The Most Powerful Parenting Tool

And God said, “Let there be light, ” and there was light. Genesis 1:3

Language is what God used in Genesis chapter one to create the universe and everything in it.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1

Language is a powerful tool of persuasion. The Greek word, ‘Word’ that John uses here also means Logos, which means logic. People have written entire books on this word in this passage, because the names of God have that much power and that much meaning.Language is so important that God calls himself the Word.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

   and the name by which he is called is a The Word of God. Revelations 19:13

God has told you the way to teach your children is through language:

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way,  when you lie down, and when you rise. Deuteronomy 6:6-7

Language has the power to change hearts and to bring light into a world or a soul filled with darkness. More importantly this is a command of the Lord to talk with your children. Through talk we improve our children’s language skills. And through conversation we improve their thinking skills. Through conversation we get to know them better and they us.

It was here in Deuteronomy where I began to understand something of what the bible was teaching about parenting. This passage was a wedge. It let a crack of light in and it would lead me to see how buried into the heart of “modern” culture was a purposeful division between us, our children, and our God.  And it was first put there through conversation.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” Genesis 3:1

To send our children to an institutional school is to have someone else, who we don’t know well, whose worldview we don’t know well, if at all, to do the talking to our children. Someone else to fill their hearts and minds. Someone for whom it is to their advantage to remove the influence of parents, family, and God.

After preparing the earth for mankind God created man,  and then he created marriage and family. There was food and shelter,  and then, later, there was clothing. They were to work the garden together. They were not to spend everyday constantly busy and constantly divided. There wasn’t any instituting of government school.  In Deuteronomy God instructed the Israelites to educate their children on a daily basis as part of everyday life and work.

 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.You shall teach them diligently to your children,and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way,  when you lie down, and when you rise. Deuteronomy 6:6-7

When The Floods Come

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on the house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”Matthew 7:24-27

People know this passage and its meaning is simple, but how many people stop to think, or meditate on it. Take a deeper think. Here is an analogy about your life. It has an impact on your physical, metal, and spiritual life. It, also, has impact on your children’s life. Not just in your ability bring the peace and the stability of Jesus into your life’s troubles, but in teaching your children how to have a solid foundation for their lives.

When the world promises good luck charms, sugar plums, equality and rainbows your children will know to follow their Shepard’s voice. They will know that the secular worldview is a house of illusions. It changes what is right based on an arbitrary value systems which suits its needs in order to control you. Nothing it offers is as good as it seems on first thoughts.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. Colossians 2:8

With every prayer, every song of praise, every biblical lesson and every choice in your daily life you are building your life’s house of values. You are also providing the knowledge-materials necessary for your children to know the difference between the shifting sand of world philosophies and the solid foundation of Christ.

Chewing on Thoughts

You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean, and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them by Moses. “Leviticus 10:10-11

Parents like priests must teach their children to distinguish between the worldly and the ways of the Lord. 

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. Hebrews 5:12

When a baby is born he is nourished on milk. As he gets older he is given mushy foods and eventually he is not only eating meat, but is feeding himself. Babies and toddlers test things by putting nearly everything in their mouths.In a world filled with philosophies there is an abundance of foods for thought one can put into one’s head. Just as there is healthy foods and there are foods that lack any real nutrition, there is the godless ways of the world and there is the righteousness of God’s word.

They shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the common,  and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean. Ezekiel44:23

Consider what would you and your family’s physical health would be like if all you consumed throughout the week was milk. No fruits or vegetables. And then, on Sunday you had a nice sit down balanced family meal. What would your health, your ability to fight of disease and infection be like? This is what your spiritual life is like when you don’t make a point of including God and God’s word in your daily life. And then, attend church on Sunday. Your ability to fight off the wiles of worldly philosophies will be greatly weakened. God, in his word, has told us how to have a strong spiritual life.

Hear O Israel: The Lord our God is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heat.You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.Deuteronomy 6:4-7

We Only Want What’s Best For The Children

Matthew 7:15-20  “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you recognize them by their fruits.

It seems like when people read this passage they think parents and their children, good parenting and bad parenting. This morning when I read it I thought of groups and ideology. And how secular and anti-religious  groups, in the 1950s and 1960s, convince parents that they shouldn’t impose their religion on their children. That children should choose for themselves. This is antithetical to the teaching of the bible. Christianity is a treasure, a heritage to be passed down.

This is the secular group that advocates compulsory school, even when the school is a failing school. It is the group that said we have to teach sex education in schools, and then the number of unwed mothers skyrocketed. This is the group that now has young people so brainwashed into communism that not only does this generation not know that they are supporting communism, but are acting out this totalitarian ideology in the streets rioting and tearing things/ society down. This is the fruit of the false prophets of the secular.

If it’s not from God it’s not good fruit. For all the claims from secular groups of wanting what’s best for the children, whether they are sincere or not, they come from a place of anything but God and his ways. Therefore, their ideologies for the governing of society, let alone your home will never provide good fruit.

1 Peter 5:8 & 9 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

Point-blank and They Still Didn’t Believe

When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the son of man will be delivered up to be crucified.” Matthew 26:1&2

He told them Point Blank what was going to happen. And still they were shocked. They were together three years, and still they didn’t understand. They knew who Jesus was. They saw all those miracles.  And yet, they were shocked and dismayed, and they scattered when Jesus was arrested. They were surprised when he rose from the dead.So when you have to repeat the gospel and God’s ways to your children over and over, and still they don’t believe remember the disciples.

Should it surprise you that you have to repeat yourself so often when teaching your children? The gospel isn’t something you teach once. The ways of Christianity isn’t something you tell them once. It is a way of life and the way to life. It is conversations that you have daily. It is prayers that you have daily. It is the things you read from the Bible, to them daily.

God didn’t give your child/children to your church. Nor did he give your child/children to the governmental or institutional school. God blessed you with your child/children and told you to raise them.

Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.  Ephesians 6:4

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

4 Hear O Israel: The Lord our God is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heat. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. Deuteronomy 6: 4:7

Are You A Prepper?

I first got interested into prepper stuff during that crazy time known as Y2K. It had been a theory that all the computers and the world was going to go crazy, because the clocks on computers didn’t count past the year 1999. Now I had a son who was into computers and he wasn’t worried. But some of arguments for it had me thinking about worse case scenarios. And so, I began to get into prepping.

During that time I learned something from the bible. Storing or even hiding food is child’s’ play. The Lord he created the world and everything in it. The Lord has a plan it might not include you getting to keep anything you own or have stored. In Luke 12:13-19 Jesus tells the parable of the rich fool. Basically, a rich man builds a bigger barn to store all his grains and goods. Then he sits back to relax and, eat, drink, and be merry. Jesus finishes with, Luke 12:20 & 21,

But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

Let’s go to chapter 9 of Jeremiah. He seems to describe the present age, just as much as, that period of Jewish history as they head into captivity. Jeremiah has always been difficult for me to read; Lamentations is worse. I don’t like lamenting. However,  as I’ve come to know Jeremiah, his history, and the history of the Israelite’s, Jeremiah’s crying has become moving. And as our country and our world has moved so far from God the things said in these two books come off more like prophecy for today’s world. Everything going on in this country right now has preppers buckling down on their prepping and new people who have never prepped before feeling desperate to get prepped.

But what is it really happening is a repeating of history or rather humans repeating the same sins.  It’s the moving away from God and God’s ways. And a moving away from teaching the next generation about their creator. How to love him and to serve him nor are they taught to cherish their heritage, Christianity. 

And the Lord says;  “Because they have forsaken my law that I set for them, and not have not obeyed my voice or walked in accord with it, but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them. Jeremiah 9:13-14

While several verses in Proverbs can be found that say wise men put up food in the summer and lazy men will starve, however there are far more bible verses throughout the bible about the importance of knowing God and following his ways. Since there are bible verses about both storing food and about knowing God they are principals of a Christian life. But one superseded the other as it is the main focus of the bible, salvation through Jesus Christ. Set your priority to prepare your soul and the soul of your children before your pantry.

This says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.” 9:23-24

Affect or be Effected

But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile,  and pray to the Lord on its behalf,  for in its welfare you will find your welfare. Jeremiah  29:7 

While we may not be in captivity there is a concept or a principle here that should place a standard into our life. Your welfare is in the welfare of where you live. Your welfare and your descendants’ welfare are in the welfare and actions of the government of where you live. 

Pray for your city,  country,  government,  and the people in it. 

The nature of the culture of where you live directly affects you,  your children,  and your children’s children. Therefore your children’s cultural,  and religious upbringing directly affects your city,  and country. It should never be the other way around. For when the city and the country’s governments affect you they are changing you by man’s standards. 

However,  when you,  through prayer,  and the Christian education of your children influence the culture where you live,  then the governing body is moved by the power of God’s standards. 

Children are not just kids. When you listen to concepts like let kids be kids you are listening to a concept that is meant to stunt your children’s religious/spiritual growth,  and therefore,  remove your impact on your children, on the culture,  and the government of where you live. 

When you walk by the Lord’s  way with your child(ren) you seek their welfare and that of the welfare of where you live. 

First of all,  I urge that supplications,  prayers,  intercessions,  and thanksgivings be made for all people,  for kings and all who are in high positions,  that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life,  godly and dignified in every way. This is good,  and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior,  who desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men,  the man Christ Jesus,  who gave himself as a ransom for all,  which is the testimony given at the proper time.  1 Timothy 2:1-6

What are you governed by?

I should think,  no one could read Psalms 1&2, with the vision of the past week’s riots still before our eyes and supported by Democrat politicians,  and then not walk away comforted. Or to know the importance of teaching one’s children to live by and to love the Lord and his ways. How to identify man’s ways so that they are not swept away by the winds of so called change. 

Why should one live their life chasing after fallen leaves of ideas and concepts when they lack the stability of a solid foundation from the author of the universe. Ideas and connects that can’t come about without hatred and deduction. Socialism and communism are designed for you to serve the government as if the humans running it were god. Giving imperfect humans the right to choose who lives and who does. 

Who do you serve? Are you following those who minimize the lives of others? It di you follow the leadership of Christ,  who came to serve and to save? 

Make It Known

When my first grandson, Gordon, was very young, about one, we found what was for him a very unusual cat. Our Jack Russell Terrier found her. She was curled up on the front tire of our vehicle. She was small and starving. And didn’t trust dogs at all. Gordon’s other grandma had 2 dogs. Both with docked tails. Our Jack also had a docked tail. He came that way. If it was our choice he would have kept his tail. We also had a type of cat know as a Manx. Manx’s naturally have a short tail like that of a Lynx. It’s very short.

The cat we found was a regular cat. With a regular bottle brush tail. Gordon followed Ninja about as he dragged his teddy bear with him. He stared at her and kept asking, what’s that? At first we were puzzled by his fascination since we knew that he knew what a cat was. He finally got to touch her tail while he asked, what’s that? this is my funny little memory of my grandson and of the first time he saw a long tail.

Knowing and understanding Christianity doesn’t just happen. Imparting the Judaeo-Christian culture of freedom comes from your actions. If your life is devoid of conversations and actions that tell and show of your love for Christ and God’s ways then God’s ways will be foreign to your children.

I don’t think I can remind any parent enough of Deuteronomy 6:4-7 It is an action passage.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord Our God is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit down in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

It is a direct command to you the parent. With direct actions for you to take.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

If it is forced and not because of your love, if it is thrust upon your children opposed to shared, then you are doing it wrong. You are sharing something beautiful. Something that brings hope. It is a labor of love for your God and your children that should be not only easy to bear, but a time to cherish and relish for both you and your children.

It should have the pleasure of discovery when seeing something for the first time.

Words Mean Things

And Rabshakeh said to them,  “Say to Hezekiah,  ‘This says the great king,  the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours? Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for ease? In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me? 2 Kings18:19-20

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The Rabshakeh goes on to do just that. He waged a war in words. Using a the language the population understood to instill fear into them. 

In the late 1980s and early 1990s Rush Limbaugh had developed an expression,  “words mean things.” He said this to point out how the news media was waging a war on behalf of the Democrats with the purpose of leading the public into a hatred of conservatives,  Republicans,  and Christians.  My husband and I began to think more deeply about what we were hearing in the news. We came to realize just how real the word war was.  As the decades have passed more and more the news media’s and Democrats’ war of words has become more in the way it is described in George Orwell’s famous book, “1984” and the people’s daily two minutes of hate.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree’” Genesis 3: 1b

Satan is divisive. What was the first thing he did to Adam and Eve? He separated them from each other and he separated them from God. And he used words. Words are the weapons of this world. To live safely one must know how to use them as a part of the total defence of their soul. Without daily communication with our children and with our God our children are at the mercy of the merciless. 

So Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Romans 10:17

One of the greatest things you can do for yourself and your family is to know words,  and language. These are great gifts from God. To communicate is to listen,  to process,  and to express. Communication is how we both teach and learn. Just as prayer and meditation is communication with God bringing us closer to him, and teaching us his wisdom,  so to conversation and meditation brings us wisdom and it brings us closer to our children. And then in turn brings our children to a place of wisdom and closer to us. 

All this communing acts as a shield against which the enemy finds very difficult to break down. It is no secret that the left or those of a socialist bent seek to break down the barrier of the family. For John Dewy said that in order to change people they must first cure children of the influence of their parents and their religion. I’ve heard of other such things from political pundits. 

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And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6: 6-9

So I’m asking,  who do you want to be your children’s greatest influence? Have you taken some time to think about the words your children hear everyday?