Let's Make 2018 an Intentional Year of Family Discipleship!

  As we start off 2018 it is a great time to refresh our vision for our goals of discipling our children in our homes.  In this post I would like to give an overview of some of the things that are important to my husband and me to teach our children.  These are things that we pray about and trust the Lord to help us to impart to our children.  I could do a long post on each of these values, but the goal of this post is just to throw out some ideas to get us thinking about ways we can work on leading our families in these specific areas of spiritual training.

  One thing that is sobering to me is to remember that I cannot teach what I do not possess.  This is why it is so important that we, as busy Mamas, continue going back to the Lord and His Word to be refueled so that we can think Biblically and authentically live out the things we are seeking to teach our children.  Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing." - John 15:5  Let us cast ourselves upon the Lord daily as we go about teaching our children.
  *The Gospel.  Out of all the things we need to teach our children nothing is as important as the glorious good news of the gospel.  It is the best news of all!  Each day affords us plenteous opportunities to bring our families back to the gospel message.  Whenever children struggle with sin it is a great time to remind them of God's standards and that they are incapable of living up to His righteous standards.  This is what makes the gospel such good news; although we are born dead in sin, Christ desires to make us alive in Him and lead us on to sanctification and victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
  *Ongoing Repentance.  Here is an area where we can set an example for our children by parenting in humility, admitting our failures, and asking forgiveness when we blow it.  We may think our children will see us as weak by admitting our impatience, anger, etc. but in reality they will gain respect for us when they see us parenting with authenticity.  They will see by our example that when we make mistakes we need to admit it and ask forgiveness of those we hurt and of the Lord.

  *Prayer.  There are so many opportunities all throughout the day to lead our children before the throne of grace.  Sibling rivalry is one opportunity to model praying without ceasing.  Just yesterday there was some disputing between two of my children, and I handled it by praying a LONG prayer with them about the matter.  I prayed that the Lord would soften their hearts and cause them to love each other and speak kindly, etc.  I think it can be effective to pray through the fruits of the spirit with frustrated children and ask the Lord to do a work in their hearts.  There is certainly time for parental correction, but I think sometimes instead of lecturing I need to stop and just pray.  This is an area I am trying to grow in.
  Also, when a child is sick, scared, worried, etc. it is an opportune time to stop and say, "Let's pray about that right now."  Prayer is powerful and such a grace in our lives. Anytime is a perfect time to take our children by the hand and lead them before the throne of grace.  When we pray all throughout the day we are teaching them to pray without ceasing.

  *Cherish, Read, and Trust the Word of God.  As a little girl I grew up singing a song that went like this:

The B-I_B-L-E
Yes, that's the book for me
I stand alone on the Word of God
The B-I_B-L-E!

We need to be opening the Word of God all throughout the day with our children.  Bible is not just a subject in school.  No, it is something we look to for guidance in all kinds of situations all throughout the day.  When we give correction, training, counsel, etc. it is so helpful to open God's Word and show our children for themselves exactly what the Scripture says.  We need to encourage them to get into the Bible for themselves learning to have a quiet time with the Lord.  This is such an important habit to cultivate in their lives from a young age.  Even before our children learn to read we like to tell them that we are so excited for them to learn to read because then they can read God's Word for themselves.  This past Christmas our seven year old daughter asked for her own Bible for Christmas. I was thrilled that this is something that she valued and wanted.

  *Teach them to defend the faith, to embrace sound doctrine, and to know church history.  We are living in a day when Biblical truth is under massive attack.  Knowing church history, proper Biblical apologetics, and sound doctrine will help them to discern error and know how to articulate the truth.
  *Memorize God's Word.  Our children are born with brains that are like sponges and they can memorize so quickly when they are young.  This is an excellent time for them to memorize Scripture that will stick with them for life.  You might even want to check out the National Bible Bee https://biblebee.org as a great motivation to memorize huge portions of Scripture.
  *Suffering for Christ and stories of great Christians.  We want our children to know that Christ is worthy of their all.  We don't want them to worship the pop culture icons of the day but rather to be inspired by great heroes of the Christian faith.  This is why we encourage books, documentaries, audio dramas, and movies about people like Corrie Ten Boom, Eric Liddell, Jim Elliot, George Mueller and others.  They can learn so much by studying the lives of great Christians.
  *Obedience and Character

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.  Honor your father and mother (this is the first commandment with a promise), that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.  Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" - Ephesians 6:1-4

  It is important for our children to learn to obey parental commands in order that they will know how to obey and bow the knee to the lordship of Christ.  J.C. Ryle puts it this way:

"Parents, do you wish to see your children happy?  Take care, then, that you train them to obey when they are spoken to-to do as they are bid.  Believe me, we are not made for entire independence-we are not fit for it.  Even Christ's freemen have a yoke to wear-they "serve the Lord Christ.  Children cannot learn too soon that this is a world in which we are not all intended to rule, and that we are never in our right place until we know how to obey better.  Teach them to obey while they are young, or they will be fretting against God all their lives long, and wear themselves out with the vain idea of being independent of His control."  

  Going along with training our children in obedience is also the matter of training their character in areas such as truthfulness, kindness, promptness, etc.  As we teach them the necessity for these virtues we must frequently remind them that they can only do what is right with the help of the Lord.  

"For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." - Philippians 2:13

 Character training without the gospel will frustrate our children or make them proud.  They will be either defeated that they cannot be good enough or prideful at how good they think they are.  We must balance our training with the constant reminder that all our righteousness is as filthy rags, and in order to produce true character that pleases the Lord our hearts have to be right before the Lord.  It is He who works in us to do what we ought to His glory.  

*Teach them to serve.  We live in a narcissistic generation, and leading our children to get out of themselves to serve others can help to combat the selfie generation mentality.  We desperately want our children to live for the glory of God, His kingdom, and His righteousness.  Children that live only for themselves become very bored and hopeless.  

*Contentment.  Paul said that he had LEARNED to be content in any circumstance.  

"Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me." - Philippians 4:11-13

*Hymnody.  The last thing I am listing in this post is hymnody.  My husband and I grew up with the hymns of the faith, and we are both grateful for that heritage.  We desire that our children will also know the hymns, and so we spend time singing with them.  Sometimes we will attend a hymn sing where we sit around and sing for an hour or so and that time has been so encouraging!  You can also teach hymns by playing them in the home.  I grew up in a home that had sacred Christian music playing throughout our house everyday.  That is part of my legacy and I am grateful for it.  While I see value in substantial praise choruses as well, nothing can replace the great hymns of the faith that have stanza after stanza of Bible doctrine and tend to be God oriented instead of man oriented.  These hymns even make good devotional material just to read or sing through a hymn a day with your devotional reading.  

  I hope this list of things has excited you to be intentional in 2018 with your family discipleship.  I hope it has given you some ideas that you can run with and add your own creativity according to your own individual families.  By God's grace may we make 2018 count for eternity as our families grow in the knowledge of Christ and serve Him purposefully!