Best 17 quotes of Elyse M. Fitzpatrick on MyQuotes

Because we don't know the state of our children's souls, and because they might simply want to please us by praying to be saved, we must continue to give them the Law and encourage them to ask God for faith to believe that He is as good as He says He is.

God is too great to be glorified only through the lives of His victorious children. He is glorified by our suffering and even by our sin. His sustaining strength is glorified when we walk through the furnace of affliction.

I admit that at times my prayer for my children is nothing more than vocalized unbelief aimed at God.

I am commanded to nurture and discipline my children for God's glory, not my own. When they fail, which of course they will-after all they're born in my likeness-I can comfort and instruct them because I'm a failure who's been comforted and instructed. Responding in kindness to their failures is not a simple matter of bootstrap obedience; it's a recognition of what the cross has declared about me and my identity. I've got a faithful heavenly Father who has adopted me, so I don't need to use my children to prove that I'm really okay. He has made me his own; that's all that matters.

I did my best parenting by prayer. I began to speak less to the kids and more to God. It was actually quite relaxing.

Idolatry is always subject to the law of diminishing returns.

Idolatry, like all sin, is devastating to the soul. It cuts us off from the comforts of grace, the peace of conscience, and the joy that is to be our strength.

Idols aren't just stone statues. No, idols are the thoughts, desires, longings, and expectations that we worship in the place of the true God. Idols cause us to ignore the true God in search of what we think we need.

in my heart is rooted in lovelessness and thanklessness.... By contrast, every truly holy act, including even the inner desire to be holy, springs out of the love and worship that He has placed in my heart.

Since the fall of the human race, we've been alternately telling ourselves that we are good, that if we try hard enough we'll be good enough, or that being or that being good is an impossibility, so we should just give up and have fun.

Some parents live more like reclusive monks than like first-century Christians who were famous for their love for and service within their cities, cities that in many cases were more overtly wicked than cities found in modern-day America.

The Lord teaches us of His grace and the Gospel through difficult children. We learn what it's like to love like He loved. It is there, in our personal upper room, where we learn to wash the feet of those that are betraying us. It is there, kneeling before our rebellious children, that the real power of God is demonstrated.

We are partners with our children because we are just like them, dearly loved sinners.

We don't need to pray to prove that we're properly pious or really serious. Instead, we pray because we are completely assured, and because the Father hears our prayers because they come to Him through the lips of His dear Son.

We're very comfortable thinking, good parenting in, good children out.

We want our children to know and believe the one good story. Every other story is a copy or shadow of this one. Some copies of it are quite good and shout the Truth. Others see only the faintest whisper of it, or, in its absence remind us of the Truth. We want our kids to know the one good story so well that when they see Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Frodo, Anne of Green Gables, Arielle, or Sleeping Beauty, they can recognize the strands of Truth and deception in them. Saturating our children in the one good story will enable them to discern Truth and error as it comes to them from the world.

We will find it increasingly difficult to believe that we've been set free from sin, from the law's power to condemn, and that God's smile is resting upon us if we continually give ourselves over to what we know we should avoid. Sin strips our faith, and it leads to ultimate deadness in our lives.