So we point our child to God’s truth: the way of life is in repentance and faith in Christ. Our hearts are completely unreliable guides (Jer. 17:9), only God’s word has the wisdom we need (2 Tim. 3:15-17). Christ can wash away all sins, and He makes us new within, enabling us to walk God’s way of life and healing, of genuine love and hope (1 Cor. 6:9-11). Our child needs to know God in Christ (John 14:6) – and if we love him, we’ll tell him so.

Our Lord was once asked to single out the most important of the over six hundred laws of Moses (Matt. 22:36). Without hesitation, He replied,

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.

How could it be otherwise? The Lord God is the Creator and Lord of all. He pre-existed the universe; He created it, sustains it, guides it. He alone is worthy of our ultimate devotion. All else is the Creator’s creation, deserving only the value He assigns to it – never the reverse.

When a person becomes a Christian, he abnegates the throne he’d attempted to usurp. He denies himself, embracing death to self-worship, and he embraces Jesus Christ as Lord (cf. Matt. 16:24).

The break is decisive, radical, and final. Jesus is now his Lord (Rom. 10:9), to the exclusion of all competitors. Jesus expressed this very vividly: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). The closest and dearest human relations, and the ardent love that binds them to us, must so pale in contrast to our love for Christ that they look more like hatred than love.

In a contest between Christ’s Lordship and any human’s opposing will, there can be no contest.

As with every aspect of our devotion and faith, we should expect our love for God to be tested. Trials come in thousands of forms, and when we respond in faith they always mature and strengthen us (James 1:2ff.). Of these tests, surely the sharpest and most painful arise from loved ones – from friends and relatives.

In these instances, the Bible has always spoken with one voice. No one of any rank or relation can be allowed to draw us away from loyalty, love, and obedience towards God. It makes no difference whether it’s “your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul” (Deut. 13:6).

Do you love God as God deserves, as He merits, as He commands? Do I? It’s easy enough to say so. Talk has always had the same market value – cheap.

So what happens when your son announces that he is “gay”? Or your daughter tells you she’s decided she really wants to be a boy?

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