This article is part of the series Answering Kids’ Toughest Questions.

True repentance

What if I sin too much? Will God forgive me again? These kinds of questions are questions that kids ask all the time, and if they don’t ask them verbally, they often think about them as we work on discipline and teach them right and wrong. So this is important to us as parents – which, if we’re honest, is sometimes hard for us to answer in a simple way, because we’re often still struggling with a lot of these questions ourselves.

So thinking about this before our children even ask these questions, or prefacing them when we talk to them, can be very helpful in helping them understand the fundamental theological truth behind sin, behind God’s forgiveness. We know that He says that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us, and that we all fall short of the holiness of God. None of us can live up to their perfect standards, no matter what. And it will be a little different depending on the type of child we’re talking to. We may have one of our children who likes to push all the limits. I admit that I was one of them. Or there are some who think they are doing a lot of good. Or they may look at their sibling and think: My God, they always disobey mom. At least I don’t do that.

So we’re going to be dealing with different types of hearts when we talk to our children. But it is helpful for us to talk to them, from the beginning, to make them understand that God loves you above all. He is not this big, scary Heavenly Father who looks down on them and is constantly disappointed in them. And so to be able to help them first understand that they are created in His image, that they are loved, that they are adored, that they are cherished by their Heavenly Father.

It’s very important to start with this, so that when we come to the subject of sin: “Honey, you disobeyed Mom on this, which means you also ultimately disobeyed God, and that violates the commandments of God. » But we cannot do anything that falls outside of God’s ability to forgive. And we can show them examples like the thief on the cross. He had sinned all his life. He had gone completely against the law of God. And it wasn’t until literally in his last breath on the cross that Jesus spoke to him and saw that he was the Son of God and put his faith in him, and he said to the thief: “Today you will be with me in paradise.

This is a perfect example of no matter how much we have sinned up to this point, when we are able to see that we truly have not attained the holiness of God, we are able to come to repentance. And explain what that means. What does repentance look like? We can all easily say, “I’m sorry,” but sometimes we just regret getting caught. We are not always truly sorry for having sinned and done what was contrary to God’s law. And so being able to encourage them, on the one hand, that God’s grace is enough to be able to bring them to Him, no matter what they have done, no matter how many times they have failed, that He wants them to come to him. with forgiveness. But also just to assure them that his forgiveness is fully complete.

I think there is an aspect that we can struggle with, even as adults, but to help our children also understand that part of forgiveness happens when we come to repentance, one must be capable of receiving God’s forgiveness. Sometimes we can continue to blame ourselves, thinking that we don’t deserve it, that we have failed, that we have fallen, that we are terrible people. And some of our children can be very hard on themselves. So, to be able to assure them, God has shown over and over again in His Word that if we sincerely repent and say, “I know I was wrong. I know I don’t deserve to be forgiven. But I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, which means that He already lived a perfect life that I will never be able to live.”

We need to help our children understand that repentance is seeing our sin, confessing it, receiving God’s forgiveness, and then turning from it.

So there is great freedom in knowing that we can come as we are – with all of our fallen nature – and admit, “I was wrong. forgiveness.” And then, to be able to say, “Even though I know I don’t deserve it and I don’t feel like I deserve it, I can have faith that Jesus has already accomplished the consequences that I deserve on the cross. can walk in the freedom of knowing this truth.

But then encourage them too: what should the other side of repentance look like? This is to look like a change. We can say we’re sorry all day long, but if we don’t truly see that what we did hurt someone or we don’t mourn the pain we caused and turn away from it, so we I have to ask: is there real repentance here, or is it just that I’m sorry I got in trouble? We need to help our children understand that repentance is seeing our sin, confessing it, receiving God’s forgiveness, and then turning from it.

Speaking of the Old Testament, I heard someone say that it talked a lot about returning to God and that God often referred to repentance as “returning to me.” And so part of that is turning away from our sin and helping our children see the wrong that they have done.

Maybe you lied to dad. Okay, what will it look like next time? How can I proceed next time? Maybe I’m still scared, I’m going to get in trouble. But when I found out about it last time, I tried to get away with lying and it didn’t go very well. So how can I change this choice next time and ask God for help to be honest, even though I know these consequences are scary, and see that there is actually great freedom in that?

Again, these are not easy questions, and we often have to repeat these things over and over again to our children and to ourselves. But the good news for us parents is that we learn with our children. And I think if we can be humble enough to acknowledge that to them, they’ll actually be much more likely to receive that truth from us.

Sarah Walton is the author of The Long Road Home: The Story of Two Sons and a Father’s Endless Love.

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