Do You Desire To Bring Your Child Into The Kingdom?

It's hard enough to be a Christian parent in this world. How do we combat the forces of evil while at the same time raise our children to desire to walk in God's light? By seeking His face, His Word and inspiration from each other as we stumble through this parenting process together. You will find all the instruction, encouragement and resources you need right here at The Greatest Mission Trip You'll Ever Take to help you be the most effective witness to your child that God would have you be. Look around and come back often. Let's learn together.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Step By Step To Family Devotions: Kick It Up Again

photo by Mike Baird

If you’ve been following along the Step By Step process of holding family devotions, you’ll recognize this as the third time I’ve asked you to “kick it up”. Why is it so important to keep bumping it up another notch?

  • The only way for your child to know, I mean REALLY know, who the Author of the Word is, is to read the Bible for himself. If the Bible is being read to him, he is still hearing first hand the words given by God to man. Everything about who God is is in the pages of that book.
  • The only way for your child to know for sure what the salvation plan for his life is is to read about it from the Bible. No amount of third party interpretation will have the impact that actually reading the words “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” will have.
  • The only way for your child to know exactly how to obey God is found by reading the truths found only in the Bible. There’s nothing ambiguous about what the Lord says we must do if we say we’re going to follow Him. Jesus even attached a qualifier to the relationship we’re supposed to have with Him: If you love me, obey my commands.
  • If you’re not regularly and consistently holding devotions as a family, you are allowing the world to gain a foothold in the lives of you and your family. Forget the potential for Satan to influence. Not reading from the Bible makes him giddy. He doesn’t have to do a thing if you or your family are really unclear about what it means to be a Christian.
Ideally you should be having some type of devotion or discussion as a family everyday. IDEALLY. We all know that life interferes and sometimes things we plan just don’t come off. Your aim in all this, however, is to make God a BIG DEAL in your home. Making Him central in who you are as a family will always produce blessing. Making Him a mere side note will always produce dissatisfaction, confusion, misery, and ultimately, eternal death.

Such is the consequence for the child who doesn’t know who God is or how to make him Lord of his life. Do we really want that for our children?

Homework: 1. Increase your times of family devotion to at least three times a week or, if you’re already at that mark, include praying for others, singing or verse memorization.
2. Have you decided what your next area of study will be?
3. Don’t let Satan or the world gain a foothold. Keep going in your effort.

Has this series of teachings been a blessing to you? Email this post to your pastor and let him know that others in your church family may be blessed by it as well.

Related Articles:
Previous - Plan Your Next Study
Next - Give It All To God
Two To The Thousandth Power Kind Of Blessing

Doing The Hard Thing
Step By Step To Family Devotions - the series

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Family devotions kick up the name of Jesus for a lifetime of faith. Your cildren will remember. I know mine do. Let me invite you to my blog http://blog.livingforgod.net
Calvin Wulf

Deb Burton said...

Calvin, thanks so much for stopping by. I checked out your site. Good stuff! Family devotions are so important for establishing a foundation of knowledge about God in our children, and whether they make a decision for Him now or not, that knowledge goes with them for eternity.