Discipling Your Children

The month of February 2020 will be on the theme of Parenting. BUT before all of you single and married without children folks check out, I want you to know that many of the applications found in these articles will not only be useful for you in the future, but for the here and now and I will be putting some applications specifically for you in the last paragraph of each section.
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5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 
Deuteronomy 6:5-7 

One of the things that I still recall from my time at WestPoint is how to clear my weapon should I encounter a jam. I remember training the procedure so many times that it became second nature to me. And even though I thought it was a complete waste of time, I soon learned that in high stress, high threat situations if I encountered a jam, I would not waste any time clearing it because I had practiced it so often. I think discipleship has a lot of similarities. As parents, we are to disciple our children so that when the times of testing and temptations come, they are able to respond appropriately. You will remember two articles ago (Wednesday series), I wrote about Family Worship and the value and importance of it. And while Family Worship is one means for discipling your children, it would be a great mistake to say that it is the only means for discipling our children. Unfortunately, many of us fall into the trap of thinking that the routines that we have put in place are enough and all the disicpling that our children needs. Routines such as Family Worship, or corporate worship on Sundays, or even prayers right before a meal or bed can, in its worst form, be a training for them to compartmentalize faith. 

What I mean by that is that we begin to teach our children, and ourselves, to think on spiritual things only during specific times of our days rather than understanding that our roles as parents is to train our children to love God at all times. Now, please do not misunderstand me as saying that we should not be praying with our children or having family bible studies; I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is that God has called us to have a more all-inclusive approach to the discipleship of our children. Looking at Moses' instruction to parents, we see a few things we are called to do: 
  1. The command must be in our hearts (Deut 6:6). What command? The command to love God with all our heart, soul, and might. If you, father or mother, have grown cold in your love then it will be very difficult to raise up children who will. As the proverb goes, "the apple does not fall very far from the tree." 
  2. Discipleship is comprehensive. It does not happen only during set times of the day, rather it seems to occur throughout the whole day. This can come as a shock to many people, but when we are training our children continuously throughout the day, we only help them to be battle ready. Please read this statement with grace since we cannot under-emphasize the work of the Holy Spirit in our children's lives. 
  3. Discipleship is opportunistic. Discipleship happens when you "sit in your house" or "walk by the way" and so by being situational aware you will be able to creatively and wisely turn everyday occurrences into moments for instruction.
  4. Discipleship is your responsibility. We cannot pass the buck on this one, we are told "You shall teach them", not your church or your relatives or the government will teach them (emphasis added).
For those without children, you are not exempt from this command either. Because while you may be unable, at the moment, to fulfill the second half of the pericope of Scripture, you can still fulfill the first half in loving God. You will notice that verse 6 is connected to verse 5, meaning that this is an individual's responsibility to love God with all of their being. My prayer is that parents, couples, and singles alike will grow more in love with God and live for His glory throughout their day.

Grace and Peace,
Alex Galvez
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If you would like to join Alex's 2020 Bible in a Year plan, you can download that here: Bible in a Year Plan

Question? Comments? Post in the comments or send me an e-mail: OverflowBlog@outlook.com

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