Train Up Your Children
Deuteronomy 6:4–9 (NIV)
4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Children do not learn in a vacuum. I have heard parents say about religion, “I do want to influence my kids one way or another, I want them to make their own religious decisions for themselves.” However, with that statement, they have already made a decision for them, no religion, no faith. God tells us our primary responsibility as parents is to raise our kids to know the Lord, to love and serve him. There is no greater responsibility. This is not a responsibility that is to be subbed out to others, including the church, rather the church comes alongside to equip and supplement parents.
As Deut. 6:6 reminds us, it begins with the faith life of the parent, “these commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts (emphasis mine).” Before we can convey faith to our children, we must be in relationship with God and have God’s Word on our hearts, because faith is caught as much as it is taught. What do your kids see in you? Do they see you reflect a love for God with all your heart, soul, and strength? Do they see God’s commands ingrained in your personal conduct? I’ve heard pastor and author, John Maxwell, say before, ‘you teach what you know, but you reproduce who you are.’
Next, are you intentional to convey God’s Word to your kids? Do you have a regular time of family devotions? Are you helping them connect what is going on in their life with God and God’s Word? This may not always be formal, but spontaneous conversations about their life and what they are going through as you “sit at home” and “walk along the road”.