How can I win my prodigal son or daughter back to the Lord? Having a prodigal child is something that a lot of good folks within the body of Christ are suffering through. It is heartbreaking, because as Christian parents, we of course want to be with our children eternally. we want them to have all the blessings of following Christ. So, what do you do?

The kids are out of the nest. You can’t be dragging them to Sunday School anymore. They’re out of your significant influence. You still have a relationship with them. Well, if you don’t have a relationship with them, then go back and look at the video that I just … the previous Little Lesson, okay?

That’s about how to kind of restore broken relationships through humility. But, let’s say you’ve got a relationship with them. You’re on a talking basis, and you see them, but they’re not living a life like you want them to live. So, what can you do? Well, of course I, along with everyone else, will tell you to pray and never give up. God hears your prayers. God loves your prodigal child. Okay? So, pray of course, and trust God. And then, right along with that, put some legs on those prayers, as they used to say in this one little Pentecostal church I used to go to. Make your Christianity attractive to your children. This is something that I keep coming back to, I guess, because so many people’s Christianity doesn’t attract me. It’s a turnoff to me.

They’re just mean people, and rule keeping people, and judging everybody else who’s not keeping the rules like they’re keeping the rules, and they’re always fighting and arguing with theological points. Who wants that? I don’t want that. What person in his right mind wants that? Nobody in their right mind wants the Christianity that some people present, and people are proud about that. That’s the most bizarre thing, you know? “Oh, it’s the narrow way, and so, you know, most people aren’t going to want this. So, if most people don’t want what I have, well I must be doing it the right way.” Oh, right. Okay. I guess that’s how it worked for Jesus and the apostle. That’s why nobody came to the Lord when Jesus was on this earth. That’s why nobody repented of their sins back in His day, or the days of the apostles, because they were on the narrow way, so nobody wanted it.

Yeah. I’m just trying to provoke your thinking about your particular version of Christianity that is so unattractive. Like goodness. If we’re following the Lord, and doing His will, and experiencing the automatic blessings that come with it. If we’re exemplifying the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and our kids are seeing that, it should be attractive to them. They should say, “Wow. I like what you’ve got. Yeah” If you don’t have that, then you need to cultivate that, and read the Bible. Maybe abandon some of those silly doctrines that you’re clinging to that are so antithetical to what people actually know in their own God-given conscience about what’s righteous, and what’s right, and what’s wrong. All right, enough said on that.

So, make it attractive, and then live it in front of them, and then you have to be very, very cautious. You know? Be sensitive to them. If there’s resistance to something that you’re saying that’s spiritual, you know, be sensitive. Say, “Oh, oh, I’m sorry. I know that that bothers you when I talk this way.” See? You’re being the humble person. You’re being the sensitive person. You’re not being the Bible-thumper. You’re just being the lover. Then maybe that prodigal child will say, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I know how you are Mom. I know how you are. That’s okay. Let’s talk about that.”

“Oh. Oh, thank you hon, because it is really important to me, and you’re really important to me. That’s why I talk about it, so you just have to put up with me.” You know? You’re keeping it, keep the love flowing there. Now, be careful if you’ve got a real prodigal who’s really gone astray. Not just like your average Joe American sinner, but I mean deep into the darkness. You know, the police are involved or whatever. Be careful that you’re not working against your own prayers, because God might have your son or daughter in jail for a reason, and for you to run in there and bail them out, or whatever you can do to reverse the consequences of their wrong decisions, you’ll see that then you’re an enabler.

You’re not really helping your child to face up to real life, because real life, there’s real consequences to our decisions. If you have to go through the pain of watching your child suffer through the consequences of wrong decisions, I know it’s tough. It’s so tough. You love them. You just want to get in there and say, “Oh, I don’t want to see you suffer like that. Let me bail you out. Let me help you. Oh, let me give you the money, or let me straighten this out for you.” No, no, no! God’s answering your prayers. That’s why your kid’s in jail!

Amen. That’s why there’s suffering. God’s answering your prayers. God is trying to get, just like the prodigal son in the Bible story that Jesus told, after he’d spent all of his inheritance, and all of his friends left him, and he was feeding the pigs for a job, and was longing to eat the pig food. You know? Aren’t you glad his dad just didn’t swoop in right there and say, “Son, I still got some more money for you.” No. Now again, that’s just a story. I think it’s a fictional story, so I don’t know about if … It doesn’t make any difference. The point is, the father, any father, would be foolish to swoop in and save the prodigal son or the prodigal daughter, to help them or alleviate the consequences of their decisions.

What you want to convey to your kids is, “Hey, I love you. I made lots of mistakes too. You’ve made a mistake, but the best thing I can do is just to let you kind of eat the fruit of your decisions. But, you know I’m always here, and you know I want you to believe that Jesus is the divine son of God, and therefore do what I did. Repent. Start following him. Okay?” And, if your adult children want to come home and visit you, and they want to bring their girlfriend or their boyfriend, and they want to sleep together, you know? You say, “Oh. You know I love you but you’re not married, and God loves you. God says it’s wrong for people who are not married to be sleeping together, because he loves them, and he thinks that people who sleep together should be committed for life, because that’s the best thing for them because God loves them. See, God’s commandments are all based on his love for us. So, you can both come and visit me, but you have to sleep in separate bedrooms. That’s all. I love you both. I love you both so much. Come on and stay with me. But just, this is my hotel, so you got to abide by my rules.”

You’ve got teenage kids who are prodigals, and they want to come in at 3:00 in the middle of the night after their partying. You say, “Oh no, no, no, no, no. This is my hotel. This is my hotel. I love you, but you can’t come in at 3:00 AM and expect that everything is going to be okay. No, no. If you come home at 3:00 AM, that door is going to be locked, and you don’t have the key, so you’ll be sleeping outside, but in the morning I’ll let you in, and I hope that you learned the lesson.” Okay. Well, these are just some basic things to say about parents with prodigals, and don’t ever give up hope. Don’t ever give up hope. There’s plenty of stories of prodigals coming back to the Lord. Okay? Thanks for joining me. Hope to see you next time. God bless you.

The post How Can I Win My Prodigal Son or Daughter Back to the Lord? appeared first on David Servant.

What do I do with my prodigal son or daughter? Hi, welcome to today’s little lesson. I’m going to address a question, often spoken from parents, of children who have left the nest. And, tragically, those kids are not serving the Lord. And so what bit of advice would I have for such parents?

Well, first of all, let me say that, be honest with yourself. If in fact you recognize that you contributed to the waywardness of your child because you failed to teach them or set the right example in front of them. And maybe you weren’t even a believer when you were raising your kids. And so what did you know then? You were just a pagan living a pagan life. And of course your kids grow up and see that, and they tend to follow in your footsteps. So be honest, and then get over it.

That is, if there’s something to confess, well, then confess it to the Lord. And remember that He’s a good, merciful, and gracious God, and He forgives you.

There’s a scripture, I think, in Isaiah, it says Jesus would not even extinguish the wick of the candle that’s just smoking and there’s no flame. It’s an expression of God always being the God of hope. If there’s any hope left, He’s still optimistic, okay? And God is after your kids, like He’s after everybody. So you don’t have to worry about His part in this. He loves your prodigal son or daughter. He died for their sins.

And then another thing that you can do to work it out with the Lord is to take a step to work it out with your prodigal son or daughter. Now, every case is different, so I’m not making a general rule that it has a universal application in every situation. However, I would suggest contemplating, certainly, going to your child and asking their forgiveness for what you feel you failed at as a parent, because there’s nothing that opens hearts like humility. The humble person always wins. Let me tell you, they always win.

And so if you do feel like you’ve messed up or you blew it in some way, and maybe that, perhaps, it was a contributing factor. Now just because you blew it doesn’t mean your kids … You don’t get all the blame, right? Because there’s a lot of people who had horrible parents, and they made a choice to follow Jesus. And they turned out wonderful, okay?

So it’s not all on your shoulders, because your kid or kids have and had free will. And just because you made a mistake or blew it in a couple of ways, that doesn’t give them an excuse to say, “Well, I reject the faith of my parents.” Okay. But, anyways, if you can find something that you feel that you’ve blew it on, then here’s a way to … You’re not a Bible thumper now. You’re a Christian, yeah, humble, gracious, merciful, real, not just religious, not just phony, but you’re the real deal.

And so the real deal people acknowledge when they’ve done wrong. And if they’ve wronged other people, they go to them. So that’s what you do. You set up a time. You don’t do it by email. No, this is too important. This is sacred. You don’t do it over the phone if you can go face to face at a special time and say, “My dear son or daughter, you know I love you so much. How could I not love you? You’re my son. You’re my daughter.”

Now, you don’t bring up anything that they’ve done. You don’t say, “Well, you’ve hurt me.” No, no. Joe or Jane, humility here. And so you’re just softening their heart by taking the higher ground. So you’re not bringing up the arguments. You’re not bringing up what they did, no. You just, self-examination and confession.

“So my dear son, my dear daughter. I did my best. I think I succeeded in some ways as a parent but I failed in some ways. And I can see that so clearly now. And I just want to ask you to forgive me.” You know, as I’m saying this I’m tearing up. I’m just giving you an example because those kinds of moments are tear up moments. And you can break through the hardest hearts when you’re humble.

So you say, “Will you please forgive me?” And you’re not saying, “And then I want you to get down on your knees and repent.” No, no, no. No, no, no. Just, “Please, would you forgive me? I need your forgiveness. I need to feel that that’s clear between us.” And then watch what happens. I’d be very surprised if they say, “No, I don’t forgive you. And don’t ever walk in here again. I don’t want to see your face.”

No. People respond to humility like that and love like that. Then just sit back, and let’s just see what happens. That’s probably not a good time to be bringing up the gospel or spiritual things, pardon me, spiritual things, unless they open the door to that. Then you have to just gauge it and see. But wait for their reaction.

And if they say, “I forgive you,” and the chances are, if they have any decency at all, they’re probably going to respond by saying something like, “Oh, but, Mom or Dad, I bear some blame in this problem that we’ve had. And would you forgive me?” Oh, my goodness. Well, now, now, now, now we’ve made some progress, and it’s a different relationship.

And then, if it’s appropriate then, or maybe some other time, you just say, “You know, I love you so much. And you know your mom and your dad, you know we believe in Jesus, that he is the son of God.” Now don’t say, “We’re churchgoers, and we believe in voting for the right candidate.” Don’t. Go back to Jesus, because that’s the basis of everything. “We believe that Jesus Christ is God, and that He came to this earth, and he said things, and he revealed things. And then to cap it all off, He died according to the plan of God. And He died for our sins.

“And then we also believe that we’re all going to have to stand in front of Him one day. So dear son, dear daughter, can you understand? I’m your mom. I’m your dad. Nobody loves you like me. You came from me. You’re special. Can you understand? Even if you don’t agree with me, can you understand and sympathize why I would be concerned about you?”

And don’t talk about, “How you’re living your life. You’re going out to the bar.” Don’t. That’s peripheral stuff. It’s Jesus, right? What do you believe about Jesus? And people who believe that Jesus, son of God, their life changes for a number of reasons. One is because God puts his Holy Spirit in them. But secondly because they realize, “Oh, my goodness. I got to live to please this Jesus, because I’m going to stand before Him one day. And he turned the hinges on what I’m doing with Jesus, right? Right. Okay.

Okay, so that’s my first bit of advice for what you do with a prodigal. Now, I got one more big thing I want to say about your prodigal son or your daughter, but I’m out of time. So we’ll cover that next time. I hope you join me. Thanks for joining me this time. God bless you.

The post What Do I Do With My Prodigal Son or Daughter? appeared first on David Servant.

What are the most important principles for good parenting?

Of course, number one is you’ve got to be a Christian yourself. If Jesus is not your Lord, don’t expect your kids to grow up and serve the Lord. If you’re lukewarm and half-hearted, and Jesus is kind of like a hobby that you dabble in every once in a while, guess what? Your kids are going to be just like you.

First thing is, to look at your own life, and make sure that you are serving the Lord, with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and Jesus is the center, that you’re very excited about the things of God, and His word, and serving, and following Him, so that your kids every day see what a Christian really looks like.

Then, along with that, as I said, in a previous lesson, don’t be a weirdo, bizarre, nut-head Christian, who follows some goofy little cult, or cult-like teaching, that just some tiny little minority is following your rules, and they’re so proud ’cause not only they have the truth. Oh, my goodness. I’m so sick of those people. Those people who are parts of little groups, tiny little minorities, and actually proud. They think their minority status is an indication that they’re right. Oh, my goodness. As if nobody else in the world ever had a brain, or had read the Bible. So, we don’t have to listen to any of those people. Our little group, we found out the truth.

Well, your kids are probably smarter than you, and they’re gonna run like crazy, as soon as they get the chance. So, don’t be a weirdo, and teach your kids by precept as well, in the Bible, every single day, or most days that you possibly can, and again, this is a part of the bigger picture too, because if the only time you talk about the Bible, as any relevancy, is at bedtime during the devotions, and there’s no other application about the Bible and the Word of God throughout the day, that’s not so good, right?

So, you want all of it. God said to the people of Israel, “Put my word on your doorpost, and talk about it when you’re walking with your children on the way, and so forth.” So, what He was saying is the fabric of your life, ought to be, the Word of God is woven into every single aspect. There are situations that we all face, practically every moment. That may be a little bit of an exaggeration, but throughout every single day, a lot of times, when we have to make a decision. Am I gonna follow God, or am I not gonna follow God? Am I gonna apply live biblical principles, or am I not gonna apply?

So, every time you face those things, it’s an opportunity to teach your kids about why you’re doing what you’re doing. Bring the Word in to your life, and meditate on it. Like the Bible says, “Meditating on it day and night.” Talking about, that’s part of the meditation process. It coming out of your mouth. If you need help, which I don’t really think everyone needs that much help, but I did actually write a devotional for Christian families. It’s called, Family Style Devotions, and if you look for it on dsstaging.stratira.ai, you can subscribe.

You can buy the book. We have it in a book form, so you can actually buy it, but honestly, why do that, when you can get it for free? Download it into your inbox by email.

Then, I have a couple of questions. It can be a spring board for a discussion, there in that devotional, and there on a kind of a kid level. Not really so much on a teenage level, but you can adapt them, but more for a kid level. So, that could be a help to you.

Then, one other thing that I wanted to add, that I haven’t said in this little four-part series on Christian parenting is, don’t make the mistake that most Christian parents make by relying completely on the church, to do the job of inculcating biblical truth, into your children’s lives, ’cause that’s been a proven losing strategy, because the large majority, this has been proven by studies, the large majority of kids who grow up in evangelical households, who go to church every week and so forth, and go through the youth programs, and go through all that stuff, when they leave the nest, the large majority turn their backs on Christianity and the church, and that’s the end. So, that doesn’t work.

I’ll tell you one reason it doesn’t work, is because we’ve got this consumer Christianity these days, and people church shop until they can find something that they like, and as they drive home from the church they just tested, they inevitably ask their kids, “Kids, how did you like the Sunday school?” “Oh, we loved it. It was so much fun.” And then, Mom and Dad say, “Great. This is a great church, ’cause my kids like this church.”

Well, they never asked, “Did you learn anything at all, from the Bible? Are you being challenged, to follow Jesus Christ, as your Lord, being his Disciple, or is it all just about your social relationships, and having fun, and being cool, and doing all these fun activities?” Right? Right. Churches that are leading people down the road of that lie, I’m telling you, I feel so sorry for those churches. When they’re sending a message, “Hey, just drop your kids off here, and leave the driving to us. We’ll make sure that they love Jesus.” Oh, my goodness. What a deception that is.

Taking your kids to church for one, or a couple hours a week, is basically, amounts to very little, and they need a lot more than that. So, don’t think, “Oh, if I just take my kids to church, and they go through all the Sunday school, and they go to youth programs, they’re gonna serve the Lord when they get older.” No. Chances are they won’t, serve the Lord. That’s what statistically, has been proven. So, you, Mom, Dad, have to put in the effort, and again, I take my hat off to every single parent, who is prioritizing that in their lives, and the family comes first, before everything else, except your own personal relationship with Jesus, which of course, raising your children, and the nurture, in the abolition of the Lord, is part of serving the Lord Jesus. So, you can’t separate those two things.

So, those are a few of the principles that I wanted to cover in successfully raising your children, and is there an absolute guarantee that if you do all the right things, that your kids will absolutely serve the Lord as adults? Absolutely not. I’m sorry to tell you, and you can say, “Well, I thought the Bible said, train up a child, in the way he should go; And when he is old, he won’t depart.” Yeah, it does say that, but the Bible has a lot more to say, about people being free moral agents, and people who are raised by great parents, who went the wrong way. People who were raised by bad parents, who went the right way, and so forth.

So, you do your best, but the final analysis, you influence all you can, but still, your kids can make their own choice. So, they can make the wrong choice, and that doesn’t mean there’s no hope. I’m gonna talk about our next little lesson, about what to do if you’ve got a prodigal child. Hope to see you then. God bless you.

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Is there a secret to raising good, godly kids who, as adults, serve the Lord?

Hi. Welcome to today’s Little Lesson. This is a continuation of the last two. We’re going to talk about Christian parenting and how to be successful at that. I talked about several principals. Hope that you were able to see those particular Little Lessons. And I want to elaborate just one more time today because there’s a couple of principles that I think are important. One of course is that, we need to teach our children by both precept and by example. Let’s start with example. Okay?

If every time you’re driving home from church, your kids hear you criticize the sermon or criticize the pastor, criticize the church, or criticized people in the church, their little ears are being enlightened, that this is all just a bunch of hypocrisy. And mom and dad go to this place where everyone is so nice and friendly. And mom and dad are so nice and friendly and happy when they’re there. But Mom and dad find all kinds of things wrong. And we hear about that on the way home. And not just on the ride home from church, but of course all the time.

Children learn what they live. And the example that they see set before them day in and day out influences their thinking and how they turn out. Okay? So if they never hear mom and dad talk about the things of the Lord, they never seen mom or dad reading the Bible, or praying, or talking to a neighbor about spiritual things, if they never hear their mom and dad talking about their concern for the poor, and the oppressed, and what they’re doing about it, they don’t see that Jesus is the center of your life, well, they’re not going to grow up to think that Jesus needs to be the center of their lives.

And maybe more important is the fact that if Jesus is not the center of your life, you’re really not a Christian. You’re a church goer. You might be a born again person, but you’re not really born again. You’re not really a Christian. If Jesus is not controlling your life, he’s not your Lord, well then you don’t have a relationship with him. So make sure that Jesus is your Lord and that you’re endeavoring to obey him. And when you mess up, ask his forgiveness. And if your kids see you mess up, ask their forgiveness and explain to them how you just blew it.

And when you mess up with your own kids and do something that you regret, show the humility that God expects of all of us and ask your kid to forgive you. Okay? So kids learn by what they see. And what we’re doing is even much more important than what we’re saying, what we’re teaching our kids. But that is the secondary part of raising our children in the nurture and in the admonition of the Lord. Got to teach them by precept. So you’ve got to be teaching them the Bible.

Now, I just tell people you don’t need a devotional. Even though I’ve written devotionals for families myself, but you just need the Bible and you just read a chapter, and you can avoid parts that you think would be a difficult for your children. Just focus on stuff that you think is within their capacity for comprehension and so forth. And if you read something you don’t understand, they ask you a question, and you don’t know the answer, the best thing to do is just say, “I don’t know the answer to that. There’s some things in the scripture that we just, we don’t understand so well. But we’re going to try to focus on what we do understand.”

Like Mark Twain said, “It’s not the parts of the Bible that I don’t understand that bother me. It’s the parts that I do understand that bothered me.” And there’s a honest statement for sure. Alright. Even though Mark Twain wasn’t a Christian. So, consistently every day, maybe first thing in the day, if that works out in your schedule or last thing, when you’re tucking them in at night, you read a, it doesn’t be a whole chapter of the Bible, you just read something. And you talk about it, so that your kids can see that this is the guiding book. This is important to mom and dad.

My mom and dad are people of the Bible. And they’re trying to do what God wants them to do and when they blow it, they don’t try to cover it up, they don’t make excuses. They’re real. They’re real. Okay. Now along those same lines … I don’t know how to say this, but the scripture does say, I’ll just use scripture. I think it’s in Ephesians where Paul talks about do not exasperate your children. That is kids are kids and you can’t expect them to act like adults. They’re kids. And so you have to have realistic expectations for your kids.

And I remember one time I was at a pastor’s house and we’re sitting at breakfast and things were a little bit quiet. I wondered why. And all of a sudden this pastor says very boldly and strongly to one of his daughters, he said, “Two spoons of sugar on your corn flakes?” I just kind of melt into the wall. And she just bowed her head and it was very tense. I thought, “Boy, this is not a loving Christian home.” You think about it. So many people’s Christianity isn’t attractive? It’s not attractive. It’s a turnoff. They’re not loving, and gentle, and merciful. They’re mean, and strict, and unforgiving, and ungracious, and a bunch of rule keepers.

Worse yet they got a bunch of weird rules. I was not surprised when that little girl grew up and she ran off with some guy. She got out of there as quick as she could get out of there. Let me tell you. And if I was her, I think I’d a done the same thing, if I had a dad like that who embarrassed me in front of guests, and the whole family and the cardinal sin was two spoonfuls of sugar. There’s better ways to teach your kids about healthy eating than to be a tyrant. Amen. Amen.

And so it’s a no wonder there are so many kids raised in quote unquote Christian homes who in the end run because the form of Christianity in some homes is so bizarre and weird. I mean, who can blame those kids? Their own conscience is telling them that their parents are nuts, because the parents have these nutty rules and these crazy ideas that they’ve derived from one or two scriptures at the expense of the whole rest of the Bible. You know, it’s like those snake handlers down in West Virginia.

I was reading an article about that not so long ago. Here’s a guy, had an article about him handling snakes, showing pictures of him handling these rattlesnakes. His dad died from a rattlesnake bite and church and his brother died from a rattlesnake bite in church, because they got a Bible verse, Mark 16, they got one Bible verse that says they’ll handle serpents and they’ve interpreted that literally, even though there’s not a single example of a snake handling service anywhere in the book of Acts. So there’s no way that’s what Jesus meant.

No apostle interpreted Jesus’s words like that. And those little kids sitting in church, they got more sense than their parents. Their thinking, “As soon as I’m old enough, I’m out of here. These people are nuts.” And I’m just giving you an extreme example. There is more sublime examples of the same nuttiness.

Alright, well that’s all from me today about Christian parenting. I hope you’re getting something out of this. Maybe one more Little Lesson on this subject. Thanks for joining me.

The post Is There a Secret to Raising Godly Kids? appeared first on David Servant.

What can I do in raising my children to guarantee that as adults they’ll serve the Lord? Find out in today’s episode of Little Lessons!

Hi, welcome to today’s little lesson. This is a continuation of our previous little lesson when we talked about the struggles that Christian parents find themselves facing in raising their children to serve the Lord in a world that’s going the other direction.

And that is the challenge, you know, parents are competing for the attention of their children as the world and the devil and the flesh are all vying for that child’s attention as well.

And of course, it’s fairly easy early on when those kids are little and very impressionable and extremely trusting and still very much child-like in their nature. But as they grow and when they get into those pre-adolescent and adolescent years and start thinking for themselves and they’re making the transition from childhood to adulthood, well, then they got to start thinking for themselves.

And they’re not just believing everything that mom and dad say, they are going to have to reach a place where they have to make a decision themselves, whether they are going to make Jesus the Lord of their lives.

And so the challenge for every Christian parent is to prepare their children, to help them as best they can to make the right decision when that time comes. So, what do you do?

Well, first of all, it does take time. And it does take effort. And I said in our previous little lesson that the main thing you want to impart to your children is who is Jesus.

You want your child understanding that Jesus is a unique person of history, in fact, he transcends history because he pre-dates history. He has always existed and he is God and he is the Son of God and he is coming back again and one day he’s going to rule and reign forever and ever.

And so, that puts him in a position like no other and so rather than just teach our kids Bible stories and try to teach them so they know the Bible and know, you know, develop good character and good values. Those are all important things, but fundamentally, this is where I think some parents miss it, they’re missing the most basic facts of what is the life changing, life course setting, you know, reality and truth, and that is who is Jesus.

Okay, so we want to talk about Jesus and show your respect for Jesus. And point out to your kids who Jesus claimed to be and this is why mom and dad believe that he is who he claimed to be. And even answer, you know, objections, kind of in anticipating that they’re going to run into some of those objections later on in life and you build a good biblical foundation in solid truth of the person of Jesus Christ.

Okay, so that’s tantamount. Then, secondly, you know, do that as much as you possibly can. Now, I made a lot of mistakes over my lifetime and in my adult lifetime. I wasn’t perfect in raising my children. But I’ll tell you one thing that I think that my wife and I did do right and that is we had watched so many other children of ministers go to the world and go to the devil. And I remember so many times in gatherings of pastors, back in the day when I was pastoring, the number one prayer request of pastors, if you would say, “What can I pray for you about?” They would often say, “Pray for my wayward children.”

And it just really caught my attention that there were so many in the ministry, you know these are the servants of God, these are the people who their whole life revolves around Jesus and yet their children were leaving the faith and going into the world.

I thought, “What’s going wrong there?” And I pretty much concluded that one possibility was that their parents were so dedicated to their ministries that their children often took second shift, as it were. And whenever mom and dad didn’t have somebody else that needed their attention in the church or whatever, the ministry they’re involved in, then they got around to taking care of the kids.

And we all know these horror stories of, for example, missionaries. Dedicated missionaries, I mean they’re leaving their nation, leaving their own relatives, you know, leaving the comforts of their own home and going to foreign nations to live in a different culture and so there’s an incredible amount of devotion and dedication exemplified by their lifestyle.

But then, goodness gracious, putting their kids in boarding schools! This was standard operating procedure years ago in the mission world. I think it’s less common now, but the horror of that! And the revelation of the priority, the wrong priorities, you know, of those parents saying, “Well, we’re sending our kids, our little kids, to boarding schools for nine months out of the year and then they come and live with us.”

See, here’s a principle that good Christian parents and successful Christian parents understand, this takes a lot of effort and a lot of time and you want to be the primary influencer in your children’s lives. And that means time. And if you’re going to let the TV set influence your kid for two hours a day, you know, of course I realize there could be godly programming, sure, okay.

So, let’s just not make generalizations here, but you know what I’m talking about. There’s so much garbage that’s available streaming through television sets and the internet and so forth these days and too many parents let that be the babysitter. All kinds of things going into their kids’ heads and minds and God never wanted in their precious little brains, you know. And then the parents wonder why the kids don’t want to follow Jesus. Because you’re sending them to Satan’s church for a couple of hours.

And so my wife and I decided that we were going to do our best to avoid making that mistake with so many other ministers, good people, had made by making a commitment to school our children ourselves. In the United States we call it homeschooling. It’s pretty much spread around the world, back in the day when we were doing it was not so common. But today it’s much more common and a lot of people, millions of people are doing it.

The benefit of it, one benefit is that your kids aren’t around other kids all day long, being influenced by them. They’re not being taught by people other than yourself. You’re with them a lot and you’re one of their, if not their closest friend, certainly in their younger ages, their closest friend, closest associate.

And so you have the most influence. But when you’re sending your impressionable little children off to school, now I realize there’s variations on that too, I think Christian school would be better than secular school. But Christian school costs a lot of money, not every Christian can afford that. It’s not available everywhere.

So I would strongly urge Christian parents to at least look into, investigate the idea of homeschooling. And if not for all the years, all the way through high school, at least through the elementary and middle school or junior high school days just to get that extra edge on influencing your children so they’re better prepared when it comes time to make that decision whether or not they are personally going to follow Christ. Then they make the right decision.

More to say about this on our next little lesson. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope to see you next time.

The post How Can I Raise My Children to Serve the Lord When They’re Adults? appeared first on David Servant.

Why is it so difficult for Christian parents to raise their children to follow the Lord? Discover the most important thing to remember when raising your children to follow Jesus in this episode of Little Lessons!

Hi, welcome to today’s lesson, and today’s question comes from a dear friend of mine, a godly women, a dear saint, a servant of Christ who’s got a ministry in the African nation of Uganda. And I’m not sure if she’s asking this question on her own behalf, or on behalf of other Christian families whom she has observed, but she actually phrased her question in two different ways.

She wrote, “Is it God’s plan that Christians struggle with bringing up their children in the “Christian way”? And then she rephrased it and said, “Why do Christian families face more challenges bringing up their children in the “Christian way”?

So, these are great questions and reflect the concern of all genuine Christian parents. Naturally, they want their kids to follow the lord, and they’re all doing something to try to bring that about. We know that the scripture tells us, as Christian parents, to raise our children in the nurture and in the admonition of the lord. And so, the responsibility falls squarely on the parents.

Now, if you’re a Christian and your children have all left the nest, there’s nothing that I’m gonna say in this lesson that’s gonna be very applicable to you. But if you’ve got a prodigal who’s out there, I’ll address that in a future little lesson, but let’s see if we can address those who have kids at home right now.

First of all, the earlier you start the better. And if you’re raising a little toddler who you allow to be a temper tantrum throwing brat, well, sooner you correct that the better. And there’s lots of good help out there. Here’s something I always tell Christian parents, take note that God made you a lot bigger than your kid. See, kids don’t start off five feet or six feet tall. They start off pretty dinky. I think God’s sending all of us a message there.

We’re the ones who are supposed to be in charge. And parents who are flustered and frustrated over their kids, and they’re not enjoying being around their kids because their kids are such demons, there’s help, that there are practical solutions to those problem. And I just feel so sorry for christian parents who don’t know some of the basic stuff, so don’t feel bad, just educate yourself.

A book that my wife and I read when our kids were real small was the classic book by Dr Dobson, who’s one of our great heroes when it comes to teaching on the family. It was called Dare to Discipline. I think he wrote it way back in the ’60s, and then he revised it a little bit to adjust for the times a couple of decades later.

But still, same book, Dare to Discipline. It gives you basic principles that will help you to not raise little temper tantrum throwing brats, and how to make life with kids actually pleasant because they respect you, as they should, and they listen to you, and they obey you, as they should.

Again, it doesn’t happen automatically. No, if you let what happens automatically happen it can be a little taste of hell. But Christian parents who figured some of these basic principles out, oh man, it’s just a blessing. Their kids are a blessing to be around. Their kids listen.

Again, because they’re not reinforcing behavior that they don’t want to recur. So, when their kid throws a temper tantrum they ignore them to teach them that’s not how you get our attention. It doesn’t work.

And they don’t interrupt in the middle of conversations, if they wanna get your attention they have to walk up and put their hand on you and just pause and patiently learn to wait until your done with your current conversation, so you can turn your attention to … These are just real basic things, and it’s just tragic the number of good Christian parents, who so desperately would like a little bit of sanity in their lives, just don’t know the basics and it’s really not all that difficult once you learn.

Okay, so my advice is learn and get some books out, Christian books, classic books on Christian parenting and it’ll go a long way to help you. Okay, so the Christian parenting job gets … is easier if you start right. The later you start, the tougher it is, particularly if you’re not a Christian and you’re raising your kids.

Let’s say that they grow up to be teenagers without the benefit of Christian influence, or Christian nurture and admonition, and then you come to Christ and actually want your kids to come to Christ as well. But man, now you’ve got a job if they’re already in the world. And that is basically the answer why, the answer to my dear friend’s question about why it’s so difficult. Because the world, and the devil, and the flesh are all the enemies in this battle for raising our children to serve the lord.

And God hasn’t taken away the freewill of anybody, including our children, and even though the scripture does tell us, “Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” I mean, that’s a serious scripture. That’s … Certainly there’s … It’s truth, but yet is truth that needs to be tempered with all the rest of what the Bible talks about when it comes to the subject of raising children. There’s some good folks in the Bible that their kids didn’t turn out so good, because they had freewill and they didn’t follow the good example set by their parents.

There’s a passage in Ezekiel chapter 18 that talks about the righteous man who serves God with all of this heart, mind, soul and strength, who has an unrighteous son and God doesn’t credit the son with the father’s goodness. And then, reverses that and says there’s an unrighteous man who’s wicked and evil who turns up having a righteous son.

We all know cases like this. Horrible parents who raise ungodly children, sometimes those children ultimately come to the lord and they go from wicked to righteous. They just think, “Well, I raised my kids to serve the lord and they were serving the lord, but then they turned their back on the lord.” And so, that’s the problem with freewill. People have their choices.

And so, if I was gonna give one piece of advice in this couple of minutes of this little lesson about parenting, I would say that for most you wanna teach your kids not just rules and regulations and religion and so forth. You want to teach them about the person or Jesus Christ. That is unique, because that’s where it all starts.

A lot of parents are trying to get their kids to have certain character traits and values and so forth, and that is all good, but what sets the course for all those character traits and values in all of our lives, hopefully, is the fact of what we believe about Jesus. And He’s like no other, He is, he claimed to be the son of God.

Scripture teaches us that He preexisted from eternity passed, and then became a man, then His incarnation, and He lived, and He taught, and He said things and it was God speaking, as it were. And He ultimately died for our sins, so those basic facts, if they are believed then that has ramifications in everything else that we do and think, and the course that we decide for our lives.

So I’ve run out of time on this little lesson, so I think I’ll carry on here in the very next little lesson. Because, man, parents do have a tough job in this day in age and we’re gonna talk a little bit more about that next time. Thank you so much for joining me, God bless you.

The post Why Is It So Hard to Raise Your Children to Follow the Lord? appeared first on David Servant.

In our last Little Lesson, we were talking about how to prevent or stop your child from being a brat. I thought it would be good to continue on this same theme because the principles are the same when it comes to figuring out how to get your little child to sleep all through the night. It comes down to reinforcement.

My wife and I have had three children, and we succeeded in getting them to sleep all the way through the night pretty early on. So I’m going to share my secret with you so that you can also enjoy a good night’s sleep. All right?

All right. So what happens? You bring those little babies home and, boy, are they cute. But they want to be fed every so many hours, and it doesn’t fit into your sleep schedule at all. And so they wake up crying in the middle of the night.

They want to be fed, and if you’re nursing your baby then, generally, Mom has to get up and take care of that. Although we all know there are ways around that for dads to get involved. But who wants to be doing that for months and months and months? Not me. And the more kids you have, the more you love to sleep through the night. So what do you have to do?

The Principle of Reinforcement

Well, you’ve got to use the principle of reinforcement.

You and your spouse will have to agree on this. You have to be determined that your child will not die if they go through the night without being fed, which is pretty early on. And I’m not gonna give you any number here, because I don’t wanna sound dogmatic.

But goodness, I have known parents who are waking up in the middle of the night to take care of their kids when they’re two years old, because they’ve just gotten into the habit. The kid is on that kind of a sleep cycle. They may not even want to be fed any longer, but they’re just waking up because they’re used to that. And they’re crying, and, again, they’re trying to ruin your life!

So you’ve decided that it’s not that long after your child is born that they’re not going to survive a night without eating. So they wake up in the middle of the night. You hear them crying. You and your spouse have already agreed that tonight is the first night you’re not going to feed your child.

And you lay there, and those little babies cry, and they try to break your heart. Oh my goodness, are they good at that! They scream louder, and it becomes more desperate. And if they could speak your language, they’d be saying, “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you love me? You’re not worthy to be parents if you’re going to allow me to be in this state of hunger in the middle of the night!” That’s what they’d be saying. That’s what they’re thinking, obviously.

Sticking it Out

You have to grab your spouse’s hand and say, “We decided we’re not going to feed them tonight.” And you lie there.

But here’s the test. If after 15 minutes one of you says, “I just can’t take it any longer! I’ve got to go feed that baby! That baby’s breaking my heart!” And you go in and then you feed that baby. You know what you just taught them? If you want to be fed, just scream for 15 minutes. That’s all it takes.

And that little baby has just figured that out. “Okay, now I know what I’ll do tomorrow night!” So you’ve just made your job that much harder. You’ve reinforced negative behavior. So what do you have to do? You’ve got to be tough.

Why God Made Parents Bigger Than Children

This is one reason that God made parents bigger than their children. Look in the mirror and see how big you are compared to your children and realize, “I’m bigger. I’ve got a competitive advantage over this little person. There’s no way that it’s God’s will for this little tiny child to ruin my life!” (And we talked in our previous Little Lesson about children ruining your life in the daytime!)

So if you survive that first night, your child might cry for a half hour, but eventually they’ll fall back asleep because they just tire themselves out. And in the morning when you go in there, they’re not dead! They’re still alive. They made it.

And you can feel good that you had a night where you got a little victory. And that’s a promise of better things to come.

Getting Victory

The second night—the next night—they will wake up again. This time the crying might be as long, but chances are it’s going to be shorter in duration. It’s getting a little bit easier.

So the first night is the most difficult. I think the second night is the second most difficult. And then the third night, they’re going to wake up, they’re going to cry, but they’re not going to go as long this time.

And I can’t tell you how many nights it’s going to take. For our kids, I don’t remember it being more than five nights or so. It all depends on how strong-willed the child is and what you’ve reinforced with them already.

When our kids were born, we learned to tell them, “We were here first! We already had a family before you showed up. Now, we love you, but you are not going to ruin our lives!”

And we knew that was best for us, but also best for the kids too. They need to know that they’re a part of an already existing family, and they are not the king. No, they’re not the king. Mom and Dad are the king and the queen. Okay?

A Happy, Sleeping Child

All right. It might be three, it might be four, it might be five or more nights, but the night will happen when your child won’t wake up. Because waking up hasn’t been reinforced. Waking up has not been rewarded with milk. And if there’s no reward for waking up and crying, there’s no sense waking up and crying.

And your child sleeps all through the night. And you wake up that morning, and you go, “Oh my goodness, oh my goodness! What just happened? We didn’t wake up! There was no crying.” And your first thought, of course, is, “My baby has died!”

And you rush in to make sure that that baby is still alive. And lo and behold, that baby is still alive! And voila, you have just succeeded. And you’ve learned a great principle that will pay rich dividends in your relationship with that child all the way to when they leave the nest: Reinforce behavior that you want to recur. Don’t reinforce behavior that you don’t want to recur. Okay?

All right. Thanks so much for joining me on this Little Lesson!

The post How Can You Get Your Little Child to Sleep the Entire Night and Not Wake You Up? appeared first on David Servant.

Wow, it is no easy task raising children! I’ve had the blessing of raising three. They’re all grown and married and they’re raising their own children today. As I watch them, I just think to myself, “Oh my goodness! That takes so much work and effort. Did I actually do that?” Because now as a grandfather, I don’t have what it takes any longer. I can love them and leave them and that’s about the extent of it.

But when you’re raising kids, you have the stamina. At least you hope you do. And they can be a huge challenge. They’re cute, they’re fun, but they can be demons if you let them, because they come built-in with the potential to absolutely ruin your life.

I see poor moms and dads, for example, in grocery stores, dealing with little children who are not that big but are throwing temper tantrums and screaming and making their parents’ lives just completely miserable. And those poor moms and dads, who are so embarrassed, hate even to go out in public with their kids because their kids are clearly the ones who are in charge.

Preventing or Stopping Your Child From Being a Brat

So how can you prevent that from happening? If it is happening to you, how can you put an end to it? I’m happy to tell you that I’ve got the answer that you’re looking for.

Proverbs 22:6 says that we should train up our children in the way that they should go, and when they’re old, they will not depart from it.

The key word in that verse is the word train. It reminds me of training a dog, for example. Or training any animal to do what you want that animal to do. And how do you do that? You do that by positive and by negative reinforcements. Of course the positive ones are much more fun than the negative ones.

Training Your Child with Positive and Negative Reinforcements

Whether parents realize it or not, they’re already doing this, but they’re probably having it work against them. They’re doing it the wrong way if their kids are brats or if their kids are controlling their lives and making their lives miserable.

Why do I say that? Here’s a prime example. Consider a little child who throws a temper tantrum and screams. And Mom says, “Stop that! You’re not going to get what you want.” But the child just screams louder and throws more of a tantrum. Depending on how much patience Mom has, she finally gives in. Unfortunately the more patience she has, the worse this is going to work against her.

If she lets that kid scream for three minutes and throw a temper tantrum for three minutes, guess what? If you give in after three minutes, you just taught your child that if you want something, all you have to do is scream for three minutes.

So kids learn that. They think, “I want what I want. Whatever it takes to get it, I’m going to get it. You’ve reinforced my negative behavior by giving me what I wanted when I demonstrate this negative behavior in the past and I’m going to repeat that.”

How to Respond to a Temper Tantrum

Here’s what you should do in these cases. When your child throws a temper tantrum, just completely ignore the child. If you can, walk out of the room safely. And as you do, say, “I can’t see you and I can’t hear you when you do that,” and walk out. And determine that no matter what that kid does, you’re not going to reinforce that negative behavior.

It’s really a funny thing when kids think that they can manipulate parents by holding their breath. I love that one! You have biology on your side. And hopefully you have a bigger brain than that child, and you would never be fooled by that child holding their breath as if they’re going to hold their breath until they faint and die. Their body won’t let them do that, so just look at them, smile and say, “Okay, hold your breath. You’re not going to get what you want because that’s not how this family operates.”

Ignoring that negative behavior squelches it. Kids learn pretty fast that if it doesn’t get the desired results, then there’s no sense wasting their time doing it.

How to Use Positive Incentives with Your Child

Then of course, you can use the very positive incentives. When they train the dolphins at Sea World, you notice every time that they do a flip, they come up to the surface and they give them a little bit of food.

I’m not advocating that you should withhold food from your kids, or necessarily reward them with food, because that can create a negative cycle in their life when they’re always associating good behavior with food.

But still, positive reinforcements, like praise, are effective. Everybody likes to be complimented and encouraged and praised. You can’t ever get enough of that. When your kids do right, make sure you tell them how proud you are of them and give them those hugs and kisses and reward them in any way that you can. That’s reinforcing positive behavior. Ignore the negative and reinforce the positive.

“ Whenever your kids do right, make sure you tell them how proud you are of them. —DAVID SERVANT

The Danger of Distant Rewards

There’s one thing you have to be careful of if you’ve got a rewards program going. And that is setting rewards too far out into the future.

Better to say, “If you keep your room clean, we’re going to keep track of that. And you do it seven days in a row, then there will be some positive reward.”

You can’t set the reward too far out into the future, because kids aren’t oriented way toward the future. They’re pretty much living in the here and now.

So if you say, “Well, if you’re good all through August, when it comes to Christmastime, we’re going to get you that new whatever,” kids can’t operate under that kind of incentive program as maybe adults can, thinking in a longer-term reward program.

Objections to the Rewards Mindset

Some people object to the whole rewards thing because they think it’s bribery. No, it’s not bribery. Bribery really is an enticement by giving an incentive to do evil.

Offering rewards is really imitating the Lord. He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). Nothing wrong with imitating Him on that! I’m so glad that the Lord gives us positive incentives to do what He wants us to do.

Of course, He also disciplines those whom he loves, and that’s a whole other side of it.

“ The only time you should punish your child is for defiance, not childish irresponsibility. —DAVID SERVANT

The only time you want to discipline your child, that is punish your child, is for defiance, not for childish irresponsibility and so forth. But when your child crosses the line that they clearly understand that they shouldn’t have crossed, testing to see if you will keep your word and, as you promised, punish them, you’d better follow through. That’s a real key. Be consistent. Be consistent.

We’re out of time. Thanks so much for joining me. Hope to see you next time on Little Lessons.

The post How Can You Stop or Prevent Your Child from Being a Brat? appeared first on David Servant.