What Will You Teach Them?
I could not comprehend the love I would have for my children until they arrived. I have loved friends and family members and my wife, so I thought I understood what it meant to love another person.
But then my kids were born and, words truly fail me, I cannot explain my love for them.
Along with the love I feel for my children, I also feel a weight of responsibility. They are little people that come into the world knowing nothing, but almost instantly begin taking in and processing information. They begin to learn. But they not only learn from their parents, but from all stimuli around them.
It is very important that we both take responsibility for teaching our children and ensure they are taught in such a way that the act of teaching and the act of learning bring honor and glory to God.
Over the years, I’ve heard many parents muse about what they would like and not like for their child to do in the future, but in those musings, I’ve seldom heard parents express that their greatest desire was for their child to grow up loving God more than anything or anyone else.
Someone might ask, “Should that be the goal of parents?” It should not only be the goal of parents to teach their children that there is nothing more important than loving God, it should also be the number one priority of the parent as well. It should be the top priority of all people in general, whether they be parents or not.
It is, after all, the greatest commandment (Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37).
But what does that mean? There are many who give lip service to loving God more than anything or anyone else, but their actions tell a different story.
Where to begin? After the Lord gives the commandment in Deuteronomy 6:5, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might, He immediately tells us what the path to doing so will look like in verses 6-9, These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons 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 up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Then verses 20 and 24 continue, “When your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What do the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean which the Lord our God commanded you?’ You see, the implication is that our children will ask this question because they observed our talking about God’s Word and living out Its teaching. Then in vs 24, we are to tell them, …the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always…
Do you teach your children to love God? Do they see your love for God and ask you why you do the things you do? What do you teach?
Much love!
Wes LeFlore (918) 607-8489 or huskerwes1@gmail.com
