BUILDING TRUST: God, Our Father and Role Model
Table of Contents and description of chapters:
Chapter 1: Building Trust. In this chapter we look at the need to establish trust in relationships and see that God, our Father, has established a relationship with us based on trust. We obey Him because we love and trust Him.
Chapter 2: In His Image. In this chapter we look at how the rest of the book describes our need to rely upon God and how we can be like him to develop relationships based on trust with our own children.
Chapter 3: We are Not Now and Never Will Be God. In this chapter we look at the attributes of God which we cannot ever possess, attributes which enable God to help us if we call upon Him.
Chapter 4: His Character We Strive For. In this chapter we explore what it means to be conformed to the image of Christ. That is, we look at what it means to be holy in the context of being a parent.
Chapter 5: The Hats Our Father Wears. Of the many roles a parent plays in the lives of his children, none is more important in impact than creator and teacher. In this chapter we see how God, as our creator and teacher, shapes us.
Chapter 6: Unconditional Love. The first and most important step in establishing trust is unconditional love. Because God loves us unconditionally, we trust Him. We must love our children unconditionally so they will trust us.
Chapter 7: Unselfish Love: Unselfish love is sacrificial love. In this chapter we see what a rare quality sacrificial love is in the people of the Bible and look at examples of sacrificial love that we can follow.
Chapter 8: Providing for Needs: Our children must trust us to provide for their needs before they can trust us our word on other things. In this chapter we look at how God provides for our emotional, spiritual, mental and physical needs and how we can provide for our children’s needs.
Chapter 9: Accounting for Limitations: Even if we love unconditionally and unselfishly, even if we provide for our children’s needs, if we do not account for their limitations and expect too much or too little from our children, they will not trust us. This chapter looks at how God knows and accounts for our limitations.
Chapter 10: Communicating Instructions and Consequences: This chapter looks at how God in order to establishes our trust, first establishes His authority before He communicates both the instructions and the consequences.
Chapter 11: Allowing Freedom of Choice. This chapter looks at how we are to allow our children the freedom to obey or disobey just as God has allowed us that freedom. It also looks at the conditions in the Bible under which God intervened and conditions in which we should intervene.
Chapter 12: Keeping Your Word. We can trust God because God always keeps His word. Being a person of integrity, a person who keeps his word, is fundamental to building trust.
Chapter 13: Staying in Control. This chapter is on the need to stay in control is the last step in building trust. Trusting that our Father is in control enables us to gain control of ourselves
Chapter 14: The Perfect Parent. In this chapter we contrast an example of the worst of parenting to God’s parenting. With the help of the Holy Spirit we can follow God’s example.
Study Pages and Scriptural References