All godly parents are concerned about bringing up their children to be good, God-fearing people. In fact, we are commanded to do so (Ephesians 6:4).<\/p>\n
There are lots of negative influences in the world that make this an increasingly difficult job. We worry about the impact of the schools, peer pressure, wickedness in the media, etc. In the face of all these forces that seek to ruin our kids, how can we succeed in teaching and training them to do what is right?<\/p>\n
While there are many Scriptural principles that might be mentioned here, we want to emphasize just one — consistency. A key to bringing up faithful children is to be consistent.<\/p>\n
An obvious area where this consistency needs to be seen is in attendance at the assemblies. If you allow your kids to miss the worship services in order to be at a ball game, you are teaching them that the ball game is more important than the Lord. If you let them skip the assemblies for school functions, band trips, dramas, or plays, or to go camping, fishing, or hunting, in all of these ways you are demonstrating that there are things that are more important than God. If you fail to worship when you are traveling or on vacation, you are showing them that serving God is something you do only when it is convenient. If you let them take part-time jobs that interfere with their attendance, you are giving them a clear sign that work and career considerations are higher in priority than spiritual things.<\/p>\n
Many parents who are violating the principles stated above will scoff at these warnings. Yet the personal experiences of many people, as well as the plain teachings of God’s Word indicate that this is the truth.<\/p>\n
Joshua had it right when he said, “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord<\/em>” (Joshua 24:15). There would be no compromise in his family. He would lead them on a consistent, faithful path. Let’s imitate his example of consistency!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Greg Gwin All godly parents are concerned about bringing up their children to be good, God-fearing people. In fact, we are commanded to do so (Ephesians 6:4). There are lots of negative influences in the world that make this an increasingly difficult job. We worry about the impact of the schools, peer pressure, wickedness…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,1028],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-58545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","category-parenting","tag-parenting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13701,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-do-we-undo-the-bad-parenting-we-did-in-the-past\/","url_meta":{"origin":58545,"position":0},"title":"How do we undo the bad parenting we did in the past?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My 10-year-old son has had a hard past. We, his parents, fought the first seven years of marriage; however, now we are in the process of planting new godly seeds into him. But now we are having to deal with the seeds of disobedience, disrespect, and complaining. We want\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":60394,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/thoughts-on-parenting\/","url_meta":{"origin":58545,"position":1},"title":"Thoughts on Parenting","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Adapted from a study by Ralph Walker via\u00a0The Exhorter, Bulletin for the Henderson Blvd. church of Christ in Tampa, FL June 2009. Parenting has never been easy. But ask yourself this question. 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