Heart --> Action

Shorty and I are trying to teach our children that all our bad behavior flows out of our sinful hearts. So, if I get angry with them, it is NOT their fault for disobeying (for example). Their disobedience IS sin, but it simply gives me opportunity to pour out the sin from my own heart in the form of anger. As I was telling Daddy about my plan to use The Chronicles of Narnia this year instead of the reading curriculum I have used the past several years, I explained that this year there seems to be a lot more focus on behavior instead of heart issues. So we talked a little bit about some different characters, and Daddy said that Edmund, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, had some pretty serious behavior issues.

Adara has just finished reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I was really impressed by the change in Edmund just through the course of this book. In the beginning of the book, he takes great delight in making Lucy feel miserable. And when the four children get into Narnia and hear about Aslan, Edmund is already soundly in the Witch's camp. He is hostile toward Aslan, and making excuses for why the Witch really SHOULD be queen. He is ALMOST indifferent to the consequences for his siblings when he decides to betray them to the Witch. But, as he spends more time in the Witch's company, his eyes begin to be opened to her true nature, and he begins to repent for his treachery. In the end of the story, he acquits himself well by sacrificing himself to break the Witch's wand. Well, almost the end. Edmund and his sibling go on to rule Narnia for many years, and (I think because of all that Aslan had done for him) Edmund is known as "King Edmund the Just".

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-- the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
Romans 3:20-28