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The Starting Point
Deuteronomy 5:29
Oh, that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear
me, and keep my commandments always, that it might be well with
them and with their children forever.
Instructions:
Pray for help and insight.
Read each passage thoughtfully and carefully then summarize in
your own words what God is telling you through His Word about
parenting. (His Word is His revelation to us-It is the way he
speaks to us.) Then add any observations and reflections from the
text that you see but are not mentioned.
Read and interact with the reflections and the helps. Underline
the ones which seem to be of most help to you personally at this
time.
Decide where you need to change and set a plan to change in those
areas.
Memorize helpful verses of Scripture.
Change!
Day 1
What God Says to Parents: Recognize your stewardship and God’s
sovereign care in your children (Psalm 127).
Psalm 127
Reflections:
1. God is ultimately in control of the success of your household.
2. You, by yourself, are limited in what you can accomplish.
3. God is at work in your household if you are responding to Him
in faith. You should not worry but seek to work at what God wants
you to do and then rest in His provision.
4. Your children are a gift from God and, therefore, good. We must
remember He is sovereign even over our children. They are
ultimately His.
5. Your children are a stewardship from the Sovereign God; so
pleasing Him in your parenting is ultimate priority.
6. Your children are a blessing to you and should be viewed and
treated as the blessing they are; even if it means some personal
sacrifice. Many times the selfishness of our day leads us to
disdain children. God wants us to value and cherish them.
7. Recognize the fact that you don’t have children for your good
pleasure alone, nor for their own good pleasure, but for the good
pleasure of the sovereign God.
Helps:
* Pray for your children knowing it is He who will ultimately make
the difference.
* Follow God’s Word for instruction, not man’s teachings or
observations to help you as parents.
* Be diligent to fulfill your God given responsibilities.
Remember, God’s method is men.
* Keep your confidence in God’s grace and purpose not your skill,
presence or methods.
* Act like children are a blessing not a burden, because they are.
Raise them, through each stage, with pleasure.
* Be happy you have children; communicate to them you are happy
you have them.
* Enjoy them!
* Pray for your children
* Recognize the fact that you don’t have children for your good
pleasure alone, or for their own good
pleasure, but for the good pleasure of the sovereign God.
What God Says to Parents
Day 2
What God says to Parents: Seek to lead your children to be
followers of Christ (II Timothy 3:14-15)
II Timothy 3:14-15
Reflections:
1. Children are to be raised in such a way that they will continue
in the things they have learned.
2. We have a long-term goal, not just a child’s response.
3. The goal is not just knowledge but assurance that leads to
perseverance.
4. Children must be taught the Scriptures to come to salvation.
5. We are not seeking decisions for Christ in our children; we are
seeking disciples
6. These things are learned from parents and family. (See II
Timothy 1:1-5)
7. Consult Mark 10:13-16
Helps:
* Read books and stories to them that will help them think about
salvation
* Have a time of family devotions
* Speak of Jesus and His work often
* Remind them each time they are disciplined of the redemption
available in Jesus and why He died.
* Get them around Christians
* Tell them the gospel frequently-witness to them- and seek to
lead them to Christ. Take initiative.
* Pray for their salvation.
* Whatever you do, don’t rely on the church or school or anyone
else to win your children to Christ.
* Take responsibility and initiative and seek them
* Live in such a way that your life is not a hindrance to them
* Teach them the Scriptures
* Share your testimony with them
What God Says to Parents
Day 3
What God says to parents: Involve your children in worship and
spiritual activity (Jeremiah 7:18, Ezra 8:1-12, Acts 21:4-6,
Exodus 10:9, Deuteronomy 31:10-13; 32:46, Joshua 8:35). Involve
your children in adult worship and learning, as children. Include
them with adults but recognize they are children.
Jeremiah 7:18
1. Make worship a family affair.
2. Even pagan idol worshippers recognize this truth.
Acts 21:4-6
1. Involve your children in ministry to others.
2. Involve them in prayer for others.
3. Involve them in your relationships with others (This is how
they learn to relate to others).
Nehemiah 8:1-12 (NKJV)
Reflections:
1. Include your children in spiritual activities.
2. Expose your children to public teaching of the Bible.
3. Give your children credit for being able to understand.
4. Expect your children to be attentive and to understand.
5. Help them understand the Bible, just like other teachers do for
you.
6. Worship with your children.
7. Let your children see you respond to God both in humility and
joy.
8. Recognize and act on the fact that understanding God’s Word,
and living it, is their source of joy also.
Helps:
* Take them to church with you-don’t ever just send them.
* Include them in adult worship- let them go with you in what you
do.
* Find ways to include them in service for God, which is worship.
Make serving God a family event.
* Involve them in ministry to others. Expect and demand that they
be ministering to others with you
and eventually on their own.
* Talk openly in your home. Let them see you struggle-and repent.
* Take your children regularly to public teaching of the Bible in
church, special meetings,
conferences, etc.
* Be a consistent and regular part of the church family to allow
your kids to feel a part of what is
going on and develop and nurture friendships.
* Give them credit for being able to understand. Expect them to
draw on what they can understand in
spite of what they don’t understand. (Illustrate this.)
* Expect them to sit still and try to understand and be attentive.
* Expect them to take notes in church.
* Expect them to be a contributing part of your church family and
your own family.
* Talk highly of spiritual activity and those who engage in it.
* Help them see and understand the blessings and pains in serving
God.
* Speak highly of Christ’s body, the church (even if there are
things you don’t like). You must lead them to honor the church
just like you lead them to honor you.
* Pray with them.
* Involve them in the things you want them to continue doing their
whole life not just the things you think they should do as a child
or teenager.
What God Says to Parents
Day 4
What God says to parents: Teach them consistent Christian living
as you live a consistent Christian life (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). You
are responsible for teaching your children spiritual values at
home.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Reflections:
1. You must love God passionately.
2. You must know what God says.
3. You must understand and personally will to do what God says.
4. You must teach these things to your children.
5. You must be diligent in teaching these things to your children.
6. You must regularly talk about God and His ways with your
children.
7. You must keep God’s ways in the forefront of your thinking at
all times.
8. You must order your house based on God’s principles and
commands for living.
Helps:
* Talk to them and teach them in the routine of living.
* Use repetition.
* Explain what you are doing and why.
* Teach them why you expect certain things from them don’t only
expect them to conform.
* Order your house and arrange your priorities to remind you and
your children who you serve.
* Beware of hypocrisy (pretending to be someone you are not).
* Carry on the business of life as an object lesson of biblical
truth.
What God Says To Parents
Day 5
What God says to parents: Take responsibility to raise them up in
submission and discipline (Ephesians 6:1-4). Teach them to honor
and obey.
Ephesians 6:1-4
Reflections:
1. Children are to obey their parents.
2. Parents are to teach their children to obey them.
3. Parents are the primary source of instruction.
4. This is the right way for children and their parents to
interact with each other.
5. Children are to recognize and live in such a way that shows
their parents are valuable.
6. Parents are to teach their children to value them.
7. Honoring parents pays off for children. Parents do them a
disservice to NOT teach them to honor them.
8. Fathers hold the responsibility for bringing up children.
9. Fathers are to see to it that their children are not angry and
frustrated by either lack of parental help and guidance or the
wrong kind of help and guidance.
10. Children must be brought up; they cannot raise themselves
properly. They need the teaching, restraining, discipline,
modeling and guidance of parents.
11. Children are to be trained and disciplined like God says a
child should be trained and disciplined.
12. Children are to be talked to regularly to encourage, warn,
rebuke, reprove, instruct, and exhort from God’s Word.
13. We cannot let our children quit or go astray. We must seek
them, correct them, restrain them, chasten them. We cannot cause
them to go astray or let them go astray (See Matthew 18:1-35). We
cannot let their disobedience open the door for our own. Pursue
them with diligence and forgiveness.
Helps:
* Insist that your children honor (value) you and show it in their
actions (their talk, their attitudes,
their service to you).
* Insist that your children obey what you teach them to do
(explain it, demand it, help them do it,
spank them if they don’t, give them other
consequences-consistently-as they grow older).
* Fathers, take initiative and act like the leader. You are
responsible.
* Tell them what to do don’t just ask them what they want to do in
each situation.
* Watch your own anger, your patience and don’t expect what they
cannot deliver.
* Know what they can deliver and help them do it. Don’t over
expect or under expect in a way that
will cause bitterness.
* Spank them and train them like children not like adults or like
animals (with simply behavior modification).
* Speak to them and admonish them: encourage, warn, reprove,
instruct, exhort from God’s Word.
What God Says to Parents
Day 6
What God says to Parents: Teach them wisdom for living (Proverbs
4:1-2,5,11,20-21;
5:1-2).
Proverbs 4:1-5
Proverbs 4:11
Proverbs 4:20-22
Proverbs 5:1-2
Proverbs 20:11
Reflections:
1. Dad, you are to instruct your children to understand wise
living. (Gain wise understanding first.)
2. Teach them the right way to live. (Learn the right way to live
first.)
3. Encourage and admonish them to obey what you teach. Expect them
to obey. You must set the example of obedience (and confession)
first.
4. Start young.
5. Teach them the rewards of obedience and the wages of sin.
6. Lift up the virtue of wise living. Help them learn to be
seekers of wisdom for the rest of their lives.
7. Make sure what you teach is indeed the right way.
8. Take it seriously.
9. Aim for the heart not just the intellect.
10. Realize and act on the importance of wise living.
11. Judge your effectiveness by what you see and hear in your
children.
12. Take responsibility and don’t expect anyone else to do it for
you, not even the church.
Helps:
* Instruct them on how to live don’t expect or allow anyone else
to do it for you.
* Talk to them about wisdom. Teach it to them.
* Lead them to do right.
* Aim for the heart.
* Don’t shy away from any subject.
* Judge your effectiveness by what you see and hear in your
children.
* Gain the wisdom you need to teach through looking, listening,
learning, reading, study, preaching.
What God Says to Parents
Day 7
What God says to parents: Prepare them to respond in faith for the
work of God in the next generation (Psalm 78:1-8, 48:13,
Deuteronomy 11:21).
Psalm 78:1-8
Reflections:
1. Be concerned about learning the things of God from teachers
yourself.
2. Be thankful someone has taught you the greatness and grace of
our God.
3. Commit yourself to passing on the faith to the next generation,
your children. Don’t hide the
works and character and teaching of God, make it very accessible
to your children.
4. God expects us to pass the baton by teaching our children about
Him.
5. God’s plan for multigenerational impact is for us to take
responsibility and teach our children the
things of God so they can teach their children and on and on.
6. The purpose is so our progeny may believe in Christ and obey
Him thereby glorifying Him and
sparing themselves the fruit of a rebellious heart.
7. Prepare your children to not only know God’s Word, but to pass
it on.
Helps:
* Teach them early the Word of God.
* Make them givers not takers or consumers.
* Seek to instill values and truth not just behavior.
* Help them see the connectedness of each generation. Guard
against age segregation that encourages
generation gaps and makes it harder for children to do right.
* Help them understand the purpose of life not just the pleasure
in it.
* Think and help your children think long term. God’s plan is big;
we are only a small part in His
plan.
* Help them realize God’s glory and pleasure is number one over
our pleasure and glory. Lift up the
Lord.
* Make them know they are to pass it on. They are relay runners
not sprinters; conduits not
sponges.
* Make them know they are to pass it on. They are relay runners
and the race always starts in our own
family even though it doesn’t stay there.
* Teach them what God has done. Expose them to the glory of God
not just the ethics of God.
* Let them see that only pleasing and obeying God that brings
them, and others, ultimate good.
What God Says to Parents
Day 8
What God says to parents: Direct them to fear God as the only
thing in all of life that really matters (Ecclesiastes 12:1,13-14;
Proverbs 1:7)
Ecclesiastes 12:1
Reflections:
1. God expects children to focus on Him even in youth.
2. In some ways it gets harder to think of God and serve Him as we
grow older. The limitations of growing old make serving Him more
difficult without the strength of youth.
3. In the end we do our children service by NOT allowing them to
misspend their youth “enjoying the things life has to offer”
instead of serving God.
4. Our children may not be thankful now, but if they are true
believers, they will one day be thankful.
5. Don’t fret about the attitude struggles of your children, it
took wise king Solomon years to come to this conclusion.
6. Start now!
Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
Reflections:
1. When it is all said and done, only one thing matters.
2. This one thing is the WHOLE matter. There is no other concern,
goal, or purpose.
3. Fearing God, viewing Him properly and keeping His commandments,
responding to Him properly is ALL that matters. Not school, not
sports, not pleasures, not experiences, not peers, not stuff, not
deprivations or difficulties.
4. This leads us to consider EVERY work and thought and attitude
for God is concerned about not only the obvious but also the
secret.
5. There is consequence for how we teach our children to live. If
we allow our children to nurture an appetite for things that don’t
matter we prepare them for poor consequences.
Proverbs 1:7
Reflections:
1. Strong respect a high and holy view of God is the starting
point.
2. There is only one gate to knowledge and wisdom, fearing God.
3. Without this fear one becomes (or remains) a fool.
4. Fearing God is only the starting point, there is much wisdom
and instruction to impart in the journey.
Helps:
* Talk to them regularly about this and remind often.
* Model it by the way you pray and make decisions and get counsel
and make purchases and live.
* Refuse to place confidence in the opinions, counsel,
perspectives or expectations of the world.
* Restrain them from letting any thing, play, pleasure, peers,
friends, toys, opportunities, stuff, money,
career, schoolwork, sports, hobbies come before pleasing God.
* Make sacrifices personally because you fear God more than any
other thing and let your children
know it.
* Expect children to do this and help them, demand and lead them
to do it.
* Regularly Point out the futility of serving and fearing any
other thing.
* Read and help them read, Ecclesiastes and Proverbs.
* Seek to evaluate decisions in light of this perspective. It is
God’s perspective.
* Force yourself and your children to think long term. Don’t be
satisfied with the temporal.
* Teach them the principle of delayed gratification with the
understanding that sometimes the delay is life long.
* Don’t allow your children to stand in awe of anything above God
and His word.
* Show your kids this is a journey of growth based on the fear of
God, not an event. It is a way of life. Live that life!
What God Says to Parents
Day 9
What God says to parents: Marriage and home life is God’s primary
method for godly seed. One of the best and foremost and primary
things you can do in parenting is to guard and nurture your
marriage. Guard your marriage by commitment to each other that is
a vital part of parenting. Don’t let parenting distract you from
each other. Children and parenting are not your highest priority.
In the words of Steve and Annie Chapman “The children are the
broken pieces when a home falls apart”. Malachi 2:10-16
Malachi 2:10-16
Reflections on Malachi 2:10-16:
1. Consciously think about your common Father, common creator and
common marriage commitment before God. You are heirs together of
the grace of life (I Peter 3:7). You are mutually dependent on
each other (Genesis 2:18-24). You are partners! Comrades!
2. Consciously think about how God views the marriage
promise/commitment/covenant. Reflect on thoughts like:
“What God has joined together…” Matthew 19:5-6
“Two shall be one flesh” Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:5
“Has not the Lord made them one?” Malachi 2:15
3. Consciously think about how God views offending the covenant.
He uses words like treacherous and abomination. God defines
breaking the promises of marriage with words like deceitful,
betrayal, offensive, pillaging, disgusting, detestable and
loathsome. To violate your marriage compact is low according to
Malachi 2:10-16.
4. Consciously think about how you promised in a covenant or
contract to be a companion, comrade, partner and consort to your
spouse. Think about what that means.
5. Consciously think about one of the God given goals or purposes
of God for faithful, godly, Christ honoring marriage-godly
offspring. Marriage is God’s primary method for godly seed. One of
the best and foremost and primary things you can do in parenting
is to guard and nurture your marriage.
6. Consciously think about how a violation of the covenant defiles
holiness, the very thing to which you are called Memorize
Ephesians 1:3-4.
7. Consciously think about where this disgusting treacherous
betrayal of divorce starts…in the spirit of your mind. It starts
in your heart. Don’t even entertain treacherous, disgusting
thought of mental or physical divorce from your mate. Memorize
Proverbs 4:23.
8. Consciously think about the truth that this is not the only
thing that is true concerning divorce in the Bible. Praise God for
Mercy and grace in this sin cursed world! If you have already been
divorced, know that God forgives, enables and even grows His
people if we have sinned or been sinned against. If singleness is
your experience don’t despair God is the God of help and hope. If
marriage is your experience, even if it is bad or struggling,
don’t despair God is the God of help and hope. Look to Him, lean
on His people and follow His Word as you deal with your situation.
Memorize I Corinthians 10:13.
Helps:
1. Go to bed at the same time.
2. Turn off the TV
3. Go to Church together
4. Minister together
5. Shop together
6. Work together on projects
7. Play together
8. Grow and learn new things together
9. Pray for each other
10. Enjoy trouble and crisis together
11. Don’t accept each others’ excuses but seek solutions
12. Travel together
13. Sacrifice things together
14. Keep some secrets
15. Lift each other up in your thought and words
16. Show common courtesy
17. Help each grow as Christians
18. Talk to each other
19. Solve problems don’t let them build
20. Grow and change!
Day 10
Summary:
What God Says to Parents
Be Dedicated to Parenting /Responsibility/Obedience
Be Dedicated to the Scriptures- God’s word brings profit.
Be Dedicated to our God-Jesus Christ
Begin by delineating the responsibilities of each involved:
Father-You are responsible for overseeing and making sure your
children are raised well. You are responsible to teach your
children. You are responsible for providing for your children. You
are responsible for protecting your children from the world,
Satan, others, and actions or influences that will bring them
spiritual or physical harm. You are responsible for wisely placing
them (allowing them) in the situations and relationships they need
to grow. You are responsible for spending “living time” with your
children (Living time is differentiated from “playing time” or
“special time” or even “quality time” it is to live your life with
them so you can teach and pass on to them God’s Words and Ways.)
so you can capitalize on teachable and opportune moments in the
normal course of events. You are responsible for leading and
loving your children’s mother. You are to prepare your children to
live a life of worship and wisdom for the glory of God, not just
see that it is done. You are to give your wife what she needs to
fulfill her responsibility. You are to discipline, teach, restrain
and raise your children to be God honoring and useful servants of
Christ. You are to teach them to honor you; and expect honor from
them. You are to help them obey. You are to seek their heart and
not just their behavior. You are to be a model to your children.
You are to face-to-face talk with, teach, warn, exhort, rebuke and
encourage your children in specific areas of struggle or sin. You
are to recognize, embrace and fulfill your stewardship of
children. You are to point your children to God, to trust him and
fear Him and love Him, more than anything else. They should
constantly hear from and observe in you that His perspective and
pleasure is the absolute most important thing in life. You are to
plead with and then trust the Lord to accomplish His work in
these, your children. You are to recognize it is His work and
nothing you do, without God’s working, will assure God honoring
children. You are to guard and nurture your marriage.
Mother-You are to love your children. You are to keep the home
(rule the house, not the head) of your children as described in
Proverbs 31. You are to love and obey the father of your children.
You are to work hard with your husband and be a submissive helper
to him in fulfilling all of his responsibility (see above). You
are to consider yourself a partner with your husband. You are to
live in such a way that you will one day hear your children call
you blessed and not tolerated. You are to sacrifice to care for
your children. You are to be faithful so that your husband can
trust you to do him and his purposes and his children good. You
are to fulfill your biblical responsibilities as a wife to both
honor the Lord and serve your family. You are to recognize and
fulfill your stewardship of children. You are to plead with and
then trust the Lord to accomplish His work in these, your
children. You are to guard and nurture your marriage.
Children –You are to honor your parents. You are to obey your
mother and father. You are to listen to the things your parents
say and teach. You are to submit to your mother and father. You
are to respond to your dad and mom with a happy heart. You are to
look for direction from Dad and Mom; that is why God gave you to
them. You are to be thankful for your parents, and act like it.
You are to seek the honor of Lord and your parents more than your
peers. You are to fear God and keep His commandments as your whole
duty. You are to do the right things with the right attitude. You
are to start now.
Church and Grandparents - You have the obligation of helping
parents fulfill their own obligations.
You are to take part in helping your children parent their
children. You should even work with them in doing their jobs (for
instance teaching the Scriptures), but you are not to take over
the job of parenting for them. Whether they invite you to or
whether you just think they are doing a lousy job, you should not
take over for them. Remember, you are only a helper to them as
they fulfill their own responsibility. Help them just like you
would help someone do their homework without doing it for them.
You also have a responsibility to pass on the things of God
directly and indirectly as is appropriate. You best help others by
understanding and then fulfilling your own responsibility fully
and not by trying to fulfill others for them. Your first
responsibility is to do your own job-period!
Fulfill your responsibility to the parents. Fulfill the one
another passages in the Scriptures. Love them. Spur them on in
doing right. Encourage them. Teach them. Equip them. Admonish them
in areas of need. Keep them accountable. Pray for them.
Dad, take responsibility and initiative. Mom, submit and work
together with your husband on the home front. Kids, listen to,
value and obey your parents. Church, spur them on, teach and help
them. Grandparents, remember who holds the responsibility and help
them understand it and support them in fulfilling it, work with
them in their responsibility without taking it. Everyone, in
everything, seek to show the high opinion you have of God and His
pleasure.
Pastor Bruce Seivers
February, 2005
Valley Chapel Community Church
Fairfield, OH
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