Biblical Parenting 8…

As I previously wrote in this series (please click HERE for post 7), Christian parenting doesn’t mean we should beat and hammer our children like a blacksmith.

But what about parenting them like a potter? What about, with the gentle & loving & firm & artistic & strategic hands of a potter, smoothing and shaping our children slowly, patiently, meticulously, lovingly, sacrificially, personally (getting our hands muddy & our backs sore in the process)?

Please click HERE for a phenomenal video about master potters.

Our children will at some point jump off our spinning wheel. But the hope in our Holy Spirit-powered and Biblically-grounded molding is that they—compelled by the grace and Truth of the Lord Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit—will respond, by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone, to jump onto the LORD’s spinning wheel in repentance and faith as He rebirths and remakes and transforms them forever.

Below are a few Bible passages on parenting…Sip through them. Ask the LORD to help you notice both the specific descriptions/verbs of parenting, the overarching responsibility that comes with Christian parenting, and the God-chosen consequences for parenting His way or the world’s way.

These verses below should show us God’s high standards as well as our utter inability to meet those standards apart from continual dependence on the Lord Jesus! These verses should discourage us from our own abilities—thus lowering our self-esteem—but also encourage us to cling to the Father’s ability—thus raising our God-esteem!

You don’t have to read all of these passages in one sitting. Perhaps read one each day with your spouse, children, or friends, talking briefly about them and closing in prayer. May the Father, Son & Holy Spirit give us wisdom, encouragement, strength, humility, love and all of the fruit of the Holy Spirit as we intentionally guide our children to the Lord Jesus Christ through His perfect Word; may we ultimately trust them into HIS loving hands, for He did say, “Let the little children come to ME, and do not hinder them” (Matthew 19:14 NIV).

1 John 2:18-20

18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. 20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.

Parents must warn their children about false teachers, about false teachings, about darkness that will try to turn them away from God’s Truth in the Bible. We must have the Holy Spirit’s help in this, though, for it is so easy to drift towards one of two extremes: either being blind/foolish in accepting counterfeit (false) beliefs or being proud/arrogant when we reject that which is clearly false (or even in rejecting Christians who have a different belief that is within the boundaries of God’s Word).

 

1 John 3:2

2 Dear friends, now we are children of God,

and what we will be has not yet been made known.

But we know that when Christ appears,

we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

Parents are to teach our children not just to “live in the moment” but to also keep one eye on the horizon, on the Truth that the Lord Jesus will return (soon!) and to be ready for His return. We are to teach them how to live for the next life, how to live as if this current life is not all there is.

 

3 John 1:4

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

The highest joy of parenting: not them going to Harvard, not them making a lot of money, not them accomplishing some great earthly achievement, but that they would be born again through faith in Christ Jesus, receiving Him as their Savior and following Him as their King. Can we honestly say that knowing the LORD deeply/intimately is our greatest joy, our greatest goal/hope/dream for our children? It was the greatest joy for John, the disciple whom Jesus loved…

 

Revelation 21:7

Those who are victorious will inherit all this,

and I will be their God and they will be my children.

The second to last chapter in the Bible states that God’s people will forever be His children; the parent-child role on earth is so important because it is one of the chief ways to understand our relationship to God—He as our Father, we as His children through faith in Jesus! Our forever identity will be as God’s children; we can have no better identity! Not how we look, what we have, or what we have acconplished…but our forever identity is Who the Lord Jesus is & what He has accomplished for us through the cross and empty tomb!!!

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Amazing Aspect of Parenting: You will need to personally learn/experience that which you pass on to your children!

Frightening Aspect of Parenting: You will need to personally learn/experience that which you pass on to your children!

No matter how well-intentioned, tigers cannot teach fish how to be fish…
only fish can teach that!

Similarly, you will need to be learning how to be a disciple of Jesus in order to help your child become a disciple of Jesus…we can only give to them what we ourselves have received (& are receiving daily!) from the Lord Jesus Christ…

Don’t despair, Christian parents,
at the dizzying heights and sheer face cliffs
of the mountain of Christian parenting—you are not alone!

“Now to Him
who is able to do
immeasurably more
than all we ask or imagine,
according to his power
that is at work
within us, 
to Him be glory
in the church and in Christ Jesus
throughout all generations, 
for ever and ever! Amen“ 
(Ephesians 3:20-21).

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