GROUNDING OUR CHILDREN IN THE FAITH

GROUNDING OUR CHILDREN IN THE FAITH
By Pastor Boachie-Ansah
Texts: Deuteronomy 6:4-9 NIV Judges 2:10-12
[4] Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. a [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 on 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. …

After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel? Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. [12] They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord ’s anger.. "

It is not enough to pass on God's Word to our children. We must first receive and embrace it in our own hearts, as parents. There is no way to share a love for God and his Word with your children that you do not daily and vitally experience yourself.
When a Muslim gives birth to children, they grow to become Muslims. People think in Christianity it should be like that but unfortunately, it is never so. To become a Christian demands personal confession and commitment.

For this to be possible, it becomes the onerous duty of the Christian  parent to strategically position their children in such a way that they will grow to accept the Christ of their parents as their savior and also to accept the church of their parents. Take note also of the fact that children learn mostly through imitation.

For this to be possible, it is proper for us to pay heed to the admonition of Moses to the Israelites as contained in Deut. 6:4-9

If you want to keep the heart of your children for the God you serve;

1. Train them. Training should cover all the human domains….cognitive , (head ) affective (heart) and the psychomotor (manipulative skills)

2. Take care of their personal needs

3. Demonstrate good Christian lifestyle for them to emulate. Many parents feel an obligation to their children to raise them up in a good environment. So they cart them off to Sunday school or send them to a Christian school, assuming that they have fulfilled their obligation. However, if they are not themselves actively engaged in the Christian faith, they can not expect their children to fall in love with it just because they have been exposed to it externally. There must be ample practical demonstration of the faith in the child's first environment, which is the home.

4. Have time to share the word and pray with them The Word must first be in your heart. But even more than that -- you must teach God's Word to your children diligently. Another mistake that parents sometimes make is the assumption that if they have ever explained a biblical principal or told their children a Bible story, then they understand the Christian faith. But it takes much more dedication and careful application than that. We must make a daily, overriding, unrelenting determination as parents to teach our children the Christian faith. Not only by making it the subject of conversations, but by displaying Christ as the great goal and treasure of our family

5. Never talk evil about your church and its leaders in your home.

6. Set your family priorities right.

7. Expose them to all the good practices in the Church.

It is not enough to give your children quality education. Ground them in the faith. The overflowing, personal pleasure that we experience in God's Word must continually and carefully be emanating from our heart, and be diligently communicated to the hearts of our children.

Don't be like Joshua and his generation whose priority was in conquering their enemies. In the end they couldn't conquer all of them. In the same way, if we don't focus on making conscious efforts in bringing our children to the personal knowledge of God, the devil will take them captive and all our Christian efforts will be in vain.