The stewardship of our faith
The stewardship of our faith
Let's teach our children, while they are young, to fear the Lord and stand in awe of him.
A lot of people would probably like to take back something they once said about sharing the Christian faith with their children. Some have said, “Don’t worry, they’ll get that on their own.” Parents sometimes don’t want to be accused of forcing their children to accept their ideas. But is this like Mark Fowler’s statement? Having a record of your heart activity doesn’t do you any good if you “wake up dead.” Not teaching your children the Christian faith doesn’t do you or them any good if they grow up dead . . . spiritually!
We can’t assume that our children will just “get that on their own,” any more than Moses assumed that the next generation would get it on their own. Most of those who entered the Promised Land were not even born when God brought Pharaoh to his knees with the plagues or when he parted the Red Sea. One generation would need to teach the next what God had done. “These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you . . . so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD . . . Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 6:1,2,7).
Where will our children learn what Jesus has done for us? Where can they pick it up along the way? In our public schools? In some schools, the Ten Commandments have been barred from the classroom, and mentioning Jesus is considered to be a greater threat than any weapon of mass destruction. From television and movies? Isn’t God openly mocked and sin openly glorified? From society? Many view God as a fumbling old buffoon and transgression of his law no more serious than burping at the dinner table.
Where will they learn to come to the cross of Christ? Where will they hear that without his holy precious blood, they will have to stand someday before a God who means it when he says, “Thou shalt not!”? Where, unless you and I teach them? Where, unless we pass the Christian faith to our children so that they may enjoy long life and enjoy the longest life of all . . . eternal life!
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