Jesus said, “You have heard… but I say to you.” We’ve seen the way the world raises children and the mess that produces. God has ways, and His ways work. In the last teaching I shared five keys to raising amazing children God’s way: vision, love, boundaries, authority and environment. Here are five more.
Key Six: Discipline With Consequences
Let me make this point really clearly, lest somebody misunderstand. Most of us have seen bad examples of somebody trying to discipline a child, and we hear horror stories of violence against children. That’s not what I am talking about. It is abhorrent. Anybody who hurts or punches a child probably belongs in jail in my book.
Yet I want you to be clear on this. Parents have a duty to discipline their children. As written in Proverbs 13:24, “He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly.”
I had an amazing, godly set of parents and a godly father who loved me and loved God. I remember once or twice in my life when I was really naughty, after I’d been warned. I remember my dad taking off his belt and giving me two or three whacks on my behind. First he prayed with me, and he said, “Graham, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. I love you. I love you. But what you did was really wrong, and I want you to know how wrong it is.”
My goal is not to hit or hurt, and I’m not really talking about anything physical here. The point I’m trying to make is this: if we’re going to have boundaries and we’re going to have authority, we need to have consequences. There’s an age, quite soon in a child’s life, when they’re too old to be physically disciplined, but there are many, many ways you can discipline a child.
My son has just turned sixteen and lives at home. If he were rude to me or my wife, didn’t do his chores or left a mess all over the place, I would tell him once, I’d tell him twice, and then I’d say, “If you keep breaking that, I’m going to take your phone away for twenty-four hours.” I’ve done that several times. I switch it off and put it in a drawer. I’m not going to smack his behind, but taking his phone away will talk. Believe me.
There was a season when we had a naughty chair in the middle of the room. If our kids were rude and naughty at a certain age, they sat on that chair for an hour, and an hour is a long time for a kid. If you simply keep saying, “You must tidy your room,” and nothing ever happens, there’s no consequence. You are actually helping a kid when you say, “After a warning, if you won’t tidy your room, this is what will happen.” Throughout the whole of life, and even eternity, there will be consequences and results for what they do or don’t do.
Key Seven: Use Your Faith for Your Children
This is where it gets really good. Most people say, “I have faith,” but they don’t mean anything by it. Faith is the principle laid out in Mark 11:23-24: “Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.” Faith is when you put somebody in God’s hands and then believe you have received God’s result.
Years ago, Norvel Hayes wrote a book, How to Stand in the Gap for Your Children. His daughter was in her late teens or early twenties, sleeping around, on drugs, a party girl. He prayed for her for years, and nothing happened. In the end, the Lord said to him, “If you keep praying for her the way you are praying, she’s going to go to hell. You need to change the way you’re praying.” The Lord said, “You’re not using your faith. Give Me your daughter, ask Me to save her, fill her with the Holy Spirit and make her a woman of God, and then believe you have received her in that state.”
From then on, every time he saw her or thought about her, he said, “Thank You, Lord. My daughter’s walking with You. My daughter’s a woman of God. My daughter no longer drinks, no longer does drugs, no longer parties.” He said it even when she wasn’t yet a woman of God. That’s what faith is. As written in Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Most of us observe our children as they are and then come to God saying, “Oh, Johnny’s got a problem.” God wants you to believe His promises, not that He will do them one day. That’s hope. Faith says it’s done now. My child is healed now. My child is walking with You now. My child is baptized in the Holy Spirit now. Faith believes it receives when it prays.
Key Eight: Follow the Leading of the Holy Spirit
This key will only work if you do key number seven. Every child is different, and every path and journey a child takes is different. I don’t want a formula. I want the Holy Spirit to lead and guide me as a parent.
Pray, “Lord, I want to be there at the important junctures, the key pivotal moments, for my child. Lead and guide me in what I say, when I discipline, when I love and when I show grace. Give me discernment about the situations my child is in and about their friends.” The Holy Spirit will do all of that if you ask Him. As written in Romans 8:14, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”
Key Nine: Pass On an Inheritance
God has given you children as an inheritance. We are part of a long line that goes all the way back to Jesus, and it’s great to raise our children with a sense of identity and inheritance: “This is who you are. God has a plan for your life.”
I received an incredible inheritance from my parents. I’m not talking about money and stuff; I’m talking about a spiritual inheritance. My wife and I get to pass that on to our kids, and they get to run with it. They get to take our ceilings and make them their floors, and build higher, and run further and faster.
We should raise children to go further than we’ve gone spiritually, not less. The sad thing in the Christian world is that I often see parents who walk with God, children who walk with God a bit less, and grandchildren who think Nanny and Papa are just crazies. It diminishes, when it should increase. As written in Proverbs 13:22, “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children.” Look at your children through the lens of inheritance.
Key Ten: See Their Prophetic Destiny
The first key was vision. Key ten is linked to it: seeing the prophetic destiny and calling on your child. There’s something in you as a parent that will see things in your children that other people won’t, things even your children won’t see in themselves.
We can pray for people at a basic level, that God will feed and clothe them, and that’s all good. There are also prophetic prayers you can pray over your children. Right at the beginning of Exodus, Moses’s parents saw that he was a special child. As written in Hebrews 11:23, “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s command.” Every child is special, and no child is of more value than another, but parents should look at their children. If you open yourself up to the Holy Spirit, He will share prophetic promises that you can pray over them, and you can become the guardian of those things. Know what heaven is speaking over your children, and align your words and prayers with the destiny of heaven.
Don’t Pretend It Has Happened
God wants to save every child. It’s God’s will that none should perish and that all come to repentance. One of the worst things I see, at least in the American church, is parents who so want their kids to be born again that they con themselves, and then con their kids, into believing they’re born again when they never really have been. I’ve seen many good, moral kids who serve in church and aren’t born again.
I’ve made a point of telling my kids, even in their late teens, “I do not know that you’re born again. You need to know you’re born again.” I’ve never asked any of them, “Would you like to be baptized?” At about twenty-two, my daughter came to me and said, “Dad, I’m ready to be baptized,” after years of watching me baptize hundreds of people.
If we tell somebody they’re born again when they’re not, we’re anesthetizing them against the gospel. Later, when the world tempts them, they see no beauty and no depth in the Christian life, because they don’t have a Christian life. They have a church life. My parents took me to church all my life, yet at age fourteen I was born again. I met the Lord Jesus Christ for myself. As written in Jeremiah 29:13, “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”
God knows how to catch the fish, and He knows the encounters your kids need. Don’t pretend it has happened. Say, “Lord, You will do this. I’m going to raise them correctly, let them see me enjoying a spiritual life, give them the gospel and keep them safe.” Then let the Holy Spirit call their name in His time, and they will respond.
Scriptures for Study
Proverbs 13:24, Proverbs 22:15, Proverbs 23:13-14, Proverbs 29:17, Hebrews 12:5-11, Galatians 6:7, Mark 11:22-24, Hebrews 11:1, Hebrews 11:6, Romans 4:17-21, 1 John 5:14-15, Romans 8:14, John 16:13, Isaiah 30:21, James 1:5, Proverbs 13:22, Psalm 127:3, Psalm 78:5-7, 2 Timothy 1:5, Exodus 2:2, Hebrews 11:23, Jeremiah 1:5, 2 Peter 3:9, John 3:3, Jeremiah 29:13
10 Questions for Reflection
- Do the boundaries in my home carry real consequences?
- How can I discipline my children in love rather than anger?
- Am I praying for my children in faith or in hope?
- What would I thank God for if I believed my prayers for my child were already answered?
- Where do I need the Holy Spirit to guide me at a pivotal moment with my child?
- What spiritual inheritance did I receive, and what am I passing on?
- How can my ceilings become my children’s floors?
- What prophetic promises has God shown me about my children?
- Have I assumed my children are born again without knowing it?
- How can I let my children see me enjoying a spiritual life?
