Practical Parenting Eph 6:4 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO
Tonight, I’m going to give you some instruction on practical parenting and unfortunately, for my children, some of these good things I learned too late to benefit them.
The Bible must be central to all you do at all times – Deut 6:6-9 – you should plan a lesson a day just like you plan your meals and your activities – too many of us get home and we are just ready to plop – you must be diligent to train – Jos 1:8 – they are to meditate in it – so cut out all the distractions – video games and computers and phones and… they will not be able to concentrate – and balance school work so that it doesn’t interfere with your training.
Your word must be the law – Prov 1:8-9 – they will pester you to death to let them go around your law – then you will be pestered to death regularly because they know that you will give in – if the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge then you must fear the Lord and [Lev 19:3] your children must fear you – so you aren’t going to be their best friend – not at this juncture in life – they will learn to fear the Lord
Training and discipline are not synonymous – you spend time with them everyday to train them Prov 22:6 – think about what you want them to be down the road and start training for that now – and when they get out of live you discipline them – Prov 19:18 – you can’t love them into change – there should be no expectations that your love for them is going to result in their correct behavior – i.e., “How could you do this to me?”
They need to learn chores just as soon as they can handle them safely – they need to learn responsibility [Lam 3:27] – you cannot pick up after them forever – they should learn to be responsible for the family pet [Prov 12:10] – that responsibility will teach them to care for and to regard the life of beasts.
Balance moral, physical and intellectual things – 1 Tim 4:8 – you train them in all these at the same time – these days there is more attention paid to their sports and school homework than there is to their godliness – bring these into balance.
Help them avoid friends who are fools – Prov 13:20 – do you really believe that they are going to be exposed to an improved environment at someone else’s house when they can do what they want and you will probably never know?
Do not honor them above God – that is when they are out of line with God you cannot give them the same privileges as those that are in line with God – you have to honor God even if that means that they despise you – see Eli’s problem with is sons in 1 Sam 2:12, 22-25, 29, 3:13 – you cannot ignore bad behavior and make it go away.