Sharing our Christian experience with our children.
As parents, it is our joy and responsibility to share our Christian experience with our children. We see three basic truths in Deuteronomy 6:6-7 “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.”
First of all, His commandments are to be in our hearts. Our life focus must be on the Lord for our children to see and commit to Him also. It is important as parents that we make sure we keep our hearts focused on the Lord, His commandments and His Word. This is the daily walk. Colossians 2: 7 “rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness. “ We must keep ourselves in the word and in His presence. This is how they will see that we are different from the world.
Secondly, impress them on your children. What do you suppose impress means. The Webster 1828 dictionary describes it as “1. To imprint; to stamp; to make a mark or figure on any thing by pressure; as, to impress coin to impress a figure on wax or clay. “ Just as your genetics cause your children and grandchildren to take on our physical characteristics our walk with Christ should be seen in our children. We are to imprint them, to make a mark on their lives that is undeniably God. We do this by the way we show them love. God is love and we must live out the kind of sacrificial love that God showed us through Christ Jesus.
Thirdly, we are to talk about the Lord with our children continually, as we go about our day. We may have a powerful walk with God, a quiet time, daily bible reading, but do our children know that. Do we include them in those times or do we make that time separate from them? Children need to see. They learn by example. We need to allow them to be a part of the intimacy of our walk. We should greet our children in the morning with words of encouragement in the Lord. As we go through our day we are to look for opportunities to share the truth of God’s love and character. He surrounds us with His nature. We are to help open our children’s eyes to His very presence all about us. Talk with them as we walk along the road. We ask our children what they learned at school throughout the week, but do we take the time to ask them what they learned at church? Do we take the time to tell them what we learned? Do we even think about sharing God’s truth with our children in that way? It’s not your walk their walk. We are all on this journey together and we will learn many great truths from our children if we will open ourselves up to hear the revelation that God reveals through them.