Parenting: The 14 Gospel PrinciplesShembull

Law

What do you want for your children? Do you just want them to buck up and obey? Do you just want to be able to control their behavior until they’re out of your care? Do you want little more than children who do what they’re told and don’t embarrass you in public?

Or do you long for more—much, much more? Do you want children who live every day as God designed them to live, whose hearts are ruled by worship of him and who gladly live inside his boundaries? You know, in your heart of hearts, you can’t produce children like this on your own. If you’ve paid attention, you’ve begun to realize that you can’t control the hearts of your children even with the best lectures, the best correction, and the most faithful discipline.

So it’s time to give up trying to do in the hearts and lives of your children what only God can do.

—Paul David Tripp