BUILDING our CHILDREN ‘FIRMLY’ upon GOD’s WORD!
February 22
Bible Reading: Deuteronomy Chapters 4-6
BUILDING our CHILDREN ‘FIRMLY’ upon GOD’s WORD!
"And these words which I command you
today shall be in your heart. You shall teach
them diligently to your children, and shall
talk of them when you sit in your
house, when you walk by the way,
when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." (Deut 6:6-9)
As we read
through the book of Deuteronomy, one thing we should understand is that God repeated all these instructions through
Moses because of their importance of laying them as a firm foundation for the future generation. In fact, God wanted the
parents to teach these commandments to their children as their prime
responsibility in life!
In order to impart
wisdom to children, it required that parents would need to spend time with
their children on a daily basis, and telling them about the commandments of
God, instructing them in the ways of God, and modeling for them a
Christ-centered lifestyle. This would be like the “Show-and-Tell” model. On the one hand the parents would teach
their children clearly what was right and wrong according to God’s standards (“Tell”), on the other hand the parents
would live before their children as godly, righteous life examples (“Show”).
The primary
reason for doing this is because children mimic their parents through what they
see of them in both words and action within the confines of their homes.
Through seeing their parents, they form mental images of God, their heavenly
Father. So, parents have to help their children see God clearly and the
unconditional nature of His love (remember the love of the father in the story
of the Prodigal Son). To do this, parents themselves
need to learn from God about how to love God and others making that a permanent
imprint in their outward behavior.
The above
passage in Deuteronomy speaks to us regarding the fact that we need to build
our children’s lives in the firm foundation of God’s Word. Someone has made the following acronym
from the word “FIRM” as Familiarity, Interest, Recognition,
and Modeling. That is how we can "train
up a child in the way he should go..." (Prov 22:6). As parents, we
need to use every opportunity to teach biblical truths, so that our children
can implement them in their lives. We can build upon their natural interests
and talents, utilizing them as our teaching opportunities. As we share our
personal stories (witness) and those from the Bible (devotion), we can also
model godly lives before them!
We can thus teach
God’s Word that reflects God’s love to our children while firmly building them
up in godly ways. We can direct them to salvation through Christ, and model
before them the importance of godly living. Let us strive to build our children
on the firm foundation of God’s Word everyday!
