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Top Ten Things to Teach Your Children As parents what is our role when it comes to children? How do children affect our marriage? Are children a gift or a burden? Are we responsible for how our children turn out? These are some of the questions we will try to address in this session. Proverbs 22:6 starts to shed some light on the first question as to what our responsibility is to our child. 6 Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Three times in Deuteronomy the Lord tells us what our responsibility is as parents: Deut 4:9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. Deut 6:4-9 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 upon 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. The people did not obey God and after Josua died the Bible says in Judges 2:10: 10 After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. We need the right attitude...Understand that children are a gift of God. The Bible says in Psalm 127:3 3 Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. 4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. 5 Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. Here is the bottom line. Children are a gift from God and they can be incredible blessings to our marriage if we obey God and fulfill our responsibility as parents. The problem we see in counseling couples is that most parents do not even realize or think about what their responsibility is as parents. Many parents simply try to raise up their children so they will "fit" into the world around them and do all they can to make their children happy. There are no instructions that I have ever read in the Bible that gives us those instructions. As parents we only have a short amount of time….Need to understand goal at hand now. You need to start the training right from the crib. We also must continue to work on your marriage even more as the demands will be much greater. Moms must not neglect the needs of her husband… Dad the needs of his wife. Marriage with children is like a different level of sports...harder and more intense, but so are the benefits. You will need help...This is not only hard...It's impossible. Go back to steps 1 and 2...communicate with God and each other. What are your responsibilities as a parent? I would propose to you that our responsibilties as parents are to Love our children, discipline them, and train them up in the way they should go. Our task is not to seek to simply raise up "good" children, but children who truly love God with all their hearts, souls, minds, and strenght. We are to strive to raise children to have a vibrant, personal relationship with the Lord jesus and whose lives will be bright and shinning lights penetratiing the darkness around them. Christian parents ought to be seeking to raise up children who enthusiastically embrace the Truth of the Gospel...children who love righteousness and hate evil,...children who will be used by God to change the world and not conform to it. In Romans 12:2 Paul says: 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will. Lets examine each of our responsibilities a little closer:
I. Love them
Need to understand what you are dealing with. Children are born sinners. They come out of the womb with no morals, no knowledge, no skills. They are selfish and if they do not get their own way they siege with rage. They are born delinquents and left alone they will become criminals. Prov 22:15 13:24 Must have a united front. Spend time together in prayer and come to agreement on discipline problems...then be strong and courageous. Break huddle with same play. Dr. Myers gives 10 sure steps to make your child into a criminal:
Key point you need to understand...Your job as parents is not to make them happy but to subdue the self-will of the child. You are commanded to discipline them and they are commanded by God to obey...so that it will go well with them. Eph 6:1-3 Formula for success is to provide council and correction with love and examine results. Scripture commands it: Proverbs 29:15, 29:17, 23:13 Easier to not discipline. Greatest abuse of a child is to leave him alone. If you do not obey scripture, have rebellion and sorrow:Proverbs 15:5 &32, 19:13
III. Train them up in the way of the Lord Ephesians 6:4 Deuteronomy 6:6-9
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