Disciple Your Children Intentionally, Making a Timeless Investment

Disciple Your Children Intentionally, Making a Timeless Investment

You don't need to be a perfect Christian to disciple your teens.

Nobody's perfect, even and especially Christians.  And you don't need to be a perfect Christian in discipling your teens and it doesn't require you to be perfect either in helping your teen to become an authentic follower of Jesus Christ.

It can and should be a natural, caring, and even fun experience!

This means that in leading your teens to become mature in their Christian life, it doesn't have to become a form of torture.  If in the process it feels like a straitjacket, a knife fight, or a migraine, there is something wrong.  Being a spiritual mentor to your teenager can and should be a natural, caring, even fun experience that benefits both you and your child - for eternity.

But you will need to be intentional about it!

Because in this world where we live in, nothing happen by accident or by chance.  Even our Great God is an "intentional" God.  His intentions and motives are for our own best.

The same is also true in discipling our teens.  We need to be intentional, and anything as somber-sounding as "intentional discipling" has to be hard and unpleasant, doesn't it?

Read More

Relinquish Control to God

Proverbs 16:1-9

"We make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps." (v.9)

When our children were younger, we just have simple plans for their lives, like to simply keep them alive and healthy.

However, as years goes by, our dreams for their lives quickly became bigger.

For example, we would like them to be great leaders, a great athlete, or professional.  We wanted them to have the richest experiences, to achieve academic and professional success, to be deeply loved, to live a life of service, to be a devoted husband or wife and father or mother, and to walk with Jesus Christ all of their days.

But we need to be reminded that, although we may have our lofty hopes and expectations for our children, in terms of future career and all, we need to respect our child's personal desires and goals even if they don't line up with ours.  And more importantly, we need to encourage our children to seek God's agenda for their lives, rather than pressure them to fulfill our agenda. (Proverbs 16:1).

The following insights can be useful to understand how we can align our goals for our children with God's:

• Parents can make plans, but God will determine their children's steps (v.9).
• The most foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest plan we could ever conjure up for our children (1 Corinthians 1:25).
• Children are God's masterpieces - not ours, and they're created for His purposes (Proverbs 1:4; Ephesians 2:10).

Let us commit our children and their plans to God - knowing that He's the only One who can help them truly succeed (Proverbs 16:3).  

Adapted from Our Daily Journey with God (Roxanne Robbins)

Read More