"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.