【Day 2】The Picture of God the Father Loving His People
The loving relationship between parents and children is a picture of the loving relationship between God the Father and His people (1 John 4:7-12). Experiencing love from parents will help children experience God’s love. So no matter how busy the parents are, they should bring up their children by themselves. When a child is just born, he does not know God, nor can he see God; the first love he feels and appreciates is the love of his parents, especially the maternal love, which will help him know God’s love. Therefore, do not leave your children just to nannies, or just to their grandparents. Some parents leave their children to others in order to have more time to make more money. They think this can help their children go to a good university in the future. This could be a misconception. When your child is still young, what he needs most is your love and company. He needs to establish a loving relationship with you since his childhood. We all need to have the right concept. In addition, the relationship between mom and dad should also be a manifestation of love. When a child sees that his parents love each other and grows up in an environment full of love, he will be deeply impressed. This is the cultivation of love.
Parental love should guide the children to give positive response, to love one another, and to influence the children to care for others (1 John 4:11). If you love your children according to the love mingled with the divine love, you will see that your children are learning something from you, and your love will be reciprocated. Not only will the children love the parents, but they will also learn to love other people in your family. Therefore, this love is mutual, flowing in and out, flowing in both directions, not receiving one-way. Receiving the love of their parents unilaterally will only harm the children, because they also need to learn how to love others.
The loving relationship is cultivated by high-quality (parent-child interaction, joint participation, in the spirit) and stable companionship. If you want to build a loving relationship with your child, you must first spend time with him; you can’t cultivate it if you don’t spend your time. Therefore, you need to have a good family time. “High quality” includes the interaction and joint participation between parents and children, which is done in the spirit, so as to bring in a high-quality company. Most parents are employed and it is impossible for them to accompany their children around the clock. However, the key factor of high-quality companionship is not the length of time but the quality of companionship. What we emphasize is that the company must be full of the transmission and dispensing of divine love.
In the church life, the influence of the mother on her child is so important. I have seen many things in the church: if the mother loves the Lord and the father does not love the Lord, their children could still be brought to the Lord, to love the Lord, and even to go to the Full-time Training and serve the Lord; but if the father loves the Lord and the mother does not love the Lord, there is very little chance that the children could love the Lord. Therefore, whether a mother loves the Lord or not is absolutely important. I even heard such a saying: “If the father loves the Lord, the mother is happy; if the mother loves the Lord, the whole family is happy; if the whole family loves the Lord, the whole house from generations to generations will be happy.” The more I thought about this, the more I thought it was correct! So I want to encourage the sisters to love the Lord. We have seen that the reason why the children of Israel can still be restored after their country was subjugated for more than two thousand years is the good foundation laid by the mothers of their ancestors.
As mothers in the Lord, we have to show our children from an early age that he is chosen by God and belongs to Christ. He cannot follow the fashion of this age, but must be separated from this world. When others take drugs, he does not; when others engage in sexual relations, he does not; when others believe in atheism, he believes in God; when others oppose the Bible, he believes that the Bible is the breath of God. If you can plant a strong faith in your child, you will succeed. You are today’s Jochebed, and you will have today’s Moses. This is the purpose of this program. It is to help mothers in the Lord to plant the strong faith, the living faith, and the correct faith into their children when they are young. Pray for them to be protected by the Lord throughout their whole life.
I absolutely believe that if the mothers in the Lord, from now on, start to transmit and dispense the unfeigned faith, the living faith, and the word of God to our children in the family, the children will be protected and they will become the seeds of the gospel, the first fruits, and the good material for the building up of the church, and will surely bring the Lord back.
