"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6 (KJV)
If you want your children to grow up and be strong Christians, you need to teach them the ways now. But some are so radical that they end up chasing their children away from Christianity. So, have a balance. Let your kids be kids, but teach them the ways of the Lord. Also, if you want your kids to stay away from drugs (Who doesn't?) you need to talk to them about that too and early! I don't care if your kid is 5, start talking to them! These days kids start doing drugs at 11 or 12 sometimes... You have to work on them early to prevent that. Sex (and not doing it until marriage,) is another thing you need to talk to them about early. The bottomline is that unless YOU talk to them and instruct them they will not learn what they need to know. Two major causes of disease: drugs and sex, a lot of people that are contracting disease are people who had parents that were afraid to talk to them when they were young or just didn't care to.
And sometimes even if you teach your kids right, they will stray from the path. They'll probably come back eventually, but they might stray for a bit. I've talked about it before, when I was young I was told to stay away from drugs. And I did for awhile, but then I fell into that trap for a bit. I came out of it though, I stopped doing the drugs because I knew they were wrong. Had nobody shown any interest in me and what I do, who knows what would've happened? Maybe I would've never got straight. But I can't look at it like that because the Lord has been watching out for me. Don't be scared to say something to your kids. That's the problem with people they let their kids do whatever they want. And they think that they're loving them by doing that, but it's their kids that are going to grow up and say, "My parents never cared about me!" My cousin was in tears when he was 16 or 17 and he told me, "My dad doesn't care about me. I come in the door well past midnight and he doesn't say a word to me." I couldn't imagine that because my life was the opposite. My mother wouldn't let me do those things, she was over-protective (But I guess that's better than under-protective.) But the thing is that I can't say that my parents didn't care about me.
Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this message and for all things. Please forgive us of all our sins as we forgive all those who've sinned against us. Help those with children to teach them the ways they should go and to do it in a way that's effective. In Jesus name. A-men!
