If you’re looking to get your car fixed, you’re going to find a good mechanic. But if you’re having health issues, you’re probably going to see your doctor, not your mechanic. Why?
Your choice is a reflection of your goal.
If your goal is to raise godly children, it starts by choosing personal godliness. Because you will rarely ever lead your children down a path you’re not personally on yourself.
I believe that a parent’s consistent, godly life could be the most compelling reason why their children choose to follow faith more than possibly anything else.
Because more than your children will become what you say, they will become who you are.
The difficult reality is that many Christian parents want godly children without the pain of discipline. These are parents who want to change their children, but they don’t want to think about having to change themselves.
A godly parent is a growing parent. Because God is always trying to sanctify you through your parenting.
I’m not the parent I was twenty years ago, and I’m not the parent I hope to be five years from now.
- “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.” I Thessalonians 4:3
- “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Romans 8:29
I remember an elderly man in our church years ago who carved a detailed little boot out of a piece of wood. When asked, “How in the world did you know how to make that?” He replied, “Oh, it’s easy. I just chip away anything and everything that doesn’t… look like a boot.”
This is what God is doing with us through the sanctifying process of our parenting… chipping away at anything and everything that doesn’t look like Jesus in our lives.
How is God currently “carving” you as a parent to look more like Jesus?
Making godliness your goal is one of the best ways to raise godly kids. Because the key to GODLY PARENTing is really no secret.
Once I realize that it’s more about me than it is about my kids, I am on the path to success.
“…godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” I Timothy 4:8
