Life Worth Investigating

Children are impressionable and parents have a great privilege and responsibility to raise them to know and honour God.  Christian parents can sabotage their efforts to teach their children about God when they reduce the relationship to rules.  There is a smug satisfaction that feeds our pride that we know and do what is right compared to a sinning, heathen world outside.  Believing sound doctrine is good, yet if pride in ourselves for a righteous stand (however costly) and still despise others without repentance we are no different than the self-righteous Pharisees who did not recognise the Saviour Jesus Christ who walked among them.  It is not doing one thing rather than another that makes us acceptable in the eyes of God but faith in Christ who regenerates us and empowers us by the Holy Spirit to walk in love.

After the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, God commanded His people to continually teach their children about Him, His word and all He had done for them.  They were to follow God's commandments in accordance to the covenant He made with them.  Deuteronomy 6:20-24 reads, "When your son asks you in time to come, saying, 'What is the meaning of the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which the LORD our God has commanded you?' ²¹ then you shall say to your son: 'We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand; ²² and the LORD showed signs and wonders before our eyes, great and severe, against Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household. ²³ Then He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in, to give us the land of which He swore to our fathers. ²⁴ And the LORD commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is this day."  This directive is so insightful on how to instruct our children to follow God and exposes common pitfalls in raising godly children who continue on to maturity in faith.

Notice the transfer of knowledge does not begin with the parent telling the child what is right or wrong but the child, seeing the God-honouring conduct of his or her parents, is curious to know the meaning of God's word and why they follow God at all.  We fail in our witness to our kids and others when our "faith" in God is little more than words, esteeming agreement with certain doctrines and being heavy on what we reject.  These "anti" views are established as ideology within impressionable minds that might actually lack a relationship with the living God.  Zealous as devout Pharisees, these little ones at a young age are keen to reject dressing up for Halloween or promoting Santa Claus; they will hold signs protesting abortion and help feed the homeless.  They will for a time follow their parent's example to avoid distasteful movies or music.  However, a day will come when a child begins to question the ideology of their parents as they think for themselves.  Like the second generation of Hebrews in Canaan who did not know the LORD, a vast majority of these "churched" kids will know Bible trivia and stories but never know God personally.

Contrast this lamentable situation with the passage in Deuteronomy 6:  children were moved to ask their parents the meaning of God's testimonies, statues and judgments He commanded them.  The explanation of the parents is different than the explanation we might give because it starts with a personal testimony of who God is and all He had done for them.  The parents recalled the time when they were slaves in Egypt and how God brought them out with a mighty hand, with signs and wonders they witnessed with their eyes.  God brought them out of Egypt to bring them into a land He promised to give them.  Since God saved them and was their Sovereign, they observed His commands and feared the LORD their God because their lives depended on Him.  The God who was faithful to deliver them in the past would protect and provide for all their needs, now and forever.  Their answer was not an ideology, philosophy or tradition that included God, but their lives provided evidence of God's personal connection with them.

It is one thing to have a testimony of God's goodness, faithfulness and love from scripture, but do you have a life which is lived by faith in obedience to Christ's commands?  A verbal testimony is only of value when our lives are first lived unto the LORD.  The teaching of Jesus was confirmed by the miraculous works He did:  the two went together like faith and works.  James wrote that faith without works is dead, and we can conclude if faith is dead it has not regenerated a soul to eternal life.  James 2:17-18 states, "Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. ¹⁸ But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works."  Words and works by themselves are nothing, yet if our faith in God is genuine our lives will be marked by words and works which honour Him, by love for one another as Jesus loves us.  It is important we and our children believe the word of truth, yet how can we claim to believe what we do not adhere to ourselves?

A little girl of 4 years old impacted me by something she said about a movie.  "I don't like that movie because it has bird-killing," she said.  "Why should birds be killed when they should be free?"  It dawned on me if she had raised on a farm and viewed chickens and ducks as a primary food source for survival her views likely would have been different.  She had been fed an ideology by her parents, and we can do the same thing with Jesus Christ that can pass as faith for awhile.  Over time her views may lead her to be a vegetarian, or perhaps in her adulthood she would look back upon it as a silly phase of life--and this happens concerning Jesus and the Gospel as well.  If we will train our children in the way we should go, we must first live lives worthy of investigation because we have a relationship with the almighty God and our lives are aligned with the fear of God and the glory of His name.  We are not called to act differently from the world:  having been born again by faith in Jesus Christ our LORD and Saviour we will be different because we have been transformed by God.  Ideology or belief in itself never saved a soul.  A relationship with the living God which impacts daily life is what all saved souls share in common.