As parents, so many believers want to go to a parenting conference or listen to a seminar to get some secret to raising their kids in a godly manner.
This sounds oversimplified to many people, but this is the one thing you need to do as a parent: Everyday, give your kids the opportunity to know Jesus.
This is the best parenting advice you’ll ever get. If you don’t have a regiment for your kids in Bible reading and church attendance, you are severely withholding the most important thing for your children’s life.
Your children do not know what is right for themselves. You, as a parent, need to tell them. Having a structured regiment for Bible reading every day (for instance) is indispensable. You can’t force your children to really seek the Lord in their own heart, but you for sure can give them the opportunity every day.
It’s troubling to see parents that send their kids to school, provide their kids food every day, but leave Bible reading and church attendance as an option for their kids. What a great disservice. Your kids can go to school and eat healthy every day, and their life has meant nothing if they don’t know the Lord. Why do we give our children the option to read their Bibles and spend time with the Lord, but would never give them the option to skip school or skip eating healthy? Because our priorities are mixed up.
What you enforce as a parent shows your children what you believe is important. And when you do not enforce Bible reading and spending time with the Lord, you are telling your children that it is not important. At least not as important as school, for instance.
Raising kids is so much easier when you raise them to know Jesus. Because as their minds are renewed to know Jesus for themselves, they are automatically transformed… Making your job a whole lot easier.
Even if you don’t know the Lord a whole lot for yourself right now, do not strip your children of the opportunity to know Jesus for themselves. If you’re going to enforce one thing in your household, above all else, enforce their time with the Lord. And if you’re not doing that, please start.
When Pastor Jose and Miss Kim were raising their kids, they had a 30 minute Bible reading time every single night. It was not an option, because when something is important, you don’t give your children the option. That’s how they learn. And when it came to going to a good church, it was every service. That’s not strict, that’s just having good priorities.
As Pastor Mike and Miss Lindsay got older, no one needed to badger them about spending time with the Lord. They began doing it willfully, from a real desire to know who they were in Christ. They had been given that opportunity all their lives, and they took that opportunity.
If your kids are adults now, obviously a Bible reading regiment is not suitable anymore, but speak the truth to them in love. Their minds being renewed to Jesus is all that matters.
Specifically for those who have children that you are still raising, who live in your house, give them the opportunity to know Jesus every single day. That’s the best parenting advice you’ll ever hear from anyone.
You don’t have to know everything to parent, and you don’t have to act like you know everything in front of your kids, but you do need to know one thing: There is nothing more important in this world than knowing Jesus. And nothing will do more for your kids health and well being. Show your kids that, and you will never regret it. Never.
Romans 12:2 [Paraphrased] [Your kids will] not be conformed to this world, but [will] be transformed by the renewing of [their] mind…
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