Later this year I will have the honor of speaking at a Men’s Conference at my home church. The 2013 Why Me? Men’s Conference will be August 9th & 10th and I will be speaking on something near and dear to my heart, being a dad. The title of my talk those two days will be “I Am Not Ashamed to be a Dad!” There are many things that I am to a lot of people. However I place the title of “Dad” above all but “Husband” and “Child of God”. Over the next few Monday’s I will be posting parts of my class on here for the dads and Husbands of Homeschooling moms. I would love to see you there if you can make it, but if not, here is one of the classes…

Consistency

Luke 12:1 ~ In these circumstances, a crowd of many thousands came together, so that they were trampling on one another.  He began to say to His disciples first: “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy”

My kids can spot hypocrisy in a second.  During Christmas my wife will have a plate of cookies sitting out on the counter, and when the kids weren’t looking, I was working my way through the plate of cookies.  And my son Ethan or Levi caught me.  He said,  “Daddy, can I have one?”  And I said, “No.”  And he asked the question that kids love to ask.  “Why do you get one and I don’t get one?”  What he was asking was this, “Why do you teach me that it’s bad to eat cookies all day long when you eat cookies all day long?”  And I gave them the answer that never works: “Because I’m the Daddy and you’re the son.  Walk away boy!”

Now lets take the cookies to another level.  We say :

• “Son, you need to read your Bible.”  And he says, “Dad, I have never seen you reading your Bible?”
• “Son, your shouldn’t talk about your friends that way.”  And he says, “But Dad, you talk about your friends that way.”
• “Son, don’t be lazy.  Pick up your room.”  “Dad, why is Mom always mad at your for leaving your stuff laying in your room?”

Kids can spot hypocrisy.  What they need is consistency.  Whatever we expect of them, we seek to live it out.  What I should have said to my son that day was, “Son, you’re right.  You called me out.  I shouldn’t be eating this cookie right now.  We don’t do that around here, do we?”  Be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.