Infants and toddlers intuitively find it distressing to have their care relegated to an institutional day-care center, even one run in the most benevolent fashion possible. Children younger than school age are simply not emotionally prepared to participate in an institutional setting; the design of God is that a child be raised by a hands-on parent that can devote his or her, generally her, primary attention to the child when attention is needed. That is why mothers have attached breasts to feed infants and comfort children.

The truth is that although the Lord Jesus Christ did not come to the world to condemn it, those that do not develop and understanding and appreciation for the truth will in fact be condemned. Our eternal salvation is not based upon our personal goodness or righteousness, because in the day of judgment, our personal righteousness will be found wanting. Our eternal salvation is based upon our faith in the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, who paid the price that we owe for our sins and can grant us the free gift of salvation.

Thinking Biblically, we come to the conclusion that that which we have is from the Lord, and we have the responsibility to not hang on to that which should be given, but we should keep our obligation to the Lord God to provide for those whom He sends to us for provision.

We mature Christians are called to restore other Christians that fall into temptation and then sin. But in order to really understand how sin is restored spiritually, the Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, gives us an object lesson that cannot be surpassed.

God is telling you today, through the words of the Bible that I am repeating, that His Word and His principles are still literally true, and that true wisdom is found by serious, earnest and honest study of, faith in, and adherence to the Divinely Inspired Written Word of God.

The Lord corrects errors in character development. In His Word, God gives us objective principles for behavior that He expects us to follow. Academic success has to do with the ability to remember objective facts: character development has to do with applying objective Biblical principles properly in order to live in the way that God has ordained. Character development allows us to know whether or not it is proper to do that which we desire to do.

Paul kept in touch with the Corinthians through the emissaries that he sent there, and had this back and forth, culminating in this second letter to the Corinthians that the Holy Spirit decided should become part of the canonical record.

Let us look at our children as Jesus looked at His disciples, and emulate Jesus’ example by living lives of character before them, and then by taking every opportunity to build up our children, not in self-esteem, but using discipline to develop character to build respect for the authority of God’s Word in them.