Raising Your Children to Love Jesus ChristSample

Day 4: Teach and Talk About the Gospel

My young son and I were on the way to his room. He was cute and a sweetheart of a kid, but he had disobeyed me. And he knew what had to happen. As we made our way to his room, he thoughtfully remarked, "Dad, I wish Adam hadn't sinned." "Me, too," I responded, "Me, too!"

Your son or daughter, that beautiful bundle of joy that you held in your hands, is precious to God and made in his image. At the same time, this beautiful little child has a heart that is sinful and bent away from God. Each of our children is born with a defective spiritual heart. The only cure is radical surgery—a heart transplant.

This change only happens as they hear the gospel and turn to Jesus. That brings us to our fourth commitment.

A disciple-making parent will teach and talk about the gospel.

What is the gospel that we teach and talk about? In some ways, it is simple enough for a child to understand.

God loves them, but cannot overlook their sin because he is holy. Our children have sinned and rightly deserve his judgment in hell. But out of his great love, God sent Jesus to take our sins on the cross. We just have to turn from our sins and ask Him to forgive us. And he will.

We rejoice that even young children can truly believe. Yet there is a danger here. Conventional wisdom says that all I need to do is have my child "Ask Jesus into his/her heart." Once he does that, he is all set.

The Bible, however, teaches that a converted heart has the desire to please God. A changed heart has changed desires. We know the heart has been changed because we see God's law written on the heart. It is not a mere profession that we are looking for.

So, we have patience and confident alertness that the Holy Spirit will bring conviction of sin to their heart. He may do this through a sermon or after a time of discipline. We wait and watch, faithfully and confidently, presenting the gospel to both young children and teenagers. We want a genuine work of the Spirit, not a false profession, because we pressured them.

We also prayerfully and patiently walk our teenagers through making the faith their own in the teenage years. We know that the Christian life is long. We will expect that as their heart capacity grows, our children will also need to make recommitments to Christ.

What a glorious privilege we have to explain the story we love most to the individuals we love the most!

Prayer:

Father, thank you for sending your Son as an atonement for our sins. I reaffirm my trust in his perfect payment on the cross and my desire to live for him. Father, thank you for entrusting my children to me. Help me hold out the gospel clearly to them, confident in your Holy Spirit's work. I know I cannot change their heart. Only you can. For those who have not professed faith in you, may they do so soon. Help them repent and believe on the Lord Jesus. And may those who are older keep seeking you even as their heart grows. I ask this all in Jesus' name. Amen.