Raise Your Children to Follow Jesus

In our current popular culture there seems to be a distrust of people who train their children to follow in the same faith as they.

This is simply wrong.

As Christians, we should train our children to follow Christ. Think about it for a moment – if we really believe the Bible is true, we may be effectively damning our own children if we fail to do this!

In the past I have occasionally discounted the value of Christian culture (or subculture as it may be). However, in retrospect, it is clear that my upbringing set the stage for me to understand the Good News of Jesus and to follow him. I owe my parents, grandparents, church, and Jesus a debt I can’t begin to understand. I am grateful for what they did and the way they did it.

I had seasons of questioning. I even a season where I turned away (at least in practice) from the Faith – a season that was truly dark and painful and would have certainly led to death. It was at the end of that season that I, by the grace of God, made a profound turn back to the Faith.

It didn’t stop there

I’ve never turned off my brain. I still examine life critically and believe God wants it to be so. I still learn as much as I can from wherever I can learn. I still examine my faith – and find myself growing because of it.

But I need to be clear about this, I was raised to follow Jesus. I grew up in a culture where the concepts of sin and redemption were vibrant and expressed and was surrounded by people who were believers in and followers of Christ.

We need to do the same for our children and teach them to do it for theirs. At the very least, we set the stage for them to readily understand the Gospel. And who knows, we might be part of giving them the only gift that is really worth having.