A Need for Commitment

God is so serious about the family that it is one of the first changes that occur when His Spirit is mightily at work. Why is the relationship between the fathers and children so important?

If children do not respect their earthly fathers, then it will not be easy to learn to respect the Heavenly Father. When fathers do not pay close attention to the training necessary for their children, their children will usually develop problems that will build up over time. Children easily get embittered from a father’s wrong word or action. Paul warns against this.

“And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

Any distance between them greatly influences the way the child will relate to God the Father. Even if he does become a Christian, he will live at a distance from Him. When God works in the life of his people, then they are able to see their bitterness in their own earthly relationships and seek to restore those relationships. Renewal always works itself back to the father-child relationship. When John Newton came to know the Lord, he sought out to be restored to his father. This is just one of many examples of how important spiritual nurturing is for the child.

When we have children, parents are right to pass on lots of love, care and attention to them. Our possessions and affection have been given to us by God to rightly prepare our children for Him. Your children will always have a special relationship with you, but it is critical that our purposes for our children always rise beyond our own needs and desires. We must prepare them to be responsive to God. Parents are God’s stewards. Our job is to properly prepare our children for a life before God. All of our hopes, feelings and attention for our children must come under this understanding. We are accountable to God for how well we do the job.

An Illustration

Let me give you an example. A mother loves dancing. And yet, she never could dance the way she really wanted because she lacked proper training. She so much desires that her daughter would have those opportunities she didn’t have. This is fine. If she is careful to notice, however, as a Christian mother she will detect a silent tension within her.

She will see the potential conflict. One the one hand, she has a desire for her child to have certain opportunities she missed in life. On the other hand, she will see how the pursuit of this will lead to a conflict with the need to know, love and serve God. Like each person, she and her daughter only have so much time. Eventually however, the conflict of priority will be revealed. What happens when that one class or competition happens to be on Sunday, the Lord’s Day? Suddenly the battle will rage within their hearts. Will she take her child to church as always or will she try to convince her husband of the importance of that dance class?^[4] These decisions highlight the need for us to remember that God’s ways always take a priority.

Parents are on a mission to train children to be fit members of His kingdom. God wants children who love His ways and have learned to prioritize what He wants over against their own wants or desires.

These situations will occur time after time. We are either teaching our children to fear the Lord and love His ways or we teach them to seek their own quests and the pleasures of life. As parents, however, we will be held accountable not to our neighbor but to God. Would it not be our greatest earthly reward for a Mom to have her children, “rise up and bless her” (Proverbs 31:28) or thank their Dads for training them in godly ways?! Parenting is lifestyle discipleship training. Food, clothes and education are important, but we would wholly shirk our responsibility if we did not train our children spiritually. They would not be able to join God in His great program nor would they be able to share in the wonderful benefits of His eternal kingdom.

“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul” (Mark 8:36)?

So what are your hopes and goals for your children? Many parents have not outwardly expressed these hopes and aspirations for their children. In many cases parents haven’t even concretely thought about them. The ideas are there. They influence the parent’s decision-making process but often elude critical thinking.

The more we can catch a glimpse of what our goals are for our children and compare them to what God wants, the easier it will be to rightly handle areas of potential conflict. The more clearly we understand what God wants to do through our lives in our children, the easier it is for us to make the needed sacrifices and ignore the worldly pressures surrounding us. This is the way God’s kingdom is established through the family. We identify His truths. We prioritize his truths. We live by His truths. We pass on His truth to the next generation.

“Let all the earth fear the LORD; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. The LORD nullifies the counsel of the nations; He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the LORD stands forever, The plans of His heart from generation to generation.” (Psalm 33:8-11)

Pause for Reflection

List at least three things you hope to happen in the lives of your children. Write down as many as you can think of.

List at least three things God wants to do in your children’s lives.

Group the lists together and prioritize the list as much as possible.