Loving the Lord and Loving Others
March 5, 2019
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Deborah Wuehler
It's Why We Homeschool
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Todd Wilson
Easy and Hard
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Lee Binz
3 Big Ways to Show Love
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Danika Cooley
Teaching Love
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It’s Why We Homeschool
If you were in my home, you would hear me telling my children to love God and love others almost daily. Why? Because Deuteronomy teaches us to teach our children
this one truth all day long.
It is why I am home educating.
It is the command of the “what” I am to teach. Often we have to put aside the math, language arts, and science and teach this
one thing. It is that important.
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up (Deuteronomy 6:4-7).
I teach my children this truth when they are very young by putting up my first two fingers. One finger up is “Love God” and two fingers up is “Love Others.” When the children are not treating each other kindly, sometimes I will just put two fingers up, and they know what I mean. As they get older, we talk through each situation and ask the questions, “Were you loving God when you did/thought/said that?” and “Were you loving others when you did/thought/said that?”
But this part gets me every time. Because it means that it is my purpose in life also. Am I setting a good example? A Godly example? Am I responding in a way that reveals a love for God or a love for others?
Many of us want to do great things for God, but just not this one thing—with that one child or that friend or spouse. And if we can’t do this
one thing, we can’t do anything great or holy.
Because, if I don’t love others, I am not loving God. Ouch! That hurts. Some days, I have a hard time loving others . . . especially right in my own house. I mean the God-kind of love, not my own shallow feelings.
How do I love like Him? I get to know Him. I get in His Word and study His loving, gracious, and merciful character. I am none of these things, but as I yield to His Holy Spirit and get out of the way, He can live His character through this earthen vessel.
Why do you homeschool? I hope it is to teach your children to love their one true God with all they are—spirit, soul, and body. And then to reach out and love others like you are learning to do, too. You have the best opportunity to do this as you keep them
Home Where They Belong.
~ Deborah
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Easy and Hard
For the record, it's easy to love God. After all, He first loved us . . . drew us to Himself, loves us unconditionally, and never screams, throws a fit, or says “You don't like me!”
Your kids on the other hand . . . not as easy sometimes. And yet, God says things like “If you've done it for the least of these . . . you've done it unto Me; they will know you are my disciples by your love for one another.” That means when we're serving and loving our ungrateful children . . . we're serving and loving God.
The opposite is just as true: when we don't act like we love our children . . . we're not loving God.
Some have said, “Well, I can't love others UNTIL I love God.” When a better way to say it is “I love God WHEN I am loving others (including my spouse and children).”
Somehow, God must feel loved when you smile at your children, forgive your children, and hold and love your children. In this season of life, maybe the way you show God how much you love Him is by loving your family as you homeschool.
Just a thought.
Be real,
Todd
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Lee Binz, The HomeScholar
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3 Big Ways to Show Love
How do busy homeschoolers focus on loving the Lord and loving others? You do that in three big ways, each building on each other incrementally.
1. Love the Lord: Read the Bible
Individually, loving the Lord begins with reading the Bible during a daily quiet time. Corporately too, within your family, this step in your faith is important. You can focus on teaching your children the importance of daily immersion in the instruction and correction of the Lord.
Put Bible class on your homeschool transcript. Most private Christian schools do that, and you can, too. Just because you are doing it from love and obedience doesn’t mean it’s not also an academic class in high school.
2. Love your Calling: Embrace your Vocation
Your mission is to raise your children in the training and instruction of the Lord, according to Ephesians 6:4. The hard thing is when we read about the Proverbs 31 woman, it can be distracting. In that passage you read about the lifetime of The Wife of Noble Character. But we aren’t embracing ALL the vocations we have had or will have in our lifetime. We are embracing our job here and now—homeschooling our children. The other vocations we may have later can wait. Right now, right here, this homeschooling “thing” is our job.
If you are wondering
how to be a better home educator, the answer is homeschooling. Investing in your vocation WILL make you a better home educator. Part of your job is to shape and mold your child’s behavior. You immediately reap the rewards of a closer relationship with your child, too!
Homeschooling can make your child more pleasant to be around. At the same time, it will increase your love for your child and your awareness of their academic needs; so you will become a better home educator over time. You can see that homeschooling will make you a better home educator as time goes by.
3. Love Others: Service to Family and Community
We are called first to serve our family, and all the hours of do-gooding can’t compensate for a lack of homeschooling or serving your own children. Don’t let your long-term goal of service to community overshadow your priority goal of today: service to your family.
Homeschooling is such an efficient method of education that actually gives you more time to provide service to others. There will be days and seasons of homeschooling where you can provide a service to your community as a family. Serving at Vacation Bible School, Sunday School, soup kitchens, and clothing banks are part of our goal to raise children in the training and instruction of the Lord. The Lord calls on us to help the poor and helpless, as it says in Psalms 82:4. When we are called to do that, then we can also meet our first priority of serving our family.
Homeschooling is an effective way of educating, that’s true, but it also has long-term repercussions that help grown adult children live in the real world of adulthood. In a study by NHERI, homeschoolers are more likely to engage in community service as adults than the general population (
The effect of youth schooling type on civic engagement.) When we focus on homeschooling first, it doesn’t mean we are doing that to the exclusion of serving others. Instead, it means that we are raising a generation of young people who will grow up to serve communities in the future.
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Teaching Love
In Matthew chapter 22, Jesus is speaking to crowds. He’s been questioned about taxes by the Pharisees and about the Resurrection by the Sadducees. Both groups have tried to ensnare Him, and they just can’t. Then, starting in Matthew 22:34, the Pharisees gather together and a lawyer decides he can test Jesus and find fault in Him. So he asks. . .
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
And Jesus answers. . .
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Loving Jesus with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength is a tall order. It demands we remember all our time, money, energy—even our thoughts—belong to Jesus. We are just stewards of them. When we love God, we serve Him, His kingdom, and His people with our lives.
I think the very best way to teach our kids to love the Lord and to love others is to be certain we're loving God ourselves. We have to love those around us just like we love ourselves. I don't know about you, but I tend to love myself a little more than I should. I always make sure I have clothes to wear and food to eat—food I like, I might add. I'm pretty good about making sure I have everything I really need and a few things I want, too.
Love isn't a touchy-feely emotion. Love is a decision. It's an action. Love shows up when it's hard. Love serves. Love puts others first.
We taught our kids to love the Lord by praying with them and reading the Bible and memorizing Scripture together. We show up for worship together. We talk about how the Lord's Word applies to our daily lives. Sometimes we deny our own desires because they just don't line up with God's Word.
Likewise, we taught our kids to love others by serving together. We dished up soup, pulled weeds, moved people in, cleaned houses, and painted side-by-side with our boys from the time they were very young. We talked about how much we love Jesus and love his people. We told them that we love others because God first loved us. We showed up for relationships, and our kids showed up right alongside us.
Serving others in love can be difficult when you’re sick, potty training is going awry, you don’t know why you’re teenager isn’t home yet, and your husband isn’t picking up the phone. It’s hard to love others by displaying patience, kindness, and gentleness. It isn't easy to share your time, space, and resources.
And yet we do. Because
that is love. Our kids are wonderful imitators, and they will love like we do.
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