Guest post by Ryan Broadhouse Ryan serves as the Senior Pastor at Westminster PCA in Fort Myers, FL, where his heart is first and foremost for the local church."

I'm thankful for Ryan and his preaching and teaching ministry, which I have benefited from as a pastor in serving others. This week, I was thankful and blessed to read the following from Ryan's ministry blog. I encourage you to read the following if you have kids, teens, or grandkids who are pre-teens or teens. I hope this is a blessing to you, your family, and future generations of children! 

A wonderful brother in the Lord and long-time international missionary recently shared some encouraging perspectives on current trends in the United States. I asked James if I could share his comments, and I am reposting his comments here without comment as an encouragement to Christians in the West.

A kingdom value is a summary statement of ambition for believers to grow into as Christ is exalted in all of life. These short statements are statements of ambition that you can deploy and remember so that we don't forget what our kingdom ambitions are. What is it that Christ has called us to as we glorify and exalt Christ in all of life? These little statements hopefully give us a helpful summary of what God is doing in us and what God has called us to as he is remaking us more and more like Christ in all of our lives.

The martyrs bear witness to Christ AND they also bear witness to humanity of their killers. With the prayer for forgiveness they say to their enemies "you are not monsters, but sinners in need of forgiveness." This is where the Christian martyr is different than the Islamist one... the Christian martyr desires the salvation of his enemies, the Islamist desires their destruction. The Christian at prayer is the Christian who prays "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."