"Teach Your Children" Deuteronomy 6:5-7 06/19/16
5 And
thou shalt love the LORD thy God
with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. 6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in
thine heart:7 And thou shalt teach them
diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine
house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when
thou risest up.
Today's reading
is from Deuteronomy which was written by Moses to the people of Israel. He was explaining all the commandments to the people. Just for clarity, the ten commandments that
were given to Moses did not include all the laws that were supposed to be followed
by the people. There were thousands of
laws to follow but usually you only hear about the ten commandments. In this reading, Moses was telling the people
to, "Love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy might." Jesus was also quoted in 3 of the 4 Gospels
referring to this verse. Luke 10:27 says it a bit differently which makes
it seem even more significant, "And
he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour
as thyself." Jesus called this the
"Greatest Commandment" and loving your neighbor as yourself was
referred to by Jesus as the second commandment. Jesus called it the Greatest Commandment because it encompassed all the
Old Testament laws. If you love the Lord
God with all of you and your neighbor as yourself, you can never intentionally
sin against anyone. This is what you
were commanded to do by Jesus. Thank You Jesus! Then in our reading Moses wrote that the people should put this into
their hearts. Moses continued on to say
that you should "Teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk
of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and
when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." Moses was telling you that
it is your responsibility to teach your children about Jesus and about living a
Godly life through the Word of God. Moses
even continued on in verse 8 and 9 saying to bind them upon your hand as a sign
and put them in front of your eyes continuously along with putting them on the
posts of your land and your gates to make them visible to you always. It is very important for everyone to learn
the Word of God but it is even more important that you teach your children the
Word and your grandchildren the Word because there is a good chance that
somewhere in the passing down through the generations that it falls apart. All you have to do is look at some of the Old
testament history about how each generation followed God and the next turned
away from God. You need to teach your
children about God so it never falls off in your family. This is written in Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child
in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from
it." The responsibility of teaching
your children mainly falls on the fathers in the family to commit their efforts
to teaching their children. This should
be done in total harmony with their wife. The man is the head of the house just
like Jesus is the Head of the Church as written in Ephesians 5:23, "For the husband is the head of the wife,
even as Christ is the head of the church:" Other scriptures say that the husband has authority over his own wife as
long as it lines up with the Word of God. This is shown in the First Letter of Peter 3:1, "Likewise,
ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not
the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the
wives;" This verse also says that
if the husband is not obeying the Word, the wife should be an example of the
Word to bring the husband to understanding of the Word through her
actions. Knowing all this information,
clearly puts this responsibility mainly on the fathers to teach their children
about God. This must be done with Love
so you do not push your kids away from God. A poor representation of God will cause a child confusion and alienate
them from God. Jesus told us how bad
this is in the Gospel According to Matthew 18:6, "But whoso shall offend
one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a
millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the
depth of the sea." The Apostle Paul also wrote about this in two
of his letters. First in his Letter to
the Ephesians 6:4 he wrote,
"Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." and in his Letter to the Colossians 3:21 he wrote, "Fathers, provoke not your children to anger,
lest they be discouraged." The
apostle Paul was telling you as a father, do not provoke your children for any
reason because it can cause them to be angry and/or discouraged. The Apostle Paul clearly instructed that you,
meaning all fathers should bring their children up with admonition and nurture
of the Lord. Admonition means that you
should correct the wrongs of your children according to God's Word and nurture
their growth with the love of our Lord Jesus. And we know this love of Jesus because the
first Letter of John 4:8 tells us that,
"God is love." Now, if
you are a father and want to do this but are not sure what to do, start by
reading the Word for your own understanding of it, so you can transfer this
understanding over to your children. Remember what Proverbs 22:6
says, "Train up a child in
the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." In closing, Isaiah 54:13 tells you what you can expect when you teach your children
the Word, "And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the
peace of thy children."
"Discipline
Your Children" Proverbs 22:6 05/06/17
6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and
when he is old, he will not depart from it.
This reading
from Proverbs tells parents that they should train up a child in the way he
should go so that when he is old, he will not depart from it. This says in the way he should go because if
parents do not teach their children the way they should go, or in other words
the correct thing to do, they will not do the right things because evil will
always push them to do the wrong thing. Evil will always deceptively make doing the wrong thing look
appealing. The same is true if you do
not teach children anything, they will not know what the difference is between
good and bad and most likely be pushed again into wrong ways. Proverbs 22:15
tells us, "Foolishness is
bound in the heart of a child; Now if you teach a child
to do completely opposite of the right thing at any time, whether it be for
your own gain or even just for convenience in the moment, that child will
remember that wrong decision and retain it, to do the same thing when he is
old. All children will learn from what
they are taught by their parents and when they do grow old they will not depart
from what they were taught. Think about
this for your own life, you can certainly remember something you were taught,
good or bad where you still do the same thing today even if you know it is
wrong. Don't allow this to happen to
your children, teach them the correct way to go and that is what will stay with
them their whole life. The apostle Paul
gave a commandment to fathers but it applies to all parents today in Ephesians
6:4 it says, "And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath:
but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." To understand this verse and it's application
for you even clearer, here is how Ephesians 6:4 is written in the Amplified Bible,
"Fathers, do not irritate and
provoke your children to anger [do not exasperate them to resentment], but rear
them [tenderly] in the training and discipline and the counsel and
admonition of the Lord." Connecting
these two verses, you know, first, do not provoke or irritate your children to
anger and second, you should be training your children tenderly and nurturing them
through discipline and counsel from the Lord. Now, when we speak of tender
training and nurturing, this does not mean that a child gets everything their
own way. Remember, you are supposed to
teach them in the way to go which will not always be the way they want to go
but fortunately for that child, he does not have the ultimate authority to
decide what happens. It is the
responsibility of the parent to stand firm and make a child do the right thing
even if it hurts because it will be fruitful for that child later in life when
that decision does not depart from him because he truly understands what is
right. The letter to the Hebrews 12:11 states this clearly, "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be
joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of
righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." This verse tells you unmistakably that
discipline is dreadful and not fun but when it is complete, it yields fruit of
righteousness to them that followed through on it. Knowing this, you can find joy in
disciplining your child knowing that you are planting a seed for your child to
learn the ways of God through discipline. Discipline can be done in many different ways. In the old testament
there are places where it says to use a rod on your child such as spanking
them. A couple of examples of this would
be first, in Proverbs 13:24 where it says, "He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that
loveth him chasteneth him betimes." and also in Proverbs 22:15 which says,
"Foolishness is bound in
the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from
him." These two verses are from the old testament but I personally do not
believe you need to spank children to achieve positive results in them. The first Letter of Paul to the Corinthians 2:16 says,
"We have the mind of Christ." With the mind of Christ, we can receive Jesus like wisdom on how to
discipline a child. The best wisdom we
have received is to find the one thing that is most desired by each child and
use it to your advantage by taking it away from them. If you threaten to take it away, you must
follow through on your threats to show them who is really in charge. For example, what is the child's favorite toy
or TV show or any other thing that is very important to them. For years now we have used IPOD's and IPHONES
against our children. When they don't
want to listen, we just say if you don't do what I am telling you I will take
your IPOD away from you. I can not
remember any instance where this didn't work to date. There is always a better way to deal with an
unruly child than to use physical force against them. Just seek wisdom from God before you
literally take things into your own hands. Right now, you may be thinking what about the times when my child is
acting like a complete fool and out of control. You can hear yourself saying to your child what would possess you to act
like this? If you analyze your own
question for a second, you can see that you asked a question with the answer already
in it. You said the word possess in the
question and that is your answer. I know
this isn't how people think today but when a child's actions are totally
unexplainable, that child is being consumed by a demonic force. When you reach this point with a child, you
need to kick the demon out in the name of Jesus just like Jesus said in the
Gospel According to Mark 16:17, "In my name shall they cast out devils;" We found this to be more common than we would
like to admit but it is a present evil force that tries to come against
children making them disobedient to parents. When you cast out the demon, it is like you just flipped a switch in the
child and instantly it is as if nothing was wrong at all. These few examples of heavenly discipline
will help you teach your child in the way, so he does not depart from it. To understand how this will teach your child
in the way, you have to realize that most experiences of children come from how
they are handled in some of the toughest situations in their life. If you lose control when they have lost
control, you are showing them by your example that your behavior is acceptable
for them to do also. If you have self
control in that moment, they will learn from you that they should be acting
similar to how you act. The best way to
teach a child in the way they should go, is to teach them the Word of God, the
instruction manual to life and you can start with Paul's Letter to the Ephesians 6:1-3, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour
thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it
may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth." If you start by setting this example for your
children by honoring your mother and father, your children will do the same for
you and not only that, you all will live long on the earth.
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