Message Devotional: The Godly Parent

The Godly Parent

May 12, 2013

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

“Listen, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.  And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.  And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today.  Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.  Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders.  Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Proverbs 1:8-9

My child, listen when your father corrects you.  Don’t neglect your mother’s instruction.  What you learn from them will crown you with grace and be a chain of honor around your neck.

Just after the greatest commandment is given, the one that sums up the ten, there is a call to teach the way of God to our children.  That’s how important it is.  The people then know what we have been experiencing for two generations in America.  We are always one generation away from stepping out of God’s will.  When we neglect the Biblical command to raise our children on the way and word of God we fail to give them something vital and important to life.  Our children get their morality from us.  In fact, a child will not become more morally solid than their parents or another significant parental figure already is.  When they mature they will make their own choices, but in those vital formative years it is the parent’s faith and morality that matters most.  That faith is to be obvious.  Repeated.  Visible in person and at home.  Not is a trinket sort of way, but in a real and practical way.  A child should not wonder long what a parent believes about God.  Our God is a God of grace.  Should changes need to be made, God can help us make those changes.  How are we doing as parental figures?

Let’s not leave the child out.  It is the child’s duty to listen.  It is a child’s duty to accept the instruction that comes from parents.  When a parent leads a child correctly and raises them in God’s way, that child is given a great blessing.  A crown of grace and a chain of honor.  The child will benefit throughout his or her life and will end up making right choices more often than not.  If the child doesn’t listen then problems come.  Parents can only lead and teach.  May God help us to lead and teach our children.