Instructing in Righteousness

Being a parent is a huge commitment. Being a Christian parent is an even bigger commitment. We hold our children’s hands, and we lead them into this big life. But where are we leading them? As the name of the old poem says, children learn what they live. Kids absorb more by watching a parent’s life than from listening to what that same parent tells them to do. “Do as I say, not as I do” just doesn’t cut it.

For the parent who rents movies and copies them, what is your child learning? He is learning that the sin of stealing isn’t really that bad, as long as you don’t physically TAKE something from a store. Or do you wish them to learn that rules apply to every one but you?

The mother who spends well beyond the monthly household budget, all the in the name of keeping her hair and nails perfectly done, her daughters learn that beauty is more important than anything else.

For the man who takes his family to church on Sundays because it’s the right thing to do, but tells his wife and kids that it’s fine but you don’t have to live your life by it, his children learn hypocrisy.

For the divorced mother who spends her weekends seeking men, and gets sexually involved with them, her children learn that the marriage covenant means nothing, and sexual purity is a waste of time.

And why do parents do these things? Can we not see that we will reap what we sow?

~ by Momma Knows on September 28, 2008.