Day 8: Teach Your Child to Love God
Is it possible to teach your baby or toddler to love God? What about a small child? A pre-teen? A teenager?
I vote yes. I have seen a lot of people from my generation and
younger generations who have become somewhat bitter about religion,
despite having grown up in homes where they were taught about God. Why
is this? The majority of people I have talked to say that it is because
it all seemed hypocritical to them. Why? Because church was just a
sunday thing, followed by a week of watching their parents live however
they wanted to. So when mom and dad demanded holiness from them, it
seemed pretty ridiculous.
I don´t think kids need perfect parents. I do think that kids
need us to practice what we preach. The gospel needs to be something
that penetrates every situation, every moment, every word, every action,
every thought. If you and I have a friendship with the Holy Spirit, and
we seek to bring our children into that friendship, God will do the
rest.
Our children should learn about spiritual disciplines way before
they understand them. Prayer, reading the Bible, memorizing Scripture,
giving to the poor, tithing, displaying the fruit of the Spirit, etc.
should all be parts of our daily life. Discipline should ultimately be
brought back to Biblical principles.
Ultimately, just remember that Christ Himself defines loving God
as obedience. Can we teach our children to love God? Yes, because we can
teach our children to obey Him. And we should be hard on ourselves,
striving for holiness, so that we can lead our children onto the path
that we are following, rather than demanding that they follow a path
that we were unwilling to follow.
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