Lesson 21 | The impact of parenting
Note: Please allow yourself one and a half hours to watch and reflect on this lesson.
Summary of key points
- God commands us to honour our parents. This should not be confused with idolising them.
- God calls the way of life that we inherit from our families and ancestors, empty, because it cannot save our souls.
- When we accept Jesus as our Saviour, God sends the Holy Spirit into our hearts so that we can call Him, Abba, which means “papa” in Hebrew.
- Only God is the perfect Parent. He understands us perfectly and has perfect answers for us 24/7.
- We can form positive or negative idols of our parents and need to repent of this.
- Imperfect parents will parent us imperfectly, leaving us with many different conflicted emotions (with 10 examples).
- The Bible warns us not to sin against our parents. We will not prosper if we do.
- We need to confess and give our anxious childhood emotions to God for His comfort and healing and repent of idolising our parents, whether positively or negatively (with guided prayer).
Group reflection questions
- What are some of your personal takeaways from this study and testimony?
- What are your parents like? How is your relationship with them? Do any of the descriptions of imperfect parenting apply to your parents?
- What emotions do you feel towards your parents? Do any of the emotions described in this study apply to you? Please ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth to you.
- What emotions or inner anxieties from childhood have you received God’s comfort for?
- What are the two ways we can idolise our parents? How may we have unknowingly idolised our parents?
- Have we sinned against our parents? Please refer to the examples given for reference.
Transcript
Download the PDF of the transcript here: Love the Lord lesson 21 lesson notes
Watch the testimony for this lesson