Teach Them Diligently

By Danny Saavedra

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 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. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”—Deuteronomy 6:4–9 (NIV)

Some of the most powerful moments in stories and movies are when parents pass on their skills, wisdom, or mission to their kids. Think of T’Challa stepping into his father’s role as king in Black Panther, hearing his dad’s words echo in the ancestral plane. Or Luke Skywalker holding his father’s lightsaber, stepping into a fight bigger than himself. Or even sports films like Coach Carter or Creed, where a mentor figure trains the next generation to carry on what came before. Those moments move us because they show legacy in action—the torch is passed, and a new chapter begins.

Yesterday, we talked about the baton pass of Psalm 145, how one generation commends God’s works to another. Today, Moses gives us the blueprint for how that actually happens. It’s called the Shema, and it was more than Israel’s daily prayer . . . it was their discipleship strategy. Love the Lord with everything. Carry His Word deep in your heart. And then, don’t hide it; teach it diligently to your children.

This means discipleship isn’t an occasional event; it’s a lifestyle. Moses basically said when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, when you get up. In other words . . . when you eat breakfast, when you drive to school, when you put the kids to bed, when you start a new day. And then repeat the next day.

Every moment becomes an opportunity to point to the goodness of God. Faith isn’t meant to be crammed into a single hour on Sunday; it’s meant to saturate our daily rhythms so the next generation grows up breathing it in like oxygen.

Psalm 78:4, 6 (NIV) echoes the same call: “We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done . . . so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands.” That’s four generations of baton passing in one vision—parent to child, child to grandchild, grandchild to great-grandchildren yet unborn.

The truth is, the family has always been God’s primary classroom for discipleship. Parents are called to be the first pastors their children ever know. And study after study has shown that when moms and dads intentionally talk about their faith, pray with their kids, and live it out consistently at home, their children are far more likely to follow Jesus as they grow. One recent study revealed that when teens had parents who prayed regularly with them, read Scripture with them, and modeled faith in everyday life, over 80% stayed active in their faith as young adults. But when parents were passive, when faith was something left to the church or reserved for Sunday, almost none of those teens remained engaged in faith once they left home. That’s how crucial the handoff is.

And this is why culture, and ultimately the enemy, has been attacking the family for generations. If he can fracture the home, if he can weaken marriages, distract parents, distort the picture of fatherhood and motherhood, or convince us that faith belongs only in a building for one hour a week, then the baton falls. A generation rises up that, like Judges 2:10 (NIV) says, who “knew neither the Lord nor what he had done.” And when the home stops declaring the works of God, the world quickly fills that silence with its own stories . . . stories that point our children anywhere but to Him.

But when parents live out Deuteronomy 6, when love for God saturates the household, when His Word is woven into meals, commutes, bedtimes, and mornings, the home becomes holy ground. It becomes the sacred space where children grow up knowing who God is, what He’s done, and why He can be trusted. It becomes the frontline of revival. And it’s in the home where the baton of faith is passed most powerfully from generation to generation.

Pause: Are you treating your home as the primary place of discipleship, or have you left the baton of faith for someone else to carry?

Practice: Today, start a new habit: Take one ordinary moment in your home (a meal, a drive, or bedtime) and use it to talk about God’s goodness, read a verse, or pray together. Make your house a place where His Word is heard.

Pray: Our Father in heaven, thank You for the gift of family and the sacred space of home. Help me to love You with all my heart, soul, and strength, and to impress Your Word on those You’ve entrusted to me. Protect my home from the enemy’s schemes. Let every moment—when we sit, when we walk, when we lie down, when we rise—be filled with Your presence. May my children and the generations come to know You, trust You, and obey You. Amen.