Let the Little Children Come to Me: Part 1

As a servant of Christ, your goal is to be an ambassador for him on earth. As a parent, your home is no different. You are an ambassador of Christ to your children. Everything in your home should be aimed towards explaining the grace of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ. So how do you do that? To understand the gospel correctly, then your child must understand 4 points that can be expressed in an easy-to-remember alliteration.

Sovereign

Sinner

Savior

Summons

Jesus Himself told His disciples to let the little children come to Him. If we seek to help our children come to the feet of Jesus, then they will need to understand these aspects of the good news.  In Part 1, we will explore the first aspect of living out the gospel in your home in proclaiming God as Sovereign King.

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Where We Must Begin: Sovereign

God alone is the all-powerful, holy, Creator-King who must be obeyed. This is a sentence my husband taught our family along with verses that we memorized together. (Genesis 1:1; Psalm 24:1-2; 1 Peter 1:16; Isaiah 44:6 and Daniel 4:34b-35) As parents, we must give our children as many glimpses of our Sovereign’s Greatness as possible. God is Holy and deserves all worship, honor, and thanksgiving. If we are Christians, then what else would we do but set our lives to worship our great God?  We must always begin here. God is so worthy of praise, honor and worship that it would be only right to extol His great attributes to our children.It is our job to live out a life of sincere worship and praise to God so our unbelieving children may be impressed with His greatness. (Psalm 78:6-8) His wonderment is the only thing that can dull the allurement of the world. Every Bible story is a story where God is the protagonist. He is the hero of each account whether in the Old or New Testament and is to be exalted more than any Marvel super hero!

So, how can give your children a glimpse of God’s greatness in the day-to-day?  When in the car…

  • Talk to your kids about life as you are seeing it happen. Answer questions like “Why is there a crazy driver?” Use this as an opportunity to talk about God’s wisdom in allowing people to choose their path and giving consequences for poor choices.

  • Talk about God’s kindness to give us a country where we have firemen and police to help us, different skill sets for jobs, money to go the store and buy food to eat.

  • Give thanks for His sustaining life, and mention how God gives life even to those who live in rebellion against Him. Our great and gracious God even gives food to the animals and plants.

Before doing schoolwork…

  • Thank God for varying us in our desires and abilities to think and learn.

  • Explain that God is orderly and gives patterns in math and science.

  • Tell them that God is relational in giving us words to communicate to Him and one another.

  • Thank God for His patience with us when we are slow to learn.

  • Tell them that God is a helper and assists us when need to understand hard concepts.

On a walk or a hike…

  • Speak of his wonders in diversity and point out His creative magnificence. Memorize Psalms (like 145) as a guide for this.

  • Talk about God’s faithfulness in having the sun rise every morning and the moon come out every night.

  • Explain God's power in keeping the ocean within its boundaries.

When reading a story…

  • Tell them that God gives us His word to help people understand who He is.

  • Every great story is based on the greatest story – redemption, forgiveness, and good winning out over evil. Don’t miss the opportunity to point out biblical values in the stories that you read.

  • Talk about how God never tells a lie and always speaks what is true.

When listening to music…

  • Speak about the different themes in the music that you listen to. Tell them how God's kindness to give happiness through love of marriage, family and friendships.

  • Explain how God gave us voices and mind to declare his glory

Don't forget that this starts with YOU. This is all coming from a heart that is overflowing from YOUR personal study and understanding of God. If you aren't thinking about God's amazing attributes, you won't have anything to proclaim to your children.

Resources

Two helpful resources are The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer and The Attributes of God by A.W. Pink. These are short but packed full of truth! Amazon has it on audio if you don't have time to sit down and read it (but you may have to listen to it more than once to get it all to sink in!) Stay tuned for Part 2, in which we will discuss, the second aspect of the gospel, Sinner.   

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