“Deut 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[a] 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.”

This scripture give us as parents a divine command to teach our children in the way they should live. In a world where parents are more concerned with being their kids friends and often spend more time at work or away from our kids. We are failing at this whole parenting thing.

This past weekend was Mother’s Day and my children held their traditional Mother’s Day card competition. Where they try to pick the most sentimental card that will make me cry. They find great pleasure in being the first one to make me cry. My oldest gave me a card that as I pulled it out of the envelope and began to read the first line, I totally choked and couldn’t get the words out loud. It said “I know times have been hard…” As I read the that line my mind flashed to all the hard times we have had in our life that he has lived through, many we tried to hide from him or we prayed he was just too little to remember. Our Homelessness, Joblessness, Lost of Loved Ones, Mean church Members. Through each one I pray our son has seen God’s love through us in all our mess.

Satan has one purpose and that is to destroy this nation, and if he can destroy the family he can destroy the church if can destroy the church, then he can destroy this nation.

I heard someone say this past week  “Christianity is just one generation from extinction”.  The question we have to ask ourselves is, “Will we be that generation?” Will we be the generation that fails to teach our children what God has done for us? Will it be on our watch,  that the next generation will lose the understanding and knowledge of God’s love?

As parents we have to realize we have a real responsibility greater than clothing and feeding our children, but it is our responsibility to bring them to the understanding of the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. If we fail to live that life everyday, if we fail to take them to church so they will know we weren’t made to do life, by ourselves. We are failing them.

We need to talk about God’s love, when we drive down the road in our car, we need to talk about the goodness of God at the mealtime with our kids, We need to not be scared to let are kids know, we are going through a tough time, and at the same time, show/tell them how much we are trusting in God to get us through. Then when he comes through, we need to rejoice in that as well with them.

The problem is we aren’t spending a lot of time with our kids, we have bought the lie that says, Quality is more important than Quantity. We must be intentional about spending time with our kids and living a life that is pleasing before God. So what if you have made mistakes don’t be afraid to tell them you did and don’t buy into the lie that says “ I can’t tell my kid they can’t do (fill in the blank) because I did it when I was their age and you know what, that is probably why you are partly missed up today. So you are the perfect one to tell you kids not to do that, especially if you have experience with it.

God may of had you walk that path because to protect your kid from walking through it but if you are too concerned with being a hypocrite instead of being concern your kid could die and go to hell.

With graduation weekend, many parents are taking a deep breath and thinking “Okay, we got them raised, Now we can move on with our lives.” But are we worried whether or not our kids are going to heaven or hell?

The bottom line is we have our priorities messed up, we are more concerned with our kids being on the track team or the volleyball team. Than in Sunday School on Sundays. Our kids can’t hide God’s word in their heart, if they aren’t being taught it. Psalms 119:11 says “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”

Let’s make this summer a time when we prioritizes our children and their relationship with God. Maybe as a parent or grandparent we need to re-prioritize our relationship with God ourselves so we can lead the children God has placed in our lives according with what His word says.