Children—A Gift And A ResponsibilitySample

When to Disciple Children?

Children are most teachable and mouldable when they are young. The older they get the more difficult for them to accept even the simple truths about God and His word. If we desire to raise a generation that fears the Lord and if this baton should be passed on to the next generation (Deuteronomy 6: 2), here’s what the Lord commands us to do about sharing our faith with them.

Ever so often we have outsourced the responsibility of disciplining our children to the church and specifically to Sunday School teachers. Sometimes the only time children hear about God is on a Sunday. Parents who believe in the Lord Jesus and are walking in love and obedience to God have an obligation to share their faith with their children on a daily basis.

Deuteronomy 6:7 onwards directs us to impress the commandments of God on our children. It’s almost like saying we need to make a deep mark of who God is on their tiny hearts. We are to talk about our relationship with the Lord, our experiences of His love and faithfulness in our lives every day. The Lord directs us to do this “when we sit at home, when we are taking a walk, when we are about to sleep and at every waking moment” (Deut 6:7). We are to even put them up as symbols in every place where our children can see and know about this God we believe in.

Often as Parents we force our children to believe in the Lord instead of discipling them to become believers in Him. If we observe Jesus’ way of discipleship (Mark 3:14) ‘he first appointed the 12 that they might be WITH Him.’ By being with Jesus, watching him closely, listening to his teaching, being part of all the wonderful signs and wonders he performed, the disciples were ready to carry on Jesus’ mandate after He was taken up into heaven. That’s what we need to do as parents for our children. Be with them, share with them and let them see and witness God’s faithfulness in our lives every day. We must also remember that ‘more is caught than taught’ and therefore our talk about God and our walk with God must go hand in hand.

Let’s always keep in mind that “if we don’t teach our children to follow the Lord, the world will teach them not to.”

Written by Esther Collins for Movement Day Chennai