Upholding God’s Principles?

Pastor!

We have an adult daughter (25 years old) who is graduating this year. Unfortunately – she is not a believer. For some time she has been telling us that she is going to live with her boyfriend; unfortunately – she does not say anything about the intention to marriage. So far, whenever they come to our house, they sleep in separate rooms. However, the daughter has already informed us that if they live together, then when they come to us, they will also sleep together or they will not come. And here we have a problem, how to approach it.

On the one hand, we should not tolerate something that we do not accept under our own roofs.

On the other side, it seems to me that it is difficult to expect someone who has not trusted God that he will live according to God’s principles. It is also difficult to require an adult, independent person to live according to our rules. We pray for God’s wisdom, but we also need God’s man’s advice.

With the wishes of God’s blessing,

Dear Best,

This kind of situation is always very difficult. In the first place, the parents didn’t raise their daughter to respect God and his rules for living from the time she was little. They didn’t set God’s standards high in their home (Perhaps they weren’t Christians when she was little?). Now that she is living like they did raise her, they want to clamp down on her and expect her to live like they should have been living all along. If they had set a rule in their home that sin is not allowed, they wouldn’t be having this problem now. But they do.

Now, what do they do? I think they need to confess their sin to God and apologize for not being godly with their daughter from the beginning. Then they need to confess the same sin to their daughter and ask her to forgive them. They need to get into their Bibles, pursue holiness, godliness, and hang with others who have their life’s goal to become like Jesus. And they need to set the standard in their home that no one gets to sin.

Then, when they aren’t living as hypocrites themselves, they can let their daughter know that they love her very much, but that they can’t allow people in their home who are going to disrespect them and flaunt God’s law in their face.

The goal, of course, is not to keep their home pure, it is to bring their daughter to Christ. It should break their hearts to realize that they raised her to be this way. Letting her live like this kind of thing is okay, especially in their own home, however, would be to continue to lie to her about how God thinks of her. They need to get the log out of their own eyes (Mt. 7:1-5) first, then stand up for God so that the daughter can see the Gospel in action and come to Christ.

With regard to your comment about expecting non-Christians to live according to God’s principles, I think we can and should expect non-Christians to think and act like Christians. Failure to live this way is what drives people to Christ. Isn’t that what you’re doing when you preach the Law? You’re telling folks they don’t get to kill one another, sleep with one another, dishonor their parents, etc. Then, when they can’t obey, they call out to God and ask for his help, confess their sin, repent, fall on their faces, take up their crosses, and follow Jesus.

That’s what I think. I hope it helps.

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