Elyse M. Fitzpatrick - Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus

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So many Christian parents fall into the trap of asking the law to do in the hearts of their children what only grace can accomplish. Armed with threats, manipulation, and guilt, they attempt to create change that only the cross of Jesus Christ makes possible. 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 continues her never-ending quest to churn out grace-filled, Christ-centered, gospel-saturated books. And now shes done it again with her daughter, Jessica, coauthoring this excellent parenting book. If you are a parent, get online and order your copy of Give Them Grace today!

Deepak Reju, Pastor of Biblical Counseling and Families,
Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington, DC

The authorsmother and daughterremind us that parenting is not only hard but also impossible. Yes, we need to nurture, teach, discipline, train, pray, and model, but we must not depend on our parenting skills to change the hearts of our children. Instead, they counsel parents to rely on the faithfulness of Jesus, our great high priest, to change their hearts. 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 at the end.

Rose Marie Miller, missionary; speaker; author, From Fear to Freedom

This is not just a book on parenting; this is deep training in the gospel. Elyse Fitzpatrick shows parents how to model themselves after the heavenly Father, who changed his children not by wrath and the law but by grace. A lot of books talk about gospel-centeredness in theory; this book shows you how to apply it to one of lifes most important relationships.

J. D. Greear, Pastor, Summit Church;
author, GOSPEL: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary

OTHER CROSSWAY BOOKS BY Elyse Fitzpatrick:

Because He Loves Me: How Christ Transforms Our Daily Life
Comforts from the Cross: Celebrating the Gospel One Day at a Time
Counsel from the Cross: Connecting Broken People to the Love

of Christ (with Dennis E. Johnson)

Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus

Copyright 2011 by Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson

Published by Crossway
1300 Crescent Street
Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievalsystem, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy,recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except asprovided for by USA copyright law. Crossway is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Amy Bristow
Cover image: Oliver Rossi/Corbis
Typesetting: Lakeside Design Plus
First printing 2011
Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible:English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked message are from The Message. Copyright by EugeneH. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPressPublishing Group.

All emphases in Scripture have been added by the authors.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-2009-9
PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-2010-5
Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-2022-8
ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-2023-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fitzpatrick, Elyse, 1950
Give them grace : dazzling your kids with the love of Jesus / Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson ; foreword by Tullian Tchividjian.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4335-2009-9 (tp)
1. Child rearingReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. Law and gospel. I. Thompson, Jessica, 1975- II. Title.
BV4529.F559 2011
248.8'45dc22

2010045945
Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

To
my dear mother, Rosemary.
Elyse
To
my husband, Cody,
with thanks for supporting me in this endeavor
and for loving Christ, our children, the church, and me.
I love you.
And to my parents,
whose love for each other and for Christ has changed me.
Jessica
To
Kei, dear friend
whose words were so helpful
and whose life spoke volumes.
Elyse and Jessica

Jessica heard the terrifying scream emanating from the playroom. Frantically rushing out of the bathroom (every mom knows what this is like!), she found her eldest son, Wesley (then four), seated atop his little brother pounding away. As she forcefully yanked Wesley off his brother, she pled with him, Wesley, you must love your brother!

But he makes me so mad! I cant love him! Wesley replied through angry tears.

Were sure you, as a parent, can easily imagine a situation like that one. Now, if you were Wesleys dad or mom, how would you have answered him? Or, to put a finer point on it, how do you think a Christian parent should respond to a child who is angry, disobedient, and hopeless? And should a Christians response differ significantly from what we might hear from a loving Mormon mom or a conscientious Jewish father? Sure, all parents would undoubtedly have restrained their son and told him that beating up his little brother is inappropriate behavior. But then what? What would come next? Is there something that would make a Christians response distinctly Christian?

When we were raising our daughter, Jessica (along with her brothers, James and Joel), I (Elyse) would have answered Wesleys I cant love my brother! in this way: Oh, yes, you can and you will! God says that you must love your brother, and you better startor else! Would your answer have been different from mine? If so, in what way, and how would you know if your reply was a distinctly Christian one? After all, its obvious that although were Christian parents, it doesnt necessarily follow that our parenting is essentially Christian. Frequently its something else entirely.