Leading the Home: Quotes from Doug Wilson at Desiring God Conference

Mr. Beaver - Just a quick post to encourage and point my brothers in Christ to some vital truths being shared at the Desiring God conference. I'm not there, but am benefiting from a report by Jonathan Parnell dated January 30, 2012.

I'd encourage everyone to go to the website to see the live streamed presentations or to look at more detailed reports, but I just had to share these few quotes that hit home and my brief thoughts regarding fathers leading in the home:

"Begin with gospel, walk in the gospel, end with the gospel." This is what our parenting should be all about. It's not about shaping our kids to fit our ways... it's about asking God to use us to reach them for Christ and His glory! Our goal in shaping them should be to do whatever we can to help shape them into the image of Christ!

"In the gospel, the fatherless no longer are." God, our Father, is the perfect Father. With respect to our own children, our goal should be to point our children past our own flawed image to the image of our perfect Father in heaven. With respect to the fatherless in this world, our responsibility is to step into their lives and do the same. We don't have to be perfect to point them to the perfect Father, but we do have to make a choice to do so. He is the perfect Father of all His children.

"Masculinity is the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility...If you want to preach the gospel to your wife and to your children, then die." It all begins with denying self, taking up our cross daily and following Him. Real men don't lead by lording their authority over their families... they lead in sacrificial love... in dying to self.

"When men take up their responsibilities to provide and protect it resonates with their being. When men walk away from their responsibilities, they walk away from their assigned masculine identity...Men don't carry things because they have broad shoulders; they have broad shoulders because they are meant to carry things." God's design for the family is perfect. What a tragic mess we make of it when we look to selfish desires or any other excuse to step aside from our God-given responsibilities as men. The mess we find ourselves in, both in society and sadly in the Church as well, all starts in the home.

Men, let's "man-up", take responsibility and enjoy the blessings of living according to God's plans.