Have You Given Away Your Influence?

20 // April 2020 by Matthew Dennis About The Author Matthew Dennis is currently serving as a children’s pastor and one of the college ministry leaders at The Grace Point in Cleveland, TN. You can follow him at awakenpurpose.wordpress.com. I have seen it many times: Christians who are shocked when their children have spent their entire lives in church, only to see them leave the faith as soon as they enter college. The truth is, kids’ being in church one to two hours a week will hardly influence them at all to love the things of God. We live in a culture that is constantly attempting to influence the way our children think. In Deuteronomy 6:5, God gave what Jesus referred to as the greatest commandment in all of Scripture: to love “the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” In 6:7, God explains how they are to teach this commandment to their children: “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and 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.” The things of God are a daily conversation with our children, not just a Sunday event. Parents have incredible influence over their children. If parents continue to constantly put sports and extracurricular activities above God, then kids will continue to see that God cannot be taken seriously. If parents are not teaching their children to treasure His Word with all of their hearts, one day, they will think that God’s Word is just a book of fables. If you just sit them in front of a screen every day, they will tune you out and follow whatever values are coming through that screen instead. In most cases, I have witnessed a HUGE difference between children with parents who are actively engaged in their faith development and parents who are not. There are some cases where parents are engaged and their children walk away anyway, but parents are still responsible for teaching their kids to follow God. It is not the youth pastor’s or the children’s pastor’s job to make sure our children are following God. When they are little, your children WANT to spend time with you. Please do not give your influence away to a device or anything/ anyone else. Psalm 127:4 says that children are like arrows in the hands of a warrior. In other words, your children were given to you so that you could train them to make a difference for God’s Kingdom. I know that schedules can be busy, and sometimes parents have to work two jobs just to make ends meet, but there are ways to make time. Use the time driving to school to ask them what they are learning in church. Memorize Scripture with them before bed. Sit down at the dinner table and talk about God and His Word. Time is hard to come by, but God will give you the wisdom and grace needed to teach your children if you simply ask for both (James 1:5-6).

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