【Day 4】Fellowship, Intuition and the Subjective Experience of God
John 4:24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.
The spirit of man is for the worship of God. The essential difference between man and animal is that man has a spirit and man worships God. Children need to be led to worship God from an early age (1 Samuel 1:28, Psalms 8:2). Although the child is very young, he has spirit. We need to teach them how to worship God when they are young. How do we worship God? The first thing is to sing hymns. Singing hymns with children will help them fellowship with God. Then reading the Bible or reciting verses which fit for their age. This will help children receive the word of God. Last but not the least, we need to lead children to close their eyes, be quiet, pray, and tell the Lord Jesus all their feelings (happy, joyful or sad) and their needs, so that they can practice speaking to God (Philippians 4:6-7). Just like how a child tells his parents, he also needs to learn how to tell the Lord Jesus; no matter a big matter, a small matter, or all things, he needs to practice to tell God. This is the second aspect of “spiritual education” – the education and training of fellowship.
It is also important to help the child to recognize his own feelings – sadness, grief, joy, happiness, peace, anxiety, etc.—and the feelings of his mother and father. We need to help the child realize the mood and feelings of his dearest and most beloved ones at this moment—help the child to know the feeling of God, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, and do not grieve the Lord Jesus (Ephesians 4:30). He needs to practice touching his inner feelings, but not to grieve the Lord, or upset God or grieve the Holy Spirit. We also need to help the child learn obedience after helping him to know his own feelings, his parents’ feelings, and God’s feelings in the intuition part of his spirit. When he knows the feelings of the Lord Jesus in him, he would not do the things that grieves the Lord, but will only do what pleases him.
It’s very important to help your child to have a subjective experience with God. Knowing lots of spiritual knowledge and doctrine while lacking subjective experience, his Christian faith will not be stable. Many children reject their Christian faith and leave the church growing up because of lacking the subjective experience of God when they are young. The God in which they believe is only for their parents but not theirs. Therefore, we must help our children to have a subjective experience of the Lord when they are young. Though faith cannot be inherited, it can have a positive influence. Parents’ subjective experience of God can be subconsciously absorbed by the child and subtly obtained (2 Timothy 1:5, Exodus 2:7-11, 1 Samuel 1:21-28). Parents’ mind, feelings, singing, Bible reading, prayer, fellowship with the Lord, spiritual light, meetings, etc., will have a subtle influence on their young kids. Therefore, parents should pay attention to their own situation in all aspects, so that they can set an example to their children and give them a positive and subtle influence. It’s a good opportunity for parents to help their children pray to the Lord and have fellowship with Him for each need and situation in their growth, because each stage of growth involves different needs and situations. Then he will have an experience on how the Lord Jesus heard prayers, comforted him, helped him to solve problems, and led him to overcome frustrations in that situation. These are subjective experiences of the Lord.
Parents and children should both have family time together and one-on-one time, that is one-on-one shepherding. This is one of the practical exercises emphasized in this series, which is to have family time. Furthermore, we need to help children find and have spiritual companions, then help them to enter into the normal church life. When the child has spiritual companions, they can grow up together and study together; when they are older, they can pray together, read the Bible together, have morning revival together, pursue the Lord’s Word together, love the Lord together, and enter into the church life together. Then they will begin to have a normal church life. Parents should gradually help them and give them the right spiritual education, so that they will be able to stand; and they will like to pay the price for holding on to their faith.
