The Puzzle Is Real

Raisin' Disciples

• Matt & Melissa Pisani • Season 1 • Episode 43

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Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Join Matt and Melissa Pisani as they discuss raising their kids to live for God's glory. 

@puzzleisreal

www.mattandmelissapisani.com

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Puzzle's Real podcast, where we will be discussing faith, family, and relationships hosted by Matt and Melissa Pasam. This is the Puzzle's real podcast. When you know, you know,

Speaker 2:

What do you wanna do? Get baptized. You do? Yeah. Do you know what that means? What, what does being baptized mean? It means why do you wanna get baptized? Um, want you wanna follow Jesus? You wanna follow Jesus? Yeah. That's very good. And what you wanna, you wanna get baptized in front of people to let everyone know Yep. That you wanna follow Jesus. Yep. Where do you wanna do it?

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 4:

How cool is that?

Speaker 3:

That's cool, man. That is cool.

Speaker 4:

That is our sweet little Malachi who just turned three in March. Um, and he's been talking about getting baptized. So we have been just talking through that with him and he just is very adamant that he wants to get baptized. So the other day I happened to catch him on video sharing why he wanted to get baptized and where and who he wanted to do it, um, in front of. And so today as we talk through not only faith, but also family, um, and relationships, we're gonna cover a little bit of each topic tonight, today, this afternoon.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And I think for our listeners that don't realize, um, what we're talking about here, it's not as much as, um, a baptism when you're a baby, but this is something that we decide as Christians to do when we decide to follow Jesus and surrender our life. So, just wanted to add a little color to that. So water baptism is something that we publicly declare in front of others to celebrate that we've decided to follow Jesus. And it's an amazing celebration. It's something that is biblical. It's a, a truth and a command of god's. And, and we just wanted to, um, share that as an opener cuz how cool is that a three year old that's saying, Hey, he let's do this. Yeah.

Speaker 4:

He's ready. Yeah. Like I grew up Catholic and I was baptized as a baby, um, as Catholics are. And when I became a believer, um, you know, it wasn't really something on my radar. But once Matt and I got married and we started like digging into the word and just kind of going deeper, at least for me and my faith, I did feel the conviction and I did feel the Holy Spirit tug on my heart to say, it's time to get baptized. Right? Yeah. And so I did that in Guyana, what was that, 2016

Speaker 3:

I think. 2016, yeah. 2016. Yeah. It was, man, time flies. Yeah. And I think it's also important for people to understand that water baptism, it is for believers. It's before you're baptized, you must come to believe that you're a sinner and you need salvation. You need Jesus that, you know, um, when you believe that he died on the Christ and cross. And, um, it's just important that, you know, that it's, it's a real commitment to say, all right, the old me is no longer and I'm, I'm moving forward. There's a, I'm a new creation. There's a clean slate message. Yes.

Speaker 4:

And you're doing it publicly to declare that and to show people that you're unashamed of the gospel and that you want to follow Christ. So it's a really beautiful, it's a beautiful experience. And you know, we would never push that on our children. We just make them aware of different things that we believe in and why we believe in it and we read it to them. And certain things chil, you know, that childlike faith, I mean yeah. It's in the Bible in and through many verses about just children just have, they're just this open vessel for the Holy Spirit to just work in them at such a young age cuz they're not tainted by the world and they still have that godly innocence.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I think it's cool too when your children are asking, well, well, why do I have to do, why would I want to do this? Well, Jesus did it. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 4:

<affirmative>.

Speaker 3:

And, and that really like sets I think the, um, the president, the, the benchmark, the the wow. Oh wow. He did this. And just a, a great symbolism of not only showing that the old is gone and the news here, but also that transformation of what's to come within your calling and your purpose and, and God uses it. And the power of the Holy Spirit is, um, is upon you. I really believe that. You know, you're your reaction. I remember mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you were glowing. Oh yeah. You, you felt the presence of God. Yeah. You know, rocky and hit you as you were coming back out from the water. And I remember when I yeah. Got water baptized, I was younger and it's, um, it's amazing. So we encourage any of you that are believers, but have yet to make that commitment to get water baptized. You know, talk to your local church that you're attending, talk to the pastors, learn more about it. And um, usually there's a water baptism class where you can really get educated and understand the importance of it. And it's a celebration. It's not something that's to be done out of a lecture or out of a chore or, you know, have an inconvenience checklist. Yeah. Don't check it off the list<laugh>. It's not, don't do it.

Speaker 4:

That's not how it's supposed to go down. But you'll feel that tug on your heart when it's time and when you're ready. So just pray about it. You know, just ask the Lord when it's the right time for you. And if you feel committed and you feel ready to turn the page and to say, you know what? I wanna go deeper in my faith. I think that's one of the first steps as you are going deeper, is to have that baptism and publicly declare. And just to kind of tie back as parents, you know, we are parents of three small little children. And going back to the word, we have a Bible verse here, Proverbs 22 6. I'm sure a lot of you are very familiar with this. Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is is old, he will not depart from it. Mm. That's powerful. So as parents, it's our duty, it's our obligation to train these children, to disciple them to live a lifestyle that they're not gonna want to stray from. Right. Because they see the fruit in it and they see that it's authentic and they see that it's real and they see the, that God is working in our lives and how he's using us, that our children are gonna wanna emulate that because they see that it's good.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And I think it's really important not to obsess about the structure of it. I know I fell into a season at one point where I was like, come on guys, it's time to pray. We gotta do it now. This is when we do it. And Melissa was able to prompt me and like, Hey, like what are you doing? Cause it was almost like I was forcing the kids to like engage and not make it not only palatable for them, but it was almost like, you know, checking it off the list where you can literally be like, where do you read the Bible verses together as a family yet<laugh> I, meanwhile the kids are like, I just wanna watch tv. So I think it's also knowing your audience and knowing how to break it down to their level and find things that they're interested in within scripture and within the Bible that you can do. And also within worship, within music, you can get creative with this stuff. And there's so many more resources than there were when we were kids back in the nineties and eighties. So it's definitely a huge, huge win when you find things, content, things that you know you can trust to use mm-hmm.<affirmative> to disciple your kids.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. And, and one cool thing, Mercy's in a homeschool community group, classical conversations, and one thing that they do implement is reciting Bible verses and memorizing Bible verses. So, you know, at Mercy's age five, they're memorizing them, but the application's sometimes not there yet. But now that they have the words in their mind as they grow and as they live their life and experience things, they can look back and be like, oh yeah, that's what this means. And they can apply it to their life. Like mercy memorize, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. Right? Yeah. So we talk about that. I'm like, well, what does that mean? Right.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Mercy.

Speaker 4:

And she's like, well, if you believe in G in Jesus, you're gonna go to heaven one day. Yeah. So it's like she's applying it, she's understanding it. So it's not just to recite things, it's to digest it and to make it a part of Yeah. Your reality.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Yeah. That's good. And, and the other verse that I know will brag about mercy that she memorized was, uh, second Timothy three 16 mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And I think it's cool if, if you even add 17 to that, and I'm just gonna share this with you guys, it's all scripture is breathe out by God and profitable for teaching, for rep proof, for correction, and for training and righteousness that the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work. How cool is that? So she's already memorized that verse, and that's a great verse for all of us as parents to share with our children and even with people that don't know Jesus, to just share with them like, like the living word of God. Like it's, it's breathing, it's living today. How powerful is that for people to understand that? And then a little kid who's saying that at the age of five mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you never know what that's gonna lead to as they continue to grow. And I'll even underline that even if your kids are backsliding from God in this season, if you have older children or teenagers, don't give up on those moments that you were planting those seeds. Because I know personally I'm living proof of that whole testimony. And that's really important too, is the keep finding ways to minister to your kids even as they grow older.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Never stop praying. Never stop praying. And you know, it's just so cool that Matt and I have this opportunity to teach our kids from birth, you know what it is to walk with Jesus. You know, we may have, you know, different pasts and had to go through different things and we just pray that our kids won't have to go through that because they're being raised, um, just in a such a deep godly way that we hope that they never stray from just this lifestyle.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I think that there's a, um, a really big learning curve too, where as you start to live a life of purpose and live for God, the fruit falls. You don't have to try to force it. You don't have to try to just calculate when to start teaching and sharing. And, and that's a big part of this too, is just go deeper with God, continue to go deeper in your faith, and then your kids are watching, they're gonna pick up on it. They're gonna start to say, oh, I, I want some of that. And we see that too. Our kids are not perfect. We're not saying that we've figured it out, but we're, we're loving the, um, the adventure and the journey. And there's a lot of resources out there that we're gonna leave you guys with tonight. Yeah. Um, one that we really love is right now media. That's a great platform. We get a lot of good content for kids. Um, you do need a subscription,

Speaker 4:

Well, you can usually go on with your, if you're involved with the church, um, they usually have a code or something that they give the congregation.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. You can also YouTube some of their videos. Yep. For kids, um, listener kids, that's a YouTube channel that we love. There's a guy out of, I believe outta Nashville that created this channel and it's a lot of good songs and just sing alongs about the Bible, about Jesus and just about our faith in God. And just fun too, especially for like really little kids and babies. Even. Um, Magnolia loves chilling and watching it. She does, um, Danny go from Yippy tv Yep. Not necessarily a on paper Christian content platform, but great stuff. Clean, it's

Speaker 4:

Wholesome. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Interactive. You know, you want to have that balance sometimes where your kids can watch things that are, um, still like most said, wholesome, but it may not always be directly about, you know, Christian content or Jesus or about God. We want to, you know, make sure that they also have experiences with, with different things so that they know how to engage with the world. Right. You don't want to want to keep your kids in a bubble and be legalistic over it, but I always have a conviction on those things that don't make sense. Um, and then your local church, we love Sgt. Kids. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, sea Coast kids, some of those churches that are out there that have that content that you might be able to watch and share it with others. And it's endless. It keeps coming. They keep creating it, which is cool.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Great alternatives. And just a funny side note, that's reality right now. Matt and I are sitting here together recording this podcast and we're soaking our feet in Epson salt and apple cider vinegar. We're trying to stay healthy. Y'all supposed to detoxify your

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I have a even help with, I got a funky toenail right now,<laugh>.

Speaker 4:

So just wanted to give you guys a visual and smell the aromas of the apple cider vinegar.

Speaker 3:

Go, go get a steel pot and, and join the fun. Ah,

Speaker 4:

But we love you guys. Thanks for listening as always. And we can't wait to come back and share some more funny things. We're actually going on a road trip tomorrow, and I know we've spoken about road trips with children, so pray for us<laugh>. Yes. We have three little kids and one little baby, three months old, five and a half hour drive. So we will, that might be our next episode actually.

Speaker 3:

Stories are coming, stories are coming. And praise reports. Yes. Peace.

Speaker 4:

See you next time. Hey guys, thanks so much for listening to the Puzzle Israel podcast. Please subscribe today and share with a friend. See you soon.