1 Samuel 12:24 b

Be sure to fear the Lord and serve Him faithfully with all your heart.

I sincerely hope that you and the children had a blast yesterday.  There is still so much more to say about the importance of living a life of gratitude and instilling this important value in every child we have access to.  It has been said that gratitude may be as important to one’s health as is nutrition.

Today we are tasked with helping our children to understand what it means to fear the Lord.  Yes, we desire to raise God-fearing children and the thing is, it is possible.  Let us dive therein.

Children should be taught the Word of God, the ways of God and the works of God. The news is, this should not be left to the Sunday or Sabbath school teachers.  Parents are the children’s primary teachers in learning the fear of God.  Psalm 34:11 provides us with a little model. It says, “ Children, come and listen to me; let me teach you to respect the Lord.”  We can and should gather our children together daily and verbally instruct them to fear the Lord. Hmmm, another thing to add to an already tight schedule! To be honest, yes.  This may be the most important thing we can do in our day. Quite a bit of what we are doing now may have no relevance on our tomorrow.  When you get to tomorrow, your children will be there. Selah

 

What can we do?

 

1. Children are impressionable and tend to prefer to follow in a very intent manner what we do rather than what we say.  We have to be conscious of this.  As a result, we must live blameless lives in our homes.  What if we could respond to each other in the home and do for each other as we would do to and for those we ‘rate’ at church, at school, on the job or wherever?  We will have to live in our homes with integrity.  Our lifestyles should show our children that we fear the Lord.  We are not being asked to be perfect and sinless but we are called to purity, humility, willingness to confess our sins, the willingness to repent and offer proper apologies. Can you see with me how this could instil the fear of the Lord in children?

 

2. Watch how you deal with sin.  As parents, we must develop a mature disposition to deal with our children’s sin immediately, firmly and biblically.  Our Father does not laugh at sin neither treats it lightly.  Since we stand in proxy for Him over His heritage, we need to pattern Him.  I mentioned that we should deal with sin biblically and I want to emphasise that our motivation must be love according to 1 Corinthians 13.  When our children have turned away from their sins, so should we.  Do not use it against them.

 

3. Encourage them to pray, that is, to talk to God.  Let them know that they can talk to God about everything.

 

1. Talk about God with your children and involve Him in every conversation.
2. Read the Word with them and show them God’s glory, magnificence, power and His everlasting love for them.

Today we can encourage our children to talk with God.

• Encourage them to talk with God about everything.

Let them know that he will listen to them even if they are talking to him about their pets.

• They could make a list of the things they could talk with God about.

 

Thanks for reading today’s blog. If this helped you, it could help someone else.  Please share it.

What are you grateful for today? What could I join you in prayer about?

If your children like to write, you could encourage them to blog.  They could begin to blog their reflections from the moments you are spending with them on this Affirm Me journey.