False repentance is grounded in selfishness, rather than the honor of God, because it has nothing to do with the honor of God, and only has to do with the regret that a person has because of the consequence of sin. It's not built on the fear of hell, or the fear of dishonoring God. False repentance also leaves the feelings unchanged. The love of sin is not subdued and the passion for holiness is not initiated. False repentance leads men to hypocritical concealment. Once you've falsely repented, now you've got to keep it up. And so you just lay on one more level of hypocrisy after another to keep up the deception. That leads eventually to self-deception and to a deadly false security where you begin to believe the lie you're living that you wanted originally others to believe and now you've come to believe it, and that is that you really are God's when in fact you're not. And that hardens your heart. Each time shallow sorrow washes over the emotions of the heart, and doesn't truly break that heart, the fountains of feeling are more and more dried up. And then the conscience is seared and then you're irretrievable.
John MacArthur

PreSchool Education

PreSchool Education Tuesday, October 26, 1993 10:46:30 PM Homeschool IdeaExchange Item From: Jason(Ripp) Rippetoe Subject: Pre-School Education To: Homeschool IdeaExchange

Cc:
With a nearly-three-year-old with boundless energy running around the house, it’s hard to keep her sitting still long enough to do any educational-type stuff. She’s got her numbers down pat, her colors need work, but she’s learned the “A-B-C” song, so we’re using that as a springboard to the wonderful world of the alphabet.

Awhile back we bought a couple of decks of flashcards that have pictures on one side and corresponding letters in upper and lower case on the reverse. The pictures are of simple objects and things (like cat; dog; fish; queen; xylophone…well, that’s not simple, but there aren’t alot of “x” words) and with both upper and lower case letters we have a pack of 52 cards total. There was an additional card in the package that gave alphabet activities to use with the cards. Some of the activities are a bit beyond my daughter at this point, but we’re working toward them. Anyway, I thought I’d share them.

FLASH CARDS- Hold the card so that the child sees the letter. Have the child say the letter out loud as she sees it. Go through both upper and lower case letters. You can also hold up the card so that the child sees the picture and have him say the corresponding letter.

ALPHABET ORDER GAME- Shuffle one set of cards and spread them letter side up on a table or the floor. Have your child put the cards in order from A to Z.

MATCH THE LETTER GAME- Spread out all 52 cards letter-side up. Then choose one letter and have your child find the corresponding upper- or lower-case letter.

MATCH THE LETTER AND PICTURE GAME- One set of cards letter up, one set with picture up. Match the letters and pictures.

Those are the ones the publisher recommends. We do a few other things as well. For example, I’ll set down three cards picture side up and ask my daughter to choose a particular picture. If she chooses the correct one, she adds the card to her stack, but if she chooses wrong, I get to keep the card. I think we’re just about worn this one down, as she hardly ever misses anymore. Next I’m going to try the same idea using the letter side up. Another thing we do is lay nine cards down and have her choose three of them. Then I tell her a short story using the three items on the cards. For instance, a recent story involved an Indian boy (the letter “i”), going to get some yarn (the letter “y”) for his mother and resisting the temptation to hop the fence (the letter “f”) and take a shortcut across a neighbor’s yard. I then emphasize each letter in turn.

These are all very simple things and we’ve gotten quite a bit of use out of that $1.50 package of alphabet cards. Does anyone have any other suggestions on how I might use them?