【Day 1】Parents Must Lead Children to Know God
“I will sing of the lovingkindness of Jehovah forever; From generation to generation I will make known Your faithfulness with my mouth.”(Psa.89:1) We serve God and our work needs to be passed on to all generations. No matter which generation we are in as Christians, we must pass it on to the next generation. We dare not discontinue, or there will be great loss and fate. Some people think that since freedom of faith is advocated in today’s world, their children are free to choose their own faith, choosing whether or not they want to believe in the Lord. This kind of freedom of faith is dangerous and harmful to children, and is totally unacceptable.
Parents, we must never allow our children to follow the torrent of liberalism and debauchery. Just as there are laws in every country and region that explicitly state that children are subject to compulsory education, they are not free to choose not to go to school. In fact, in the matter of going to school, you can give your children the freedom to choose, whether walking to school, or taking the bus. But you cannot give them the freedom to choose not to go to school. In the same way, you can’t give your children the freedom to choose in the matter of believing and serving God. Instead, you have to lead them and help them to believe in the Lord, love the Lord, and serve Him. By giving them freedom to choose, you are actually harming them and pushing them toward eternal desolation and destruction.
Today, we come to the tenth, the last but not least lesson , which is “The Education of the Entire Person (7)—The Knowledge of God”. The ultimate goal and purpose of educating our children is to bring them to a knowledge of God. Woe to me if my child excels and goes to a good college, gets a high-paid job while turning away from the living God. As Christian parents, our goal in raising, educating, and nurturing our children is to let them know God and to believe in Him, love Him, and serve Him.
Parents need to teach their children to know God. Perhaps we have just been saved or we have been in Christ for decades, no matter how long we have been in Christ, we need to have a mindset and a sense that we must know God and we must make every effort to know the Lord. Even though we have some knowledge of the Lord, we still have to strive to know Him more.
The Bible shows us that there are four ways of knowing God, that is, four kinds of virtues.
First, Knowing God through God’s creation（Rom. 1:20）(A) Leading a child to read Genesis chapters 1 and 2 for him to know that God created all things including man; that the origin of man and all things is God (Col. 1:16-17; Heb. 1:10). (B) Knowing and being touched by nature as well as appreciating God’s creation in his living (Psa. 19:1-6). By knowing God’s creation, we come to know the Creator behind it, this Creator who makes everything.
Second, Knowing God through His ways, the signs and wonders performed by Him (Acts 2:22; Heb. 2:4). If you read the Bible, you will find that there are many signs and wonders recorded. There are also signs and wonders in our Christian life. Through these signs and wonders, we can come to know God.
Third, Knowing God through the procedures and ways of His doings (Heb. 3:10 and footnote 2; Psa. 103:7; Gen. 18:23-33). In fact, God is a God of laws. He is a God of principles and laws. In general, God works according to His laws and rules, so that people may know Him. Only in special circumstances does God change His laws and rules, showing special signs and wonders to people, so that they may know Him.
Fourth, the knowledge of life, the inward knowing, causes us to know God’s nature and God Himself (John 14:9-17; Heb. 8:11; John 8:55; Rom. 8:2; 1 John 2:27). We should lead our children to receive the life of God and to have an inner, life-giving knowledge of Him, which is a very important understanding. Just as Rom. 8 speaks of the “law of the Spirit of life” that has been installed in every saved, regenerated person, there is a Spirit of life and a law of the Spirit of life in every believer.
The Spirit of Life is actually the Trinity that has gone through a process, mingling and dwelling into our spirit. This Spirit that indwells in our spirit, the Spirit of Life, has a power, a law, that is the law of the Spirit of Life. This is what we can subjectively experience, in which we can know God. This is the inner, life-giving knowledge, and the deepest, highest knowledge; that God desires us to have of Him. Just as 1 John chapter 2 speaks of “the anointing”; the Holy Spirit is like anointing oil, anointing us and teaching us in everything so that we can know God. Therefore, parents should treat their children as objects of the gospel, as new ones who need to be shepherded. In shepherding, parents lead and help children to believe in the Lord, love Him, serve Him, and know Him.
