What would happen if we brought up our children the way heaven does it, rather than the way the world does it? I believe God has a plan for raising children. God has ways. God has a strategy. God has a design for how He wants you to raise your children, and that design is far better than anything the world can offer.
Again and again in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said… but I say to you.” In other words: you’ve been taught this, but I’ve come from heaven to tell you this. Here is how we do it in heaven. That principle applies to every area of life, and I am convinced it applies powerfully to the way we raise our kids.
Saved, but Still Walking in the Old Ways
You become a Christian by repenting of sin and placing your faith in Jesus and His finished work on the cross. You don’t have to understand everything to get saved; otherwise nobody would get saved. As written in Romans 10:13, “For ‘whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'” You have to call on the name of the Lord with a true and sincere heart.
Yet just because you’re saved doesn’t mean you’re walking in the ways of God. What happens, frankly, to all of us is this: we have a saving encounter with Jesus, but we still carry all of the ways we had before. If you were a Brit like I was when I got saved, and you always drove on the left, you’ll probably keep driving on the left. If you were a coffee drinker before you were born again, you’ll still be a coffee drinker.
God saves our soul in a moment, but He is interested in teaching us the ways of heaven. There is a recognizing and a rejecting of the ways of the world, and then a turning to and embracing of the ways of the kingdom of heaven.
Here is the problem I see. We come to Christ, we’re born again, we speak in tongues, we’re going to heaven, glory, glory, glory… but when it comes to our children, we simply do what the world does. If you’ve been delivered from Egypt, but you send your kids to an Egyptian school, let them watch Egyptian TV and put the Egyptian app on their phone, they’re going to walk like an Egyptian. They’re going to think like an Egyptian, not walk in the ways of God.
I don’t want to spend much time on the world’s ways of raising kids, because it’s really bad and it doesn’t work. I want to focus on God’s ways.
Flourishing Children, Not Perfect Children
Let me be clear: this isn’t about perfect kids, because there are no perfect kids and there are no perfect parents. The only perfect one is Jesus. What I am talking about is children who flourish. Children who do well in life, who know who God is, who know who they are in Christ, who are committed, and who will in turn become amazing husbands and wives, parents and grandparents.
You may have come from a long line of dysfunctional people. You may have a lifelong subscription to issues. As far back as you can look, your family may never have walked in the ways of God. My point is that it can change with you. You can be that first generation.
It takes humility to look honestly at what we’re doing and to realize, “Oh, we’re just doing what everybody else does. We’re just copying the world.” I once drove past a banner promising to train kids to be fit for the world. I don’t want somebody training my kids for the world. I want to train my kids for heaven. I want them walking in the ways of heaven, the blessing of heaven, the life of heaven now. As written in Romans 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
The Prescriptive Will of God
I’m a pastor, and I know people. In any church on a Sunday there are people who have had miscarriages. Statistically, there are people who have had abortions. There are people who have brought children into the world and those children have died. There are people estranged from their children, who haven’t seen them in twenty years, and their hearts break over it. There are parents whose son is in jail, whose daughter is on drugs, whose child is confused about who they are.
If that is you, my goal is not to press your button, to judge you or to make you feel like a failure. Grace, grace, grace. Grace isn’t God saying, “Oh, it’s okay; it doesn’t matter what your kids are doing.” Grace is the power to change.
Let me give you a principle I learned years ago that will really help you if you bake it into your thinking. The will of God is prescriptive. God comes to you and me and says, “Do this. Don’t do this.” Raise your children, discipline your children, love your children, provide for your children. It’s like a prescription from heaven, except you can read the handwriting. It’s in this Book.
My wife and I have three amazing kids. We love them and we’re proud of them. We were blessed with great parents, and on the whole I believe we’ve done this parenting thing well. Yet we failed many times. We got things wrong. God draws a bar and says, “I want you to walk this way,” and all of us have fallen short of it. Every marriage has two broken people inside of it, trying to live with one another, and every parent is, in one sense, a broken parent. I’m not criticizing you. I’m saying, be real.
The Redemptive Will of God
Many people get condemned by that prescriptive will. They say, “I failed. Nobody could live up to that.” That’s why I want you to see the second truth: the will of God is also redemptive.
God says, “Walk this way.” That’s His will. Yet the will of God comes to you and me wherever we are, no matter what we’ve done. In John 4, Jesus meets the woman at the well. She has had five husbands, and the man she is living with now is not her husband. In that society she was considered damaged goods; nobody would have anything to do with her. Jesus doesn’t say God is okay with that. It isn’t His prescription. But He is a God of redemption.
God will take you no matter where you are or what you’ve done, no matter whether you failed, others failed or the world failed. The question is not who failed. The question is this: will you come to Jesus now and allow Him to begin to redeem your life and bring you back on track?
Imagine I’m driving from my home in Sturbridge to New York City in my Tesla. I put New York City in, and it plots a route. That’s the best route, the prescriptive will, if you like. What if I take a wrong turn and drive completely off course? Will the GPS say, “Nope, you’ve messed up, you’re a bad driver, you’ve had it”? No. It starts recalibrating. Even if I start driving towards California, it keeps rerouting from wherever I am, back to New York City.
That is God’s heart. We have a God of grace, a God of redemption, a God of mercy, and what He wants to do is bring us back. As written in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
If you’ve had a miscarriage, I won’t pretend; I can empathize and sympathize, but one day you will meet that child again. If you’ve had an abortion, that is sin. Repent and ask Jesus to forgive you, just as I need Jesus to forgive me. Nobody is throwing stones at you. “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” One day you will meet that child again. Hallelujah.
If your child has wandered far from God, use your faith to get them out of prison, off drugs, out of that destructive relationship and back on track. Love them where they are now, and begin plotting a route back… not to New York City, but back to the perfect will of God.
God has ways, and His ways work. Let me challenge you to stop copying the world and start training your children for heaven. Recognize the prescriptive will of God, receive the redemptive will of God, and let Him reroute your family from wherever you are today into His very best.
Scriptures for Study
Matthew 5:21-22, Matthew 5:27-28, Matthew 5:43-44, Romans 10:9-10, Romans 10:13, Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Proverbs 22:6, Deuteronomy 6:6-7, Ephesians 6:4, Psalm 127:3, Psalm 78:4-7, John 4:16-18, John 4:25-26, John 8:7, John 8:11, 1 John 1:9, Romans 3:23, Romans 5:20, Titus 2:11-12, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Isaiah 55:8-9, Exodus 12:31, Jeremiah 29:11, Joel 2:25
10 Questions for Reflection
- In what areas of family life am I still walking in the ways I had before I was saved?
- Where have I simply copied the world in the way I raise my children?
- What does it mean for me to train my children for heaven rather than for the world?
- What “Egyptian” influences are shaping my children right now?
- How can I be the first generation in my family to walk in God’s ways?
- Where have I let the prescriptive will of God condemn me instead of guide me?
- How does the story of the woman at the well change the way I see my own failures?
- Where does my family need God to “recalibrate” the route?
- What would it look like to love a wandering child where they are now?
- What step will I take this week to begin walking in God’s ways as a parent?
