“Celeste Sibley, one-time columnist for the Atlanta (GA) Constitution, took her three children to a diner for breakfast one morning. It was crowded and they had to take separate seats at the counter. Eight-year-old Mary was seated at the far end of the counter and when her food was served she called down to her mother in a loud voice, “Mother, don’t people say grace in this place?” A hush came over the entire diner and before Mrs. Sibley could figure out what to say, the counterman said, “Yes, we do, sister. You say it.” All the people at the counter bowed their heads. Mary bowed her head and in a clear voice said, “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food….”
Don’t you just love kids?
It has always been distressing to me to see so many children so far removed from God in their daily lives. I do not know the reasons for this, nor the answers to it in every case, but parents must realize their great responsibility in this matter. The following suggestions, I feel, are extremely important in keeping your children close to God. Choose, and implement, as many of them as you possibly can.
Establish a family altar. Read and study the Bible together. Sing gospel songs together. Pray together. This will be a difficult project to establish and maintain, but it will reap eternal dividends and rewards in the lives of your children. It is best to start a family altar when children are very young. Make it a natural part of their lives.
Labor to lead your child to faith in Christ.
Live the right kind of life before your children. Be a genuine Christian in every sense of the word. Get as close to (and stay as close to) God as you possibly can. Hypocrisy, on the parents part in this matter, is terribly destructive to children. There is no doubt that one of the main reasons why many children turn away from God is because their parents are being pretend Christians or fakes.
Go, as a family, to a strong Bible believing, Bible preaching, soulwinning, fundamental church. Don’t look to a church to entertain your child. Look to a church to educate your child in the ways of God and the Bible!
In your home, maintain a spirit of praise and joy. Nothing turns off young people any more than a gossiping, backbiting, critical, pessimistic, negative approach to life. When children live in that kind of environment is it any wonder that they struggle spiritually?
Participating with your child in some form of Christian service with the express intent of leading others to Christ is a powerful way to keep your child in love with God. Encourage them in their efforts to serve God. If they show interest in devoting their lives to God in some full time capacity (Pastor, Missionary, Evangelist, etc.), do everything in your power to encourage that desire and help them fulfill it.
Spend time with your children doing fun things together. Take an interest in them and their interests.
Praise your children when they do right. Lovingly correct them when they do wrong.
Greatly limit or even eliminate television. Television has been the greatest means of moral destruction in our generation. Try to think of one modern day clean, decent, moral show that encourages and inculcates genuine biblical principles? Television is filled with things that are directly contradictory to the Bible and its principles. It constantly bombards the mind with a worldly approach to life. No child (or adult either) can get close to God, or stay close to God with such materials being constantly put into the mind.
Be extremely careful with electronics, like cellphones, iPads, iPods, Computers, etc.
Be very careful about which school your child attends. If a child is exposed to worldly, humanistic, and evolutionary philosophy for eight hours per day, even the strongest Christian home will struggle to raise godly kids.
Be careful who you let your children run with. Many a child has been ruined by the wrong kind of friends.
Pray for, and with, your children! Pray! Pray!! PRAY!!!
Please remember that none of us will be perfect parents, but we must do out best to bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. This is one of the great things that is missing in so many children’s lives.
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