Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus
Overview
Discover a grace-filled, gospel-centered approach to parenting with this book by mother/daughter team Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson. In their desire to raise godly children, Christian parents can drift toward rule-centered discipline. There is, however, a far more effective method—a grace-motivated approach that begins with the glorious truth of God’s love for sinners.
In Give Them Grace, parents will learn how to connect the benefits of the cross—especially regeneration, adoption, and justification—to their children’s daily lives. Chapters address topics such as our inability to follow the law perfectly, God’s forgiveness and love displayed at the cross, and what true heart obedience looks like. Fitzpatrick and Thompson also discuss discipline, dealing with popular culture, and evangelism as a way of life.
- Connects theological themes to everyday life
- Focuses on guiding your children through the love of Jesus
- Provides Christian parents biblical advice on raising godly children
- Introduction: Are You a Christian Parent?
- Part One: Foundations of Grace
- From Sinai to Calvary
- How to Raise Good Kids
- This Is the Work of God
- Jesus Loves All His Little Prodigals and Pharisees
- Part Two: Evidences of Grace
- Grace That Trains
- Wisdom Greater Than Solomon’s
- The One Good Story
- Go and Tell Your Father
- Weak Parents and Their Strong Savior
- Resting in Grace
- Remembering God’s Grace One More Time
Top Highlights
“I took every story in the Bible and made it about what my children were supposed to be doing. I took every story of grace and mercy (like Jonah’s) and made it into law and morals: ‘You better obey. There are whales about!’ Just like the seminary professor’s pastor we learned about in the Introduction, I didn’t give my kids the gospel story. I assumed that they had heard it enough times and that they had believed it. Jesus and the cross? That was old news. The real action was in obeying, not in remembering. What I didn’t know then was that the good news about Jesus’s obedience and shameful death was the only motif that would grant my children a heart to obey. So we ate goldfish and blue Jell-O, sang songs about Jonah, and worried about whales.” (Page 28)
“This is scary—mainly because what Barnhouse describes is what most of us want for our children. Jesus or no Jesus, we just want them to obey, be polite, not curse or look at pornography, get good jobs, marry a nice person, and not get caught up in the really bad stuff.” (Page 11)
“The fact is, however, that the only time licentious people start to obey is when they get a taste of God’s radical, unconditional acceptance of sinners.” (Page 12)
“Christian children (and their parents) don’t need to learn to be ‘nice.’ They need death and resurrection and a Savior who has gone before them as a faithful high priest, who was a child himself, and who lived and died perfectly in their place. They need a Savior who extends the offer of complete forgiveness, total righteousness, and indissoluble adoption to all who will believe. This is the message we all need. We need the gospel of grace and the grace of the gospel. Children can’t use the law any more than we can, because they will respond to it the same way we do. They’ll ignore it or bend it or obey it outwardly for selfish purposes, but this one thing is certain: they won’t obey it from the heart, because they can’t. That’s why Jesus had to die.” (Page 17)
It is so encouraging to read a parenting book that points parents to the grace of the cross and shows them how to be instruments of that grace in the lives of their children.
—Paul David Tripp, president, Paul Tripp Ministries
Elyse Fitzpatrick and her daughter, Jessica, provide a great tool to guide parents down the road of gracious parenting. I commend it to you.
—James MacDonald, pastor, Harvest Bible Chapel, Rolling Meadows, IL
Grace for both parents and children flows through the pages of this book; I only wish I had read it at the beginning of my parenting instead of the end.
—Rose Marie Miller, author, From Fear to Freedom
A lot of books talk about gospel-centeredness in theory; this book shows you how to apply it to one of life’s most important relationships.
—J.D. Greear, lead pastor, The Summit Church, Durham, NC
- Title: Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus
- Authors: Elyse Fitzpatrick, Jessica Thompson
- Publisher: Crossway
- Print Publication Date: 2011
- Logos Release Date: 2017
- Pages: 216
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Child rearing › Religious aspects--Christianity; Law and gospel
- ISBNs: 9781433520099, 9781433520105, 9781433520228, 9781433520235, 1433520095, 1433520109, 1433520222, 1433520230
- Resource ID: LLS:GVTHMGRCKDLVJSS
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T00:26:57Z
About the Authors
Elyse M. Fitzpatrick (b. 1950) is a counselor, retreat and conference speaker, and the head of Counsel from the Cross Ministries. Fitzpatrick has authored over 21 books, including Because He Loves Me, Comforts from Romans, Found in Him, and Love to Eat, Hate to Eat.
Jessica Thompson is the author of Exploring Grace Together: 40 Devotionals for the Family.