I can see by your replies that my curiosities seem childish. I feel a little embarassed. I am new to Christianity kinda. When i was young it was beat into my head that i would go to hell if i didnt struggle to be a good Christian. I gave myself to God then, out of fear. But i never actually felt the spirit of the lord and ended up falling away.
Just recently i humbled myself and surrendered to God. Since then my relationship with Jesus has been VERY different.
Im just worried that if i go about telling my kids of concequences like i was told that i will push them away from Christ like i was.
I get how sometimes for the right goal we in family heritage beliefs set standards that are meant well, but are not true. It is also true we can thru human reasoning get it wrong in our religious historical doctrines, apply fearing God as to having to die to the "good" parts of who we are. But God would have us be emotionally healthy and not follow these false unhealthy practices in our love and fear of Him. It is never wrong to be real about all truths, but with kids it should be noted to be timely. It is not wrong therefore to fear eternal pain, or feelings of hopelessness apart from God, but it is also not wrong to delight in Salvation and in our freedom found in it: to friendships, joy, art, beauty, recreation, laughter, and nature. God plants desires in our hearts so we will nurture and water them. These are invitations from God, gifts from Him, yet, somehow we feel guilty unwrapping those presents from wrongly emphasizing other aspects of truth to fit us in with God under our experiences and not His.
We therefore love because we were first loved, loving all of God and all of His truths.Not loved because we were threatened, thus properly fear God, having God spoon-feed us love. Despite the realness of the consequences to sin being substantially heinous leading to eternal punishment. God's message is that of reconciliation and peace and Joy, and life more abundant in the wake of the truth of sins facts, leading to His grace to which is also true and real, and more than conquering.
But we need to be careful that we don't listen to Satan when he would have us say, "I don't want to serve my kids a God of vice-grip like distain for my real needs, having me fear Him only to feel abashed in my concerns and desires." For to do that would be listening to a lie. God wants to highlight our needs and desires and meet them; to give us answers that will satisfy us more than we can even realize in our own understanding yet.
But God will have us also go and face walls in our lives. It's ironic how God accepts us as we are, but He never leaves us that way...smile. He enables circumstances and difficulties to transform us from our old pictures and cultures we believed before Him to put up the new pictures of His Righteous abundant living to be fully realized. The walls we hit are also gifts from God. He is not Satan's version -- a vice-grip thats strips you and your kids from things worth having, He is taking us on a journey with many twists and strange turns in order that deep, experiential life changes might take place in you and me thru Jesus Christ showing us of the depth of His love for us. The sad reality is that most of us will not go forward until pain of staying where we are is unbearable.
Spiritual growth is the place we are constantly traveling from "positional sanctification", or the place God has placed us in regeneration from what Jesus has done giving us life,... to "ultimate sanctification" where I have laid my life alongside Christ being crucified with Christ and I no longer live, or where I have died to the right to myself. God slowly walks with us filling in us what we lack and transforming us to become His finished work; until Christ-like and child-like faith drives our identity forward and upward.
Thru God's grace we must know of what we are graced from, thus, to tell your kids of consequences isn't as important as simply telling them the truth of Sin, which carries those in that truth, but only to preface and quantitate the finished message of the gospel which is our reconciliation to the God-head and His Kingdom. God's grace is to send His only begotten Son to make sin no longer our consequence, herein lies the message of sins reality to tell to your kids. This will not push away your kids then, but attract and enlighten them to the truth and the truth will set them free.
