Chief End Of Parenting Part 2

Here Are The How To’s

I would like to put a face on this for you and try to give you some application here. The first four points are philosophies that ground your biblical parenting. From here I will share some applicable things we do in our house to ensure God is at our center.

1. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, and all of
your mind. (Deuteronomy 6 and Matthew 22:37)

If parent has lack luster love for God, the kids will do the same. Children have an uncanny way of smelling out a hypocrite. Unfortunately, they absorb the hypocrisy and become one themselves. If you want children who love the lord, you must first love the Lord. And this must show itself in your daily life. It shows in what you make as you priorities. If you value baseball or football games or school events, or work over church on Sundays, they will do the same. It is a sin to have a lack luster love for God for it violates the command to love the Lord with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Therefore your complacent love will lead your child to sin against God in idolatry and adultery; idolatry in that they will worship what they love, adultery in that they will love something over their God.

2. The Word of God must be on your heart.

Again Deuteronomy 6: 5 commands the parents to not only know the word of God, but to be intimate with it as well. Psalm 119 speaks of those who walk in the way of the Lord are blessed. The blessing goes to those who seek God with their whole heart v2; who keep His statutes v8; who have His word hidden in their heart that they may not sin against God v 11; those who meditate on His precepts and contemplate His ways v15; and those who delight themselves in His statutes and refuse to forget them v16. To write them on your heart is to love them and ingrain His word in your life. The word of God should pour forth like a fountain in the mornings when you wake up and the evenings when you go to bed. You should be able to give your children the full counsel of God. Children will encounter a plethora of circumstances in their life in which they will need to see God. God gives you these circumstances as opportunities to put him on display so that your children can taste and see that he is good; even when mommy or daddy gets cancer.

3. Do not provoke them to anger; be consistent.

Ephesians 6:4 warns that fathers should not provoke their children to anger. I believe one of the hardest obstacles a child has to overcome is the inconsistency in their parents. Being inconsistent sends a confusing message that frustrates a child to the point of not caring. When a parent commits to going to church on Sunday and Wednesday, but shows not spiritual fever on every other day of the week, they are being inconsistent. This inconsistency leads to complacency. Your love for God must not begin and end on Sundays. It must be a continuous river pouring itself into your children. Just like our father does to us in Romans 5:5, where his love is poured into our hearts, so must we pour his love through our love into our children. This cannot be done sporadically and expect our children to love God and not depart form Him.

[Notice the call to fathers in this verse. There is a deadly epidemic in our country killing our children. It is the root to the many other epidemics such as obesity and moral depravity. It is the lack of the role of the father in the house hold. God has called men to be the leaders of their home. They are commanded to love their wives like Christ loved the church, not abandon them to a life of instability and insecurity. They are to raise their children up in the lord, not provoke them to anger and give them no example of our heavenly father. To be a daddy is a high and honorable calling. A daddy is one of the greatest forces against Satan claiming our children. Unfortunately, many men are tucking tale and handing them over to the reigns of hell. Men, start being men and honor your Father by being a father.]

4. There must be loving discipline.

The other end of Ephesians 6:4 speaks of discipline. I believe the context in theis verse incorporates the corporeal punishment of our children. We are not to beat our children. And we are not to punish them by an inconsistent standard. However, children thrive on structure and a firm hand. Spanking a child has an abusive stigma attached to it now so that to do so is considered unloving and unlawful. Even though the bible clearly states that if you spare the rod, you hate your child, but if you strongly discipline your child, you love them (Proverbs 13:24). It is loving to spank your child when they do something wrong. God has given us pain as an instructor. Pain teaches us about danger and consequence. Think about it. If you did not have pain, how would you know if you burned your hand reaching into a hot oven or an open fire? The pain signals that something is wrong and you need to immediately fix it. Discipline serves the same purpose. Spanking, along with loving discourse, tells the child that there is good and evil, right and wrong, a narrow way and broad way. The temporary pain leaves a lasting reminder that the wrong they committed is not expectable and could have an eternal consequence.

[I say all of this not to just advocate for corporal punishment, but to show that the Christian life style is not accepted by the world and the way you are called to train up your children will not be accepted either. ]

What We Do At Home: Practical Application

We have a routine everyday that consist of a strong effort in making God central in our family. In the morning before we eat breakfast, the children are required to recite scripture they have hidden in there heart. Right now we will typicall hear Proverbs 15:1, John 14:6, Psalm 34:8, Genesis 1:1, and Ephesains 6:1-3. (It is key that you incorporate a weekly fighter verse to memorize as a family. We use a lot of creative ways to teach our children scriputre; i.e. hand signals.) This is actually done before every meal. Then Naomi and Ethan will pick a couple of people to pray for and daddy will end with thanksgiving and a blessing over the food. It is not uncommon to discuss the scripture they recited over our meal.

During the day we will also go outside or find somehting inside to talk to the chidlren about God. For example, one day I asked Naomi why did God create trees? She responded that He made them so that we would know the different seasons (paraphrase). This led into a 10-15 minute discussion on God's glory on making trees. I try to do this often so that my children will see that God is applicable the everyday mundane things.

Throughout the day the children will do something that upsets us or each other in which we will have to discipline them. It is here where we apply Ephesians 6:1-3 and discuss how they are not honoring their mother and father, and it is not about to go well with them. We have them talk to us about what they did wrong and what God's word says about it. This is usauly followed up by a spanking or some time on the wall.

At the end of the day we have our family alter time. We sing several songs that are simple enough for them to sing, yet meaty enough for them to see God. (Be creative in doing this as well. I have taken an old nursury song and tunred it into a song teaching the trinity. You can have a lot of fun with your kids during worship. We even will let them dance during this time.) We pray and then we read God's word as a family. We follow this up with a discussion in which the children are required to tell us what they learned from the reading. (We use a childrens bible when we do this.) At bedtime we recite over them Isaiah 41:10 and pray for God to get us through the night. We also ask for God to help us treasure Christ more tomorrow than we did today.

The Blessing and the Warning

It is not enough to just come to church and expect your family to be saved. Many churches are filled to capacity with unbelieving hearts. Which means that many of them are living in unbelieving homes. And when there unbelieving children grow up, they will be unbelieving adults. And the parents will say that we were at church every time the doors were open. We prayed over meals. Why did my children depart from the way? They departed from us because they were not of us (1 John 2:19).

The blessing of this verse is clear. The bible says that if you diligently teach your children my word and consistently live it out before them they will develop life long habits that glorify God. However, the promise of salvation is not certain. Because we know salvation belongs to God and He chooses who He wills, salvation is up to the Lord. (See Romans 9 for further explanation.) We can all point to someone in our family or friends who grew up in a bible believing home with parents who were consistent in their godly parenting, who left and never came back. As general rule, we would like to believe that godly parenting will lead to a child’s conversion. However, salvation is between the Lord and your child.

The warning is just as clear. If you do not live to glorify God and enjoy him as a family, your children will depart. That is the negative side of the verse. The bible calls for radical faith and living and our parenting should be no different. We have been given the mandate to teach our children the ways of God and submit to his will for their life. That is what separates the blessing from the warning. The blessing offers hope for our children. The warning offers wrath. If you are complacent in your faith, you will be complacent in your parenting. This in the end will be the ruin of our children. This is not loving. The most loving thing we can do is consistently point our children and offer them the opportunity to taste and see that the Lord is good; in hope that they will do that and trust in him.