{"id":3677,"date":"2012-11-07T14:31:35","date_gmt":"2012-11-07T20:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/?p=3677"},"modified":"2013-01-24T22:43:03","modified_gmt":"2013-01-25T03:43:03","slug":"gchpots-parents-of-teens-love-god-by-belonging-to-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/2012\/11\/07\/gchpots-parents-of-teens-love-god-by-belonging-to-christ\/","title":{"rendered":"GCH:POTs (Parents of Teens)- Love God by Belonging to Christ"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hello POTs!<\/p>\n<p>It has been 3 days now since I posted about God having 3 purposes for your teen\u2019s life\u2026 Do you remember what they are?<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>To love God by belonging to Christ<\/li>\n<li>To love God by loving others<\/li>\n<li>To glorify God by fulfilling your \u201cThis I must do\u201d dream<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Today, we will dive into the first purpose mentioned: \u201cLoving God by belonging to Christ.\u201d I pray that you were able to go to the Lord in prayer about this very purpose over your own life. . Really, if you are able to articulate about how God has impacted your life in this way, it will be much easier to relate it to your teen! If you found it challenging to get started digging deeper about this on your own, that\u2019s okay\u2026. You can work through it with me today and I pray this lesson will help encourage some awesome conversation between you and your teen!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>Matthew 22:37-38<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>Jesus replied: \u201c\u2018Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>\u00a0and with all your mind.\u2019 This is the first and greatest commandment.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>As a Christ follower, it is our purpose to love God by choosing (yes, intentionally making a choice\u2026) to be transformed into a new person in the image of Christ. How do we go about doing this in real life? Well, it begins by reading God\u2019s Word and allowing the Holy Spirit to teach to you fully surrender to Jesus as your Lord and Savior.<\/p>\n<p>It is critical that you have help from people around you here on earth to walk this out. I\u2019m specifically talking about your church family (including prayer partners, accountability partners, and mentors). In belonging to Christ, you have chosen to commit to a life of holiness, integrity, right motives, peace, and worshipping your Creator\u2026\u2026 as well as helping others to do the same.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>Romans 12:2<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>\u00a0the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test <\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>and approve what God\u2019s will is\u2014his good, pleasing and perfect will.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>As adults\u2026. This is HARD to do, right? Can you imagine how much harder it is for teens? Typically, their biggest fear is not fitting in with their peers. I know this has been tough for many of my kids, especially in middle school through 9<sup>th<\/sup> grade. If we can pinpoint and put names to our struggles with this very idea, then it will be much easier to relate to our teens about it. Do you struggle with this in your workplace? Maybe with friends you still have from before you were a believer? Maybe it\u2019s your extended family that makes it challenging for you to live not of this world?<\/p>\n<p>I urge you to spend some time with the Lord on this in prayer before you start the conversation with your teen. Let Him guide you in opening up with them about what this looks like in your life.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>John 14:6<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>Jesus answered, \u201cI am the way and the truth and the life. <\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>No one comes to the Father except through me.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Do you believe this? In your heart and soul, do you believe this? If so, how does this impact YOUR life? Explore that a bit before talking to your teen about it. I truly wish I could be a fly on the wall and hear every conversation each of you have with your teens about this divine purpose God has for their life! Read this scripture with your teen and help them unpack it. You know, they might just teach you a thing or two about your walk with God!<\/p>\n<p>I would love to hear about how this is going in your home. Please share with me in a comment on this blog or by email how it is going working through this with your teen. After all, we are all in this together!<\/p>\n<p>I will be back tomorrow to explore the second purpose God has for your teen:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>To Love God by Loving Others!<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Blessings to you and yours,<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Megan<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>megan@girlfriendscoffeehour.com<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/megan.smidt<\/p>\n<p>Sign up for one of our Online Bible Study or Fellowship Groups for Women and Teen Girls here:<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/sign-up-for-girlfriends-coffee-hour-online-bible-studies\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello POTs! It has been 3 days now since I posted about God having 3 purposes for your teen\u2019s life\u2026 Do you remember what they are? To love God by belonging to Christ To love God by loving others To glorify God by fulfilling your \u201cThis I must do\u201d dream Today, we will dive into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[217,218,258,370,422,425,436,497,554,620,692,741,742,791,860,879,1173,1174,994,1011,1042,1043,1156],"class_list":["post-3677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parents-2","tag-christian-walk","tag-christianity","tag-conversation","tag-family","tag-gifts","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-god","tag-help","tag-jesus","tag-love","tag-mission","tag-parents","tag-parents-of-teenagers","tag-prayer","tag-purpose","tag-relationships","tag-self-image","tag-self-worth","tag-spiritual-gifts","tag-step-family","tag-teenagers","tag-teens-2","tag-youth","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-Xj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8292,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677\/revisions\/8292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}