Friday, February 20, 2009

What are you teaching your Children?

Deuteronomy 6:4-9, "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, and your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up again. Tie them to your hands as a reminder, and wear them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

Do you know that 75% of all children raised in church, across denominations, leave the faith when they leave home. 75% of all of our children will leave God! If you have three children, only one will still believe in God as an adult. I don't know about you, but this freaks me out! Our children are under attack and we as parents do not know how to help them, for most of us cannot even help ourselves. Do you know how to defend your faith? Do you believe in God? Do you know how to live your life, for Him? www.crossexamined.org We live in a time of information. Do we use the information that we have been provided, for Christ? www.godandscience.org There are so many wonderful tools, so that we can give an answer for our faith. Do we use them? www.hipandthigh.blogspot.com I have only provided three. Do you use the tools, any tools of information, that God has provided you with?

Not only do we need to have the knowledge of God, but we must live for Him daily. Of all the people who are watching you every day, your children are the ones that are really seeing you. Do they see you and see truth in your life? Or, do they see you and see a hypocrite? Of coarse you will make mistakes and your children will see you sin, but do you live for Him? Many times we see other people and we see our children through our eyes, but what we must do is to look at ourselves through their eyes. In order to get a hold of our own lives, sometimes we need to look at what we are doing and how we are acting, through the eyes of our children. What are they seeing in us?

Proverbs 20:7, "The godly walk with integrity; blessed are their children after them." The reason that the godly will have children that are blessed, is because their children will mimic what they see. I have never seen a passage that tells us to tell someone to live differently than we do. I have seen many passages that tell us to model for others the way they should go. I must look every day at my life, and try my best to show my children the right path to take. I cannot just tell them to make holy choices, but I must model godly choices for them. I make so many mistakes and I sin some how every day, but when I do make mistakes I talk about those mistakes with my boys. They see me. They know when I have done something wrong. There is no use in trying to cover up my failures. In order to teach my children, I have to be willing to look at myself through their eyes. They have to see that I love my God. They have to hear my mistakes, so that they have a wide variety of knowledge so that they can choose the right path.

Proverbs 22:6, "Teach your children to choose the right path, and when they are older, they will remain upon it." Does your life model the right path for your children? Do you help them to see your mistakes, so that they can make better choices? Do you love the LORD your God with all of your heart, mind and strength? What does your life teach your children about their God? These are questions that I ask myself every day? These are the concerns that drive my life. What is driving you, today?



1 comment:

JanAl said...

Freaked out with you.
But, I have peace and comfort in a Sovereign God. My own testimony, speaks to the power of God. If He could take someone with my childhood, and mold me into His likeness, then there is Hope for my children.
I pray that I will daily live my life to Glorify Christ, and that my children will see my heart,my Hope,my failures, and that it will point them to Christ.