Instructing our children to believe the Word of God is integral! It’s something that has to take place everyday. In order to train them up, we must actively saturate them with the Word. This is especially important if your child is in an atmosphere void of God’s Spirit. It’s easy for a worldly spirit to come on you and your children, all you have to do is—nothing!
If you have a 25 minute car trip to school, play an episode of Superbook! (http://us-en.superbook.cbn.com/videos) It’s available on Prime and you can download the app to watch the episodes from your phone or iPad. Your child may have a different learning approach but my daughter loves the visual aid and retains an incredible amount of knowledge from these shows. If your kid is always on the iPad, make it work for their own spiritual development!
Why am I telling you all this? Because the most important thing we can do as parents is to develop our children’s thought process. See, their thought process is either going to make them or break them! I was watching this interview about a child preacher in the south. The person interviewing this child and his father would ask the kid some questions about the Bible and the kid would respond with well polished, churchy answers. Then the interviewer asked, “Well, why do believe that?” Then, crickets. The kid looked at his dad dumbfounded not knowing how to answer the question.
We can give our children the Word and force them quote and believe what we believe but WHY DO WE BELIEVE IT? Do you know? Do they know? Have you taken the time to share what God has done in your life? Have you taken the time to tell them why you and the family serve Him? If we can teach our children what to do AND WHY we do it, the thought process begins!
When children can develop the thought process as to what’s wrong, what’s right and WHY, you’ll raise them to never be persuaded out of what they believe! So teach them! “Mommy had a sad heart but Jesus made it happy!” “Daddy, was lost and confused but God showed him the way out!”
MAKE IT PERSONAL!
BE SPECIFIC!
Shine a positive light on why they should live in God’s Word! When you do this, you take the Word and what they’ve been instructed to believe from the ethereal into the personal. You make it real to them! As a child, it’s difficult to understand things you don’t see, but they see YOU. You and your walk with the Lord will be enough to keep them from the heartache and trouble this world has to offer.
This Christmas, teach them about the birth of Jesus. Take them through the whole story and the supernatural things that happened. Then, tell them about the time you met Him. Let them know how crappy your life was without Him. Express your love and gratitude for our Savior and how merciful God the father was to afford us this privilege! Then, pray, have them pray and thank God for Jesus together!
You are great!
-AS