers do during preaching. Three of the 10 were throwing spitballs, yawning, and picking their noses. The crowd went crazy. After the service, the pastor brazenly announced, “We’re not here to offend people, but to make church comfortable for everyone.” I wept.

I ask you, how long do you think that audience would stay in church if the pastor was gripped by the Holy Ghost, convicted for “entertaining” people toward hell, and suddenly preached a message entitled, “Be sure your sins will find you out”? How long would people keep coming back if a gospel of holy living and separation from the world was preached? Two things would happen: (1) Those who are misguided, hungry, and didn’t know any better would weep and run to the altar. (2) Those who are judiciously blinded by their pleasures in madness would flee from the church and never come again. The church doors would close.

I keep this foremost in my mind and before my eyes, because every minister of the gospel one day has to face it when he stands before the Lord. He will say, “Son of man, I made thee a watchman. You were to hear the words of My mouth and give them warnings from Me. You were to tell the wicked, ‘Thou shalt surely die.’ And you gave them no warning nor spoke to warn the wicked to turn from their wicked ways to save their lives. These same wicked men died in their sins, but their blood I’ll require at your hands.”

What the Gospel of Accommodation Does (2)

2. This gospel of accommodation accommodates all man’s aversion to self-denial.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is one of self-denial. Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). Self-denial is not something you give. It’s someone you give up—the giving up of yourself, giving up everything you are. It’s a living sacrifice to the Lord Jesus Christ to present your body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. God has every right to say to His church, “If you expect to give Me your body, your resurrected body, all through eternity, I have every right—it’s only reasonable of Me and your reasonable service—to ask your body why you’re here on earth. I want every part of you. I want you to be spiritually minded. I want to possess you.”

The gospel we preach must bring people under the total possession of the Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, it’s a gospel of accommodation.

The seeker-friendly gospel accommodates the body. The human body belongs to Him. What we see in America is a neognosticism where you take your physical body on one side and do as you please as long as your spirit is right with God. This is coming even out of the White House, this dividing of personality. No, we are one personality, and it all belongs to Jesus Christ. This neognosticism is destroying the faith of many throughout the nation.

What the Gospel of Accommodation Does (3)

3. There is an accommodation of man’s offense to the gospel.

The Scriptures state, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense.” Paul spoke of the offense of the Cross. This is the heart of God’s anger. We’re not called to the Cross but to go through the Cross—to experience the same thing Jesus did, not only coming to the Cross but dying and going into the grave with Jesus Christ and then being raised from the dead to a newness of life.

It’s cruel, pastor, to lead sinners to the Cross, tell them they are forgiven by faith, and then allow them to go back to their habits and lusts of the flesh, unchanged and still in the devil’s shackles. If the preaching of grace doesn’t have as its goal the producing of a walk of righteousness, then it’s another gospel, another Jesus.

I listened in horror to a man, who attended one of the largest seeker-friendly churches, being interviewed by CBS. He said, “I come to this church because I’m comfortable. I’m never made to feel uneasy. I bring my Jewish friends and my business friends, and I know nothing will ever be said that will offend them. The best part of it is, the whole thing only lasts an hour.”

Take it from me: You can get your big church and be one of the big boys, but it’s going to cost you your soul if you preach with a focus only on earthly things, rather than on the things of God.

I’ve lived in New York City 35 years. We have 103 nationalities from all walks of life—from the poorest to the richest. Probably 300 or more from the United Nations live there. But I look over a congregation (so does my dear friend, Jim Cymbala, in Brooklyn) and see men who have just walked in from the porno shops and are wild animals. I see a businessman friend who was CEO of a multimillion–dollar company, but he started snorting coke, lost everything, and is now a bum on the street. He sits in the congregation. A little 14-year-old girl with AIDS is up on 8th Avenue performing lewd acts before dirty old men. She comes to church and keeps saying, “Pastor Dave, I’ve got to get out. I’ve got to get help.”

I’m not about to put up a silly skit and preach a 15-minute message on how to cope to a multitude of people who are dying and going to hell. I tremble at the thought.

People don’t like to hear this, but we’re headed for perilous times—just a few years away from a collapse like the world has never known. When that happens, all who preached prosperity are going to disappear because the people will say, “Your gospel has failed me.” When that time comes, I want to grasp onto Jesus, and I want everyone I’ve preached to to have faith in the keeping power of Jesus Christ. I want them to know Him in His fullness. I want to know that I’ve done it in love, in grace, that they would know the difference between the holy and the profane.

May God, in Jesus’ name, spare the Assemblies of God forever. If I have ever given a prophetic message in my lifetime that God intended for a purpose, it is now.

Many are being deceived. If they are not awakened, what I warn you about will happen.

I pray that God will keep the Assemblies of God in its original purposes. In New York City, He has proved that the people come to hear a straight gospel, and thousands will come where the Word of God is being preached without compromise and yet with grace. May the young men who are discouraged in the Movement not try for a shortcut but be broken and on their faces before the Lord.

May we get our eyes off growth and onto a new revelation of who Jesus is.

Malachi John McDowell

The name Malachi means “My messenger”. The name John means “God is gracious”. The strongest desire of our heart regarding our Malachi is to raise him to be a bold and fearless messenger of the graciousness of God manifest in the gospel of Jesus Christ. That the whole of his heart would belong to God and that with his life and his voice he would wholly serve the Lord.

The prophet Malachi’s prophecies make up the final book of the Old Testament and are God’s final words to the His people before sending Jesus some 400 years later. In Malachi, God confronts the lovelessness of His people who are involved in the rituals and day to day business of religion but with hardened hearts, uncertain of His love and unconcerned by their sin.

God’s response is to confront his people’s indifference but also to declare the future arrival of “Elijah the prophet” who would “turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers”. This prophecy was fulfilled in the coming of John the Baptist, a messenger from God who prepared the way of the Lord Jesus, and preached a message of repentance of sins and a turning of hearts back to God.

For Suzanna and I, Malachi’s birth coincides with a period in our lives where we have been burdened for God’s people the Church. Our hearts are anguished by the lack of discernment in the Church and the lack of the fear of the Lord that hinders the revival fire that we and so many others cry out for. It is difficult to watch the simplicity and joy of the Gospel to be lost in a deluge of powerless religious activity, but we know that God longs to restore the joy of salvation to His people.

Our prayer for our son is that he will walk in the conviction and clarity of these men, the prophets Malachi and John the Baptist. That he will rightly divide good from evil. That he will walk in the fear of the Lord and teach others the same. That he will serve in the Church and in the world as a bright and shining light that helps bring clarity where there is confusion. That the testimony of his life will be a loud shout of JOY of the simple transformational power and victory found in Jesus Christ for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard them; so a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who mediate on His name. “They shall be mine,” says the Lord of hosts, “On the day that I make them my jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him. Then you shall again discern between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him. - from the book of Malachi

It always gives us such joy to remember the simplicity of receiving His word like a little child and the joy that is found in reading the Gospel and obeying it!  Oh to find one person in America that would receive His word this way….

The Kimyal People Receive the New Testament from UFM Worldwide on Vimeo.

Everybody knows the nightmare where you try to scream, but you can’t.  It’s one of the worst feelings ever.  The theme is the sound of insignificance…voicelessness.

When it comes to communicating your heart, you know that you are under the tablecloth to someone else when they don’t hear you, even though you are talking.  You know that you are under the tablecloth to yourself when you don’t know what you’d say.  You know that you’ve been under there for a long time when you can’t remember when you stopped trying.  This is something that so often happens in childhood, in the home, that I don’t want to address it without talking a little bit about forgiveness first.

In the first post, I mentioned how God had created this beautiful chain of life through women, through the womb, that would link every human being ever born directly back to Him.  Life from LIFE, created by Him, in His image, valuable and significant beyond imagination.  But then I spoke of how Satan had twisted that very bond to communicate chains of INsignificance from generation to generation.

A short time ago, I was leading a group of women through these five ways to communicate significance to from mother to child.  I asked for a show of hands from any woman whose recollections of her own mother were marked by these five things.  One out of thirteen raised her hand.  To even get that data, I had to make them read the list with a pen in hand, marking one by one what they remembered from their relationship with mom.  I had to make them have pens, because all they could think about reading the list was how far they fell short with their own children.  The guilt came immediately and with ease.  The understanding had to be strained for.

My intention was not to make them mad at their moms.  The point was, like I said in the last post, “You can’t get water from a rock.”  You can’t give away what you’ve not received.  You just try and fail.   To break the chain of insignificance from one generation to the next, you have to address where it holds you.  This is really hard for women.  They don’t want to deal with what’s hurting down in their hearts, especially if it has to do with mom.  ”Don’t you talk about my mama…”  :)  Nine times out of ten, they’d rather just read a list of standards and feel like a failure.

But Jesus made a way, my friends.  These things can be faced.   Think of an area where your mom never ministered to your heart or gave you what you needed on a spiritual level and let’s call that “making pies”.   When I realize that I don’t know how to make pies because my mom never made pies and so she never taught me to make pies (this is a silly analogy for the deeper things of the heart, like not being heard, or fear based control in the home), I can just…get this… you will be changed forever… FORGIVE, yes, FORGIVE mom for never making pies.  I don’t have to rage at her, judge her, criticize her, or reject her (if you look back at your past relationship with her, you’ll often find you have already done these things, maybe in your teens, but just hadn’t identified accurately why).  I don’t dishonor all the AWESOME cakes and doughnuts she DID make.  I just need to be totally honest about the pies, and what it has meant to me that she didn’t ever make pies and what it cost me at the heart level.  I turn to Jesus and say, “Lord, YOU are the true pie-maker.  You have all the pies I need.  I release mom’s pie-making debt, and I ask you to make me a pie-maker like you.  Teach me what mom couldn’t.  I choose to make pies for my children, trusting You to provide everything I need.”

I just made that so silly, but hopefully you’re catching my drift.  In real life, it won’t play out silly.  What you are lacking that your heart cries out for is real and it is the real root of your anger, your striving, your fear of failure, and your anxiety.   It does need to be ministered to, you do need to FORGIVE, and you do need to be changed so that you do not pass insignificance down to your children.

One of the truly dumbest movies I’ve seen in a long time had one GREAT scene in it.  The heroine of the movie, whose mother had abandoned her as a child, was befriended by her suitor’s grandmother.  The girl was upset about something, when the grandmother, while conversing with her, picked up a brush and started brushing out her long hair.  The girl began to cry.  In the middle of the world’s dumbest plot-line, so did I.  It was downright powerful.  Like an arrow hitting a target, the grandma bypassed all the layers of the girl’s confusion with precision.  Without words, she said, “This is what is really hurting.  Nobody has taken care of you.”

My pie story won’t move your heart, but the Holy Spirit will, like the grandma did with that girl, in your own hair-brushing moment…gently exposing the place where you needed mom so badly, but for whatever reason she wasn’t there.  And then, I hope you remember the pies, forgive her, and turn to Jesus, with whom we are never voiceless.  If you release mom’s debt and turn it over to Jesus, you break that chain, and reconnect with Him, the Source of Living Water.  You’ll find it flows not only to your children, but back to mom, restoring and reconnecting you to her, as well.

Side note:  I hope the practicality and simplicity of forgiveness strikes every mama who reads this. As moms, we need the Lord’s forgiveness (as we mess up with our kids) so many times a day, that if we’re disconnected from its availability and power, we’ll live in a suffocating swamp of failure.  Living Water is very far from the woman who cannot forgive (even if it be because of denial of the wound) or receive forgiveness because she will not easily run to the Lord to get His forgiveness.

So, armed with the incredible tool of forgiveness, let’s look at the 4th way a mother practically communicates significance to her child, and fight insignificance’s favorite tool of voicelessness…

4.  Listening so as to understand.

• “You do not understand your heart, but I will attend to it.” I once witnessed a moment I’ll never forget between a mom and her toddler in a clothing/variety store.  The toddler was strapped into the cart’s seat, and mom, who was dressed to the nines, was pushing the cart and searching the racks.  The baby was making noises and reaching out to grab everything within reach.  A gorgeous, developmentally healthy child.  Mom responded to baby by hissing, “Shut up!  Don’t touch that, you brat!” and swatting his hands away from everything.  In my mind’s eye, I pictured her in five years, yelling at him for being completely passive, and then in fifteen years, crying in a police station, bewildered as to why her rage-filled son was criminal.  The price that child would pay because his mom didn’t care to understand his heart and his needs would be unquantifiable.  Soon they would come into conflict as he would begin to try to communicate his needs (probably in the form of anger), but the tragedy of his tender age highlighted his total vulnerability…he had no ability to understand, defend or explain himself.  This is an extreme example, but it highlights two things.  A)  Children aren’t able to comprehend their own hearts or needs.  B)  Nor are they able to communicate them.  This is mom’s role, and over the years she’ll develop their ability to do both for themselves.  Ways that mom can’t or doesn’t do this have consequences.  The significant mom is watching over the child’s heart, development, challenges, and needs to shape his world on his behalf, rather than react from moment to moment according to how he is fitting with her agenda.  She is setting him up to win, even in moments of discipline.  (E.G. Several times, Ariel has acted out on her brothers in anger, being really mean.  In talking about it, she cries out something like, “There’s just too much boys!!!”  It would be easy to just come down on her awful behavior and miss that she was really needing something, that her femininity was being unwittingly trampled by yet another army/airplane/wrestling game, that she is quite gentle and they are…not.  She couldn’t really understand why she was so angry, but I needed to, and to facilitate her limits, as well as addressing her behavior.)
• “My agenda does not trump your needs, my ultimate agenda IS your needs.” Part of understanding your child’s heart and meeting their needs is understanding that the child is a sinner.  That they were born that way and the need for discipline in their lives should NOT surprise you.  If mom is surprised when baby’s will begins to manifest selfishness as a toddler, and then that he tries out lying, that he whines constantly for his way (until it’s firmly addressed), that he steals from his brother, etc…she’s in for a rough time.  :)  If she perceives meeting his needs as only the “legitimate ones,” (the physical, the good-natured, the amicable) and doesn’t realize that she will encounter the ugliness of human nature in her child, she will not be prepared to respond correctly.  Many mothers respond to their child’s sinfulness with withholding, judgment, and rejection hoping that the withholding of love and affection will “really show him” how bad he’s being and he’ll change.  But if a  mom knows the truth and perceives that her child’s need for discipline is as normal as the child’s need for food (the biblical perspective), a) she understands her child’s heart (it is sincere, beautiful, and deeply marred by sinful self, especially rebellion) and b) she considers that discipline to be her job.  Being angry and rejecting the child have no place.  The child does not lose security or significance in the process of being parented and disciplined out of his sin. Mom is not personally wounded by child’s (disciplinary) needs, complaining about them, or exasperated.  She’s expecting them.
• “You will not have to fight to be understood.” How many marriage tensions could be boiled down to this, “I’m not so much angry (or crying) because you don’t understand me, as because I know that you would and could understand me, if you only wanted to understand more than you want to … (to defend yourself, to get this over with, to be right, etc.)”  Insignificance says, “What is there to understand?  What’s the big deal?”  It forces people to manipulate and strain for another’s attention through negative means, or even worse, just to give up.  Imagine getting a phone call from the president on a bad connection.  The effort one would put in to strain to hear what he had to say in a personal call would be extraordinary.  If you believe someone is significant, you try to hear what they are really saying, even if its difficult to perceive.  When we consider someone significant, we must know what it is they are communicating.  On the other hand, when it’s a sales call from the neighborhood newspaper, we hang up on them.  It’s that simple.  This is often a major area of forgiveness to work through from mother to child (and in marriage).  Lack of caring to listen what the other is saying is that viral sort of sin of omission that is everywhere.
• Again, this requires time. Busyness is the ultimate enemy of all these simple forms of establishing significance.  It can be why moms who would sweat, bleed, and give both kidneys for their kids still manage to build major tension with their children lasting into adulthood, pass on generations of insignificance, and find that the fruit of their parenting does not at all measure up to their intentions, or the effort they feel they made.  Days will pass quick as a blink if we don’t stop and make sure our mommy life is submitted to the Lord.  There must be a breaking ties with the standards of the world, and seeking the Lord for what he says the lifestyle, schedule, and agenda must be.  He understands children’s hearts and knows exactly what they need.  (for example.  A family considers it normal to visit all the relatives and do sports camps all summer, but if they would listen, the Lord says that they need to recoup from the school year and focus on family unity, especially for the sake of the youngest, who is dealing with insecurity and misses the increasingly busy teenage siblings.)

• “I am seeking your best, not to be ‘off the hook’.” There are things in parenting that are downright agonizing.  Constant whining, quarreling, begging, or rebellion leave a parent EXHAUSTED.  Because the world doesn’t know that there is a solution for these things, they constantly recommend me-time.  They don’t know that there can be peace in the home.  Peace in the home, however, comes at a hefty price.  Throughout the child’s development, there will be cycles of establishment followed by maintenance.  If you don’t do the hard work of establishment, you won’t ever get to maintenance (peace).  (EG,  So many parents simply don’t know what the battle will be to establish real heart-obedience in the toddler years, and so they live in an ungodly “normal” that is increasingly off track for the rest of the child’s development.  If you talk about peace, they assume you have better genes or luck.  They are in constant tension with their child.  In this difficult spot, Mom’s heart is just barely staying alive, and seeking every possible chance for a break.)  How to get to breakthrough is not what I’m addressing in this post, but for now, the point is that when you see your child’s significance, your heart INSISTS on getting to the breakthrough, no matter how costly or how long it takes.  Keeping everybody alive, and getting away for breaks is not enough.  Minimizing time with the child through childcare or school or minimizing the number of children because it is too difficult are not solutions.  Unbelief and hopelessness dwell with insignificance.  Significance presses for victory.
• “I’m watching with the Lord’s eyes.” When I look at my child, I want to see what the Lord sees.  I want to notice that the compliant one is trapped in sorrow, and address her needs with the same determination as I do the loud one that tends toward defiance.  Significance says, “The Lord does not call my child melancholy or a loner!  I will not be complacent because she’s quiet…I’m not satisfied until I see this little one be who God made her to be!”  In other words, my goals don’t center on a certain comfort level for myself and the family, but on WHO God says my children are to be, and how to DEVELOP them according to His individual blueprints.
• “I am in charge, and set limits long before you understand them.” It is almost impossible for a Mom who is trapped in insignificance to walk in strong authority with her children, especially if they display any strength of will.  If she does not come out of insignificance, either the children will rule her, or she’ll resort to control and manipulation to restrain them.  Whether it works or not in the short term, that road will end in destruction.  Mom has to know who she is and walk in her God-given authority as leader, even if by nature, she has a milder personality than they.  Limits can’t be set out of negotiation, but out of vision.
• See with spiritual eyes, not natural ones.  See what comes against the child, not merely how they react to it.  This is so important.  If we operate in natural wisdom, we will miss it!  We must be able to 1) understand our children’s hearts (”see” them, as we’ve been saying throughout the posts), and 2) understand the spiritual dynamics that affect them.  (EG, 3 year old suddenly won’t stay in her bed but repeatedly comes out crying.  Mom is stressed out by finances and fearful that Dad is going to lose his job.   She addresses 3 yr old’s “disobedience” with a crack down, not discerning the open door to a spirit of fear in the home.  After repeated discipline, child finally stays in bed.  After a few similar situations, child begins displaying anger and rebellion.)

So, really.  The significance of children?  Am I the first one to think of this?  How many politicians’ campaigns are practically run on cliched phrases about what we’re leaving to our children, how we’re educating our children, peace for our children, etc.?

How many women could say along with me, “I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into, but then I looked into my baby’s eyes for the first time…and my whole world was upside down…”  Millions and billions.  How many books, movies, songs, conferences about the worth of children?

How about Wess Stafford’s incredible book, Too Small to Ignore?  Note:  DO read that book if your parents were in ministry/missions, you are in ministry/missions and have kids, or you will ever lead people who are in ministry/missions and have children.  DO NOT read that book if you are wearing non-waterproof mascara.

The point is, yes, motherhood is awesome and wonderful and incredibly significant, because children are all these things.  I already alluded (briefly) to what happens if you try to restore the significance of women without children.  But what happens if you try to restore the significance of children without restoring the significance of women?  I think this actually happens a lot, especially in Christian circles.

Macro:  You get movements, activist women, and dogmatics.  La Leche League (breastfeeding ONLY…for years!), Attachment parenting ONLY, strange NO family planning doctrine, Home-school ONLY dogmatism, Natural Birth ONLY activists, parenting method/book X ONLY proponents…the legal list can go on and on.  These movements create legals lists which dictate ad nauseum what children require, but have only cost and striving to speak to women.  Women who’ve rejected the selfish spirit of the modern age are drawn in, but their hearts are left brittle.  These kind of movements, even if they’re as small as a couple families at the church, are marked by control, and the strongest voices are usually the women, not the men.  (Not always.)  These die-hard mamas may know something about the significance of children, but they often miss God’s heart for women.

Micro: Well, there’s a laundry list here.  But ultimately, you get burnt.  Burnt mamas, burnt marriages, and lopsided children.  You get women who sign up again and again to give it all for their kids, but from day to day are tired, aching, and needing another shot of adrenaline (mother-vision) in order to give their guts.  In other words, it’s not fun.  And it’s supposed to (in between the doggone difficult moments) REALLY, REALLY FUN.  Happy mamas, satiated husbands, and joyful subjects in the realm (i.e. the kids).  You know, abundant life.  (John 10:10)  The kind Jesus gives.

Abundant life produces life.  Good ideas in parenting, however well-meaning, cannot produce significant, life-filled children from exhausted, insignificant mothers.

So…we cannot push children out from under the tablecloth, and leave the mamas under there.  This probably seems like very ethereal talk.  Let’s look to our practical list to understand the dynamic.  The second basic way that significance is communicated from mother to child is as follows:

2. Joy-filled Empowerment “You can…!”  Raising up daughters into mama’s shoes, sons into daddy’s shoes.

The attitude is:  ”You ARE like me, you WILL BE like me, isn’t it so awesome that you are just like me?!?”  I hope you can hear the joy.  Do you see why mom has to walk in incredible significance in order to pass on her identity in the home from day to day?  What if mom sees herself as merely the grocery-buying, buns-wiping chauffeur?  What if she describes her role as referee/maid/cook?  What if mom hates her job?  What kind of identity can she give her kids?

HOWEVER, if mom walks in truth…if mom sees herself FIRST as salt of the earth, light of the world, disciple of Jesus Christ, indwelt temple of the Holy Spirit, chosen daughter of the King, discipler, teacher of the eternal WORD OF GOD, royal priest, holy and set apart by God, trainer, cherished Bride (of Christ and of her husband), eternal Beauty (according to 1 Peter), QUEEN ESTHER IN HER DOMAIN…well, then.  Now, we’re talking.

I have seen women who want to talk the above talk, but don’t believe for it in her home.  They are looking for significance elsewhere.  And THAT is the gong I want to strike.  YOU CAN’T HAVE ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER!!!  The lie so many are believing is that because it’s not manifesting in the home, it’s “out there” somewhere.  (’It’ being significance.)  No, ladies, the tablecloth is not over your home, it’s over your heart.  Significance has to be restored through Jesus Christ, and then it has to flow like Living Water to your children.

• Always teaching, because development is the goal, not behavior. A significant mommy is a teacher/trainer.  Achieving standards of behavior is just an agenda.  Reproducing yourself requires understanding being passed on.  (E.G.  Not:  ”Hey, 8 year old!  Be quiet in church.”  But:  ”Here’s my heart when the Word of God is being spoken:  I’m hungry for it like starving person.  I’m thirsty for it like a marathon runner.  I’m desperate to honor God with my WHOLE body.”)
• Do they understand why?  This is my job. The transfer described above (which, by the way, is not one that would take place IN church, obviously, thus the need for unhurried time mentioned in #1) creates a WHY? in the child’s heart that is the place from which you want to form their behavior.  ”Why do like the Bible so much?  Why do you sing so loud and lift your hands?  Why do you pray like you’re angry sometimes?”  Answering is Mama’s job.  WAY more interesting than “Read your Bible.  Be respectful during worship!  Renounce sin and the enemy.”
• Passing on skills through repeated practice. Again, this requires laying down rights.  “To do this, you will have to be next to me and do what I do not nearly as well as I do it.  And I will encourage you in that, rather than taking over.”  This is not 24/7…it wouldn’t work!  Ha!  I’m picturing a three hour nightly dinner prep with a 3 yr. old daughter.  No, but it’s a heart attitude that creates an environment of training, that looks for opportunities to raise them up.  I’ve found these come much earlier than some people say, and much later than others.  It depends on the child, their interests, and what needs to be developed in them.  Judah LOVES to help me with the laundry and gather the upstairs trash.  Having simple responsibilities has literally brought him incredible LIFE.  I have never had Ariel regularly help me with laundry.  But she’s begging to change baby’s diaper when he comes. God leads in what the individual child needs.
• “I believe in who you are.”  Child is not defined or limited by their mistakes, struggles, or strongholds. A significant mama knows about process, because she has been in one with the Lord.  Every bit of strength, wisdom and righteousness in her life has come through His cross and its power in her life, so perfectionism has no place.  She knows that some character traits take years to develop and she failed 400 x’s before she succeeded.  She understands that this is the way with humans.  There are no “good children.”  There are only carefully developed, redeemed ones.  Bad days are bad, and sometimes they’re very bad.  But she is stubbornly convinced about who her child is because she is stubbornly convinced that the Lord is that committed to her, and so He will help her get them there (through careful application of His Word).
• Faith:  ”We will overcome, because you are precious and purposeful.” This is similar to the above, but holds a VERY important word: Purpose.  Insignificance is found in the mama who has no grasp of the great PURPOSE her days hold, the eternal weight behind what she does in her home, how much is at stake with her own self and her children.  If it matters whether or not her sons are self-controlled, if a nation’s salvation depends on it, or if her daughter’s kindness will heal a community, or if the glory of God is displayed when her husband still delights in her 35 years into their marriage and by that point it has impacted 5,000 young couples who’d never seen such a thing…well, then.  Now, you’re talking.