“One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could lay his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. But Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children. And he placed his hands on their heads and blessed them before he left” (Matthew 19:13-15 NLT).
In the Charismatic Renewal Ministries, we dedicate one week each year to celebrate our children. We do this in appreciation of biblical truth that “children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward” (Psalm 127:3 NKJV). The gift of children demands profuse thanksgiving to God as no other of His blessings can be more fulfilling and rewarding. During the course of the week we do not only thank God for our children but also emphasize through daily prayers and other activities the crucial role of the children ministry in the realization of God’s kingdom agenda. The church that neglects her children is a church that has no future. The legacy for our future will not be in the beauty of the cathedrals we built but in the quality of the children we raised. God invests in the minds of the children the wisdom the world would need tomorrow. The week also affords us the opportunity to evaluate our parenting strategy to see what kind of results it is producing. God had earlier on instructed that our homes should be revival cells. By this He meant that our homes will serve as incubators for future revivalists, where godly husbands and wives will raise godly children whose passion will be to see God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven. God wants us to raise children as world changers whom the world can never buy because they will live for values that are transcendent – values that belong to the heavenly kingdom. They will have little or no appetite for the commonalities that other people scamper after, but would live to give God pleasure.
Children are God’s heritage. Raise them in His way, pointing them to Jesus. God’s plan: live right, be fair, know Him.
Moreover, we celebrate our children because they represent the continuity of the vision God gave us. The future of all our present labours depends on them. The church and human society at large has no greater responsibility than to raise responsible children who will build on the legacy of the preceding generation. This explains why God gave the following directive on raising children: “Point your kids in the right direction—when they’re old they won’t be lost” (Proverbs 22:6 The Message). Before today, everyone knew or at least had an idea of what this “right direction” was in any given society. Then, there were moral and ethical absolutes which every member of any given society understood and held sacred. I wonder if there are still any of such today. We now live in a permissive era where people are free to do as they liked. Raising children in such an era is not an easy task, but godly parents who want to do it right has help from the word of God. Children must be raised to acknowledge God as their Creator to whom they owe their very existence. Consequently, they must intentionally work to please Him in all they do. God articulated His moral and ethical values in the Ten Commandments and whoever wants to live meaningfully on earth must pay attention to them.
God has a clear idea on how children should be raised. He said about Abraham, “I have chosen him so he would command his children and his descendants to live the way the LORD wants them to, to live right and be fair. Then I, the LORD, will give Abraham what I promised him” (Genesis 18:19 NCV). God wants children to be raised in such a way that they would “live right and be fair.” The Ten Commandment is God’s guide on how people can live right and be fair to one another in the human society. Raising children according to God’s plan would enable us to focus on raising strong people who would live with the fear of God and respect the right of others. If we focus on building strong children today, it would save us the less rewarding task of rebuilding broken adults tomorrow. Eberhard Arnold has a great idea on how to accomplish this saying: “Raising children should mean helping them to become what they already are in God’s eyes.” His reason for being so assertive on this is that “Every child is a thought in the mind of God, and our task is to recognize this thought and help it towards completion.” Nobody can accomplish this without the help of God. Hence, the need to heed our Lord’s demand in our text; “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! The ultimate goal of godly parenting is to lead the children to Jesus and to keep them permanently in His presence. Only a child that is secure in his or her identity in Christ can weather the storm of ungodliness of this age. God promised to help parents raise their children saying, “All your children will be taught by the LORD, and they will have much peace” (Isaiah 54: 13). May the Lord teach and bless all our children as worthy legacies for our future in Jesus name.
There are no comments