Teaching The Next Generation

“…And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel.” Judges 2:10

As I was doing my Bible reading yesterday I was struck by this verse. To think about and realize that we are only one generation away from a generation that doesn’t know God is very humbling. I think about all that the people of Israel witnessed and experienced, but failed to teach the next generation about. It was such a good reminder to me of how important it is to pass on the truth of Scripture to my children. There is so much that I’ve experienced in my life that points to the goodness of God, but if I fail to teach my children about it then there might arise a generation after me that doesn’t know the LORD — which is a terrifying thought!

Teaching our children about God and all that He has done is so crucial as believers. God has blessed us with these precious souls to raise and it is our duty as parents to teach them about Him. This is an area that is easy to slack in when life gets busy, but it’s truly our most important work. There is nothing that can compare with teaching our children about God and giving them the tools they need to enter into a relationship with Him. If we fail to teach them anything, may it not be about God and His goodness!

I think one mistake that is easy for parents to make is to assume that if our children are in church that they’re being taught all that they need to be about God. To give the responsibility of teaching our children about God solely over to pastors and teachers at church would be such a disservice to our children and irresponsible of us as parents. God has placed our children in our families for a reason and if we are believers than it’s our responsibility to teach our children about Him. We have far more opportunities to teach them than just a few hours at church. They can absolutely learn about God at church — they should be — but they should also be learning about Him at home on a daily basis.

I think another mistake that is easy to make is to think that in order to teach our children about God at home, we have to set aside specific time to teach them and it has to be a special lesson that’s well planned out. Which is followed by the idea that we don’t have enough time to teach them. This makes me think of Deuteronomy 6:7 which says, “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” God wants us to teach our children about Him and His statutes at every opportunity! We don’t have to have a fancy lesson planned out every day, we just need to teach our children about God throughout each part of our day. We can teach them about God in the car, at the table, when we’re tucking them in at night, etc. We can also teach them by showing them. We can teach them by letting them see us pray and read the Bible. We can choose to play music that teaches and reminds them about God and who He is. We can use the Bible as the reason why we choose to live the way we do when they ask. When they question why we have a certain rule or why we refrain from certain activities, we can point them back to God and His Word. We can encourage Scripture memorization and model that by memorizing Scripture ourselves. We can live our lives in a way that teaches them about God — in fact we need to be!

Children are so impressionable and if we don’t teach them about The Truth — His name is Jesus — then they will be taught by someone else and they’re far too precious to hand over to the world with all of its confusion and lies. Judges 2 reminds us that our faith and obedience doesn’t automatically transfer to our children — we have to take responsibility and teach them well. We need to make sure that we’re taking our own relationship with God seriously so that we can teach our children well. They will come to us with questions that we don’t always have answers to, and when that happens then we get the opportunity to learn with them and show them how to find answers on their own. We get to be the ones to teach them about God and we shouldn’t take that lightly.

There is no guarantee that if we teach our children about God that they will grow up to have a relationship with Him, but that doesn’t make it any less of our responsibility to do so. We are called to give them a foundation — what they choose to build on it is their choice, but the foundation that we choose to build is our choice. It is my prayer that I would teach my children well. That I would remember to tell them about the goodness of God and to demonstrate for them what it looks like to love Him and follow Him all the days of my life. I pray that they would come to love Him with their whole hearts and serve Him all the days of their lives. I don’t ever want it to be written about my children that they did not know the LORD or the work that He has done in my life. I pray that we all, as parents who are believers, would remember to teach our children well that they might be a generation that loves God with their whole hearts!

What is one way that you teach and/or have taught your children about God? Do you have any fun and/or practical ways that you’ve incorporated to teach your children about Him?

Song of the Week: This week I chose “Faith, Hope, Love, Repeat” by Brandon Heath because even though he wrote it for his daughter, I have the same sentiment for my boys. Enjoy!