Teaching Values: Walk the Walk - Part 3

Have values in your life taken a tumble because sin has lost its meaning? Carl Menninger asked, "Whatever happened to sin?" Do you think the definition of sin has lost significance? Is sin just being naughty and of no real consequence and nothing to worry about?

Values compel a person to take seriously the responsibility for the health and well-being of oneself and others. Constant exposure to depravity will numb a person's sense of what is right or wrong. Someone asked a counselor, "Why should I teach my child what's right and wrong?" The counselor’s response: "Children are self-centered and will seek what they want when they want it."

You do not have to teach children to lie or steal or be self-centered. When one of my children came home with a friend's toy, we went together to the friend's house to return the toy and apologize. Deuteronomy 4:9 commands parents to teach their children and their children's children all of God's word and his expectations so that they might live for him all of their days.  

Teaching Values: Walk the Walk - Part 2

Nathaniel Taylor inquired concerning the Golden Rule, "Which feature is most obvious in human behavior, doing as we want others to do to us or doing as we have been done to?” It's difficult not to criticize when criticized, to refrain from retaliating when emotionally or physically hurt, or to refuse to be defensive when confronted with a defensive attitude.

Jesus preached, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and he was serious about putting it into practice. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, "Jesus preached to all people the gospel of the Golden Rule. He believed the deed and not the creed would help us in our greatest and ultimate need."

Today Longfellow could say, "Walk the walk, not just talk the talk” or “Don’t be all talk and no action." Listen to Ephesians 2:10. "For we are God's workman-ship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance that we should walk in them." Good works represent our faith in Christ Jesus as well as our values and our choices.