This is my third blog about life-threatening devotion. I described my introduction to the idea two weeks ago, and last week I discussed how life-threatening devotion can effect our marriages.
As I considered the affect of life-threatening devotion to God for my marriage (see my last post), the natural question that followed was about my children.
Life-threatening Devotion to God for My Children
How will my life-threatening devotion to God effect my children? How can I show life-threatening devotion to God in my role as their parent?
Let’s start at Deuteronomy chapter 6:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Deuteronomy 6:4-9
In this passage, Moses tells the people of Israel what to do to gain God’s blessings in the “land flowing with milk and honey” (verse 3). This passage became the Jew’s “Shema”, the most essential prayer of Judaism.
Life-threatening Devotion as Love for God and His Word
Loving the Lord with all my heart, all my soul, and all my strength, is the first step toward life-threatening devotion. This “first commandment of all” (Matthew 22: 37-39; Mark 12:29-31) is the sole motivation for the second commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
The next verse tells us to abide in the word of God, to have it “in your heart”. Jesus refers to this idea in John 8:31 and John 15:7.
Paul encourage the Colossians to have the word of Christ in our hearts:
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Colossians 3:16
Life-threatening Devotion to God for Our Children
So what do we do with our devotion to God and His word? The Shema instructs us: TELL YOUR CHILDREN! (Deuteronomy 6:7)
And not just talk about God and His word all the time, but write it everywhere so they can see them. Live by it.
Your children will know if you have life-threatening devotion to God because they will see how it benefits their lives. It will be in your conversations with them; it will guide your decisions about what they read, what they watch, what they eat, where they live, what sports they play, and who are their friends. You will point them to it when they have questions you can’t answer, and will be the basis for the answers you do know.
Paul described this father’s role in Ephesians 6:4
And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
Our life-threatening devotion to God must also be more important to us than our children (Matthew 10:37, Luke 14:26). Our children will know when we love God more than them, because His love will flow out of us to them.
Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:5
Our children are our closest neighbors (after our spouses), and so they should get the best benefit of our life-threatening devotion to God.
Here’s the challenge: Do you lay your life down for your children? Does your life-threatening devotion to God result in them knowing Him? Are you more interested in pleasing Him than pleasing your children?
Your life-threatening devotion to God will show them that there is Someone who is greater than anything, and that you know and serve Him. It will encourage them to serve Him, too. Then they can have their own life-threatening devotion to God.
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. 3 John 4
By His calling, in His strength,
Dean
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The Families from the Beginning newsletter provides twice-monthly insights and ministry updates. Click here to sign up for this email newsletter. Previous newsletters are here.
