The NM legislature has been seeking to draft tougher laws against youth. They wish to prosecute more youth as adults. Youth detention facilties are at maximum capacity. Is this a solution to a symptom that is not addressing the problem?
The real issue is that the parents, and thus their children, do not know God. How do we improve our outreach to families?
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Everything is connected.
The youth are the product of the parents, in a long chain of youth and parents.
Children of neglect, abuse, and violence carry the lessons to a new generation. Some break the chain, and are utterly amazing for it. But many stay the course. We create communities in our sickness, we maintain what we know because it is all we know and we push against all those who say different.
We create doctrines of reality from what we know or have been taught. They have no faith in things beyond the flesh, no desire to grow virtue, or kindness, when it wont feed them or give them shelter. And why would they?
What do they know of a church but persecution and judgement? Or of God, who never showed up when they needed Him? Who has shown them Christ? Who has convinced them that there is a better way filled with joy or healing, that there is a safe space where no weapons need to be clutched. A place where all that hurt they carry can be surrendered?
Many of these kids don’t see a future. They have no hope. They have no sense of internal worth or self love or love for others. They carry the sea bed in their hearts. They are the dead, unburied and without peace. They are wild with all the rage born of such harrowing times. Thrown to the wolves to save the economy.
Not all kids. Not all churches. But we have lost a depth and a sweetness in every attempt to horde what we know. We have lost the desire to build better and settled for hiding from nightmares in the light of day.
Meanwhile, our culture carries a Sadistic yearning toward caging, punishing, and causing suffering, as if seeing Christ on the cross was meant to invoke pleasure.
Hammer Swords into plow shears, turn the other cheek, stop living for the ego and begin letting Christ move through us. A doorway by which God’s power can move. Be examples, invest time and energy, stop controlling and manipulating for selfish gain, be a community that views every person as more valuable than all the Sparrows. Living for what we can do for others, for our world, rather than scrounging for what we can get and hold on to.
Life is about more than stocks and bonds, 401ks, security, buffers from experiencing life, comfortable mindlessness with little engagement. There is a point where we must sacrifice something other than people in order to save ourselves. Christ should have been the last sacrifice.
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The question before us — whether the New Mexico legislature’s push to prosecute more youth as adults and to impose harsher penalties meaningfully addresses the crisis of juvenile crime — must be answered first and foremost in light of God’s Word. Scripture does not leave us uninformed about what happens when a generation grows godless and untrained in righteousness. The root of the problem is plainly moral and spiritual, not merely legal. The true solution is therefore not merely better laws but faithful proclamation of Christ and restoration of the family under His lordship.
First, the root of this disorder lies in the collapse of the family’s spiritual responsibility. Judges 2:10 describes what happens when fathers and mothers fail to pass on the knowledge of God: “And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel.” The Hebrew verb yada‘, “to know,” conveys covenantal, obedient, personal knowledge. Without this covenantal training, children inevitably turn to idolatry, violence, and rebellion. Proverbs 22:6 commands parents, “Train up a child in the way he should go,” using the imperative ḥănōk, “dedicate, initiate.” The current crisis reveals a generation of parents who have abdicated this task, and churches that have often failed to stand in the gap. This is not a policy failure but a discipleship failure.
Second, Scripture does affirm that government has a legitimate role in restraining evil but never suggests that it has the power to transform hearts. Romans 13:4 describes the civil authority as “the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.” The magistrate bears the sword to punish crime and preserve order. Therefore it is not wrong in itself for the state to enact curfews, to strengthen enforcement, or even to try certain youth as adults in particularly grave cases. However, as Paul makes clear in Galatians 3:21–22, the law, while holy and just, is powerless to give life or produce righteousness. It can only expose sin and restrain its outbreak. If the people remain unconverted, no statute or sentence will ultimately cure the disease in the soul.
Third, the Church must recover her calling to family-centered, gospel-driven outreach. Jesus’ Great Commission in Matthew 28:19–20 calls us to make disciples, teaching them to observe all that He commanded. The Greek mathēteusate underscores that we are to produce disciplined followers, not merely gain converts. Paul in Titus 2 commands older believers to train the young in self-control, godliness, and sound doctrine, demonstrating that discipleship is intergenerational. Churches must therefore equip fathers to lead as spiritual heads, teach mothers to raise children in love and holiness, and provide mentoring and evangelism for those children who have no godly parents. Ephesians 6:4 instructs fathers directly: “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
Finally, it is only through the cross of Christ that any generation can be truly renewed. Isaiah 53:6 says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned — every one — to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” We are all by nature lawless, and only Christ’s sacrifice reconciles us and enables the Spirit to write God’s law on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). Luke 4:18 reminds us that He came “to proclaim liberty to the captives” — and it is spiritual captivity that underlies these social crises. Therefore our outreach must proclaim Christ crucified, calling parents and children alike to repentance, faith, and new obedience through His power.
In application, churches must not retreat behind their walls or leave this problem to politicians. They must preach boldly in their cities, pray for revival, send workers into blighted neighborhoods, disciple broken families, and minister patiently to wayward youth. They must proclaim the gospel not as one option among many but as the only remedy that can turn hearts of fathers to their children and children to their fathers, as promised in Malachi 4:6.
Harsher laws may restrain but they cannot regenerate. The Church must rise and fulfill her mission or else these symptoms will continue to fester. We do not oppose just enforcement of the law, but we insist with Scripture that the ultimate solution is to proclaim Christ, restore families under His Word, and teach the next generation to walk in His ways. Only then will there be lasting peace and righteousness in the land.
J.
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@Johann Well said. The two articles reference Baltimore, Md & Fayetteville, NC, indicating problems across America. In NM, the problem is indicating a disturbing trend because the State’s population growth has been relatively flat. Part of our NM argument has been the type of punishment and whether it should be more rehabilitative. There was a Democratic proposal to pay convicted youth a monthly stipend ($$) if they behaved but that was not passed.
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And they say “crime never pays”. Another common sense adage smashed to pieces.
Thanx SFsergio
KP
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Teach children they are animals, that there is no God, no day of judgement, no absolute morality and what do you get?
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Man’s Morality is related to Absolute Morality in the same way that “Clean the outside of the cup” is related to “Clean the inside of the cup.”
On one hand you focus on appearance. Laws that govern physical tresspasses. On the other hand, you focus on the heart. Spiritual reality.
The outside of the cup will look diiffrent from generation to generation, culture to culture, as rules are created to meet the challenge of advancement.
Examples: child brides, age of consent, arranged marriages, women’s rights, abortions, child labor laws, child’s rights, racial rights, animal rights, the right to vote, man’s dominion over women… just a few things that have changed with time. Not including sexual promiscuity and of course gay marriage and sodomy laws. Attitudes, beliefs, actual government laws that remain in flux one place to the next that deal with social norms.
What is unacceptable today will be acceptable tomorrow. What is acceptable today will be unacceptable tomorrow. This is the current tug of war, back and forth.
But the inside of the cup will always be the Heart. From here, wickedness or goodness is poured out.
Time will pass and attitudes may change and the struggle for dominance will ensue. But the qualities of the Holy Spirit will always be valid, from generation to generation, for all Eternity. Through them, we find life where as through the Law we only find death. This, the Holy Spirit, the Law of Love, is the compass God gave us to navigate right from wrong in a way no previous culture or religion could. With Christ as our model.
The Law of Love overshadows the whole Law and all the words of the Prophets, being the highest intention of God’s Will for our lives. Not that we die but that we live. Only Love can grant you life. Only Love can fulfill the intention of the Law, and it does this by promoting life, encouraging a respect for life and a respect for boundaries, a respect for family and community, inspiring us to work together toward the common good, forgiving others their tresspasses, showing mercy and compassion to restore people to goodness, and by bringing life-affirming order to a world filled with chaos.
This is to have the Holy Spirit working inside of us to guide our footsteps. To be mindful of our words and actions and motivations and their consequences, to strive not only for your own best good but the best good of all, to make a mends with those you have hurt when you fail them, and to heal your own hurt when others fail you so that you can forgive them and be free of any grudge, resentment or any burden to get vengence. The Holy Spirit of God nudges us toward this, examines us, brings the truth to light, uncovers the wound, innitiates the healing journey. And gives us encouragement in every battle we face so that we do not face it alone.
All of this counters a world that cannot forgive tresspasses, murders the innocent, and cries out for blood and vengence at every wrong done, which ultimately leads to the end of the world if not put into check and stopped.
God never wanted a human king to reign over Israel. He wanted His Presence to guide us. We begged for a physical king and needed a written law to obey, just as the Pagans needed carved idols that they could see.
But the Written Law only points to the outside of the cup. The real battle is found within, inside the cup. That is where Christ must come to reside.
How can we teach our children to love God or others when we ourselves only focus on the outside of the cup? Fill these people with the Holy Spirit and they will choose right. Peace will prosper. God will Reign.
Have you yourself drunk from that Cup filled with Living Water? Have you taken a sip today? It wells up inside and overflows with Eternal Life. And let me tell you, you will he satisfied.
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Children can be raised correctly and make bad choices when they become older. People we have to stop putting the blame on the parents. Children of this generation are way more knowledgeable of things we were not at their age. Everything has changed and it’s only getting worse. What I’m really trying to say is parents are not the blame in every situation where there is a troubled child.
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I can agree with that. And vice versa. Sometimes parents are at fault, sometimes they are not.
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