TRAIN UP A CHILD

The importance of teaching our children about God at an early age is put into perspective by this sobering statistic: Only six percent of those who are not followers of Christ by the age of eighteen become believers later in life. 

Even if regular church attendance is the norm for your family, a Sunday school teacher or youth pastor can do little to influence a child if Christianity isn't modeled at home. It should be your labor of love ... Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

We live in a time when those who know the Lord are considered intolerant and a blight on society. From the time your child begins grade school until he graduates from college, he is being indoctrinated by educators who embrace a corrupt liberal worldview. 

Any devotion to God is at risk if his spiritual foundation was never firmly set.

And sadly, it's not only that environment that wars against one's faith. The church itself has strayed from the truth of God's Word. Paul foretold of our day ... For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. (2 Timothy 4:3) 

Now, more than any other time in history, the onus is on parents to do what is right by their children. We must be steadfast in passing down sound Biblical doctrine to the next generation. 

Moses stressed the importance of sharing God's attributes and precepts ... Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy 11:19) 

The forces of an ever-increasing secular world will bring violent storms against the lives of our youth. Make sure your spiritual house is constructed upon the truth of God's Word ... The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall as it had its foundation on the rock. (Matthew 7:25) 

Christian parents must establish a paradigm in which Godly behavior, a devoted prayer life, and daily Bible study are the template children witness. Above all, they need to hear and understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Teach it with passion and live it out before them.