As you read this my Sister and I are enjoying a God-given opportunity to be together. To laugh and talk and enjoy long conversations.
This is the third part of this series,
the first part can be found here.
Teaching our kids is a great job given to us by God himself. He gave them to us, He entrusted their education to us! And very often that is an overwhelming thought because we see in us many faults, many mistakes, much sin, and our own inabilities while being expected to do a good job!
Now I am asked by God to train these children so that they are industrious, honourable men and women, godly in all that they do, follow God’s commands and treasure His law in their heart,all these by showing Jesus Christ to them, being a model of God’s character in me,and that through my marriage they will see a model of God and His church, and when they learn about Christ, they can understand it easily, because they had a good model to follow.
If this is not overwhelming enough, I do not know what it is. But it should be overwhelming at times; it should make us realize that it is not by what we do or not do, but because of God’s mercies. It should bring us to our knees every day crying to God for his strength, for His wisdom, for him to be the One teaching our kids and that we might be just an instrument useful to Him.
It demands from us to trust and obey, to lean on Him and to die to self every day; and to be a witness to those inside our house who really know us… the good, the bad and the ugly. There is an opportunity to live what we preach with an audience that learns from watching. They will study if our priorities are what we say they are.
Teaching our kids should be a challenge and a great passion because with God’s grace, we have the privilege to preach the gospel of Christ every day to our children and bring them up in the fear of the Lord.
What is the purpose of education? Is it to create moral kids that know how to behave? Or do we teach our children with their souls in mind? Which books are your kids reading? Which clothes are they wearing? How do they honour their parents? Which movies do you allow at home? (And I’m not talking just about secular movies, but even those that called themselves “Christian”) Do you teach them to always be on guard about their souls? Do you teach them to search their hearts? Do you teach them God’s doctrine? Do they know why they believe what they believe? Do you teach them history with God in mind? What about Science? Can they defend their faith against someone who wants to seduce their faith? Do your kids know their own temptations? Do they know yours?
Christian education needs Christian parents.
We need to know who Christ is; we need to study good doctrine if we want to fight the lust of our own flesh! The Lord has to be our passion, our desire, our most precious treasure. The more we know Christ, His doctrine of justification, sanctification, forgiveness, sin, death, resurrection, total depravity, irresistible grace, election, mortification of sin, holiness, know the Old Testament , understand the doctrine of covenant theology, baptism, the sacraments, God’s character, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, His love, His patience, His judgement,… There is so much to learn!
“Knowledge without repentance will be a torch to light men to hell.”1 As we teach our kids all these, we are to teach them repentance and pray that God will grant it to them. We can yell, scream and cry all we want, but is God alone who can change a heart and give it life. The more they know, the less excuse they will have before God. Do they know that? What a great privilege to be born in a family where the word is taught, but also great responsibility comes with it.
Do we want godly children? Let’s be godly parents!
Norma
1. Thomas Watson
The picture shown above is from a great
housewear shop in Boston, MA
