LoveQuest Incorporated

LoveQuest Incorporated © All rights reserved.

358 Avery Landing  Augusta, GA 30907

Because Your Family Matters​

There are little eyes upon you and they’re watching night and day;
There are little ears that quickly take in every word you say.
There are little hands all eager to do anything you do
And a little boy or girl who’s dreaming of the day they’ll be like you.

You’re the little fellow’s idol, and you’re the wisest of the wise.
In his little mind about you no suspicions ever rise.
He believes in you devoutly; holds that all you say and do,
He will ever say and do, in your way
When he’s a grown-up just like you.

There’s a wide-eyed little fellow, who believes you’re always right
And his ears are always open, and he watches day and night;
You are setting an example, every day in all you do,
For the little one who’s waiting to grow up to be like you.

Author Unknown

          ​Child training became a whole lot easier for me when I came to understand that God intends for us to train our children the same way He does His.  He is the perfect parent, and we can trace His child training model through the Scriptures with confidence and accuracy.  I want to restate and emphasize that our goal as parents is not simply behavior modification.  We are endeavoring to teach and inspire a child to build and maintain a heart for God out of which will flow righteous behavior and growing maturity.  There is more to training up a child than just giving him a new set of rules to live by. We want to teach him how to plunge into a deep relationship and walk with Jesus Christ so that he serves God out of desire and delight instead of duty and drudgery.  Many parents, though Christians for years, have never come to fully understand and embrace the grace of God in their own walk.  Consequently, they lack peace and their walk with God has been sporadic all of their Christian lives.  If that’s your case, this study is going to be as liberating for you as it is instructional.  So, let’s get started.

Understanding the Nature of Your Child

            Mankind was originally created in the image of God and he was told to be fruitful and multiply replenishing the earth.1 So God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden, a perfect world.  However, trouble was not far away.  You know the story.  The Serpent (Satan) shows up, tempts Eve, she partakes of the forbidden fruit, and then gives some to Adam who eats his fill.  Because these two were the origin of mankind, their rebellion against God allowed sin to permeate the entire race.  From that point forward mankind was a fallen race stained with sin and separated in rebellion from a holy God.2

           Therefore, every one born after Adam is born in sin and subject to the lower sin nature.  The Apostle Paul describes it this way: “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”3  King David acknowledges the same sin and depravity in his Psalm of repentance following the Bathsheba incident.  “Behold, I was shaped in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”4 He’s not talking about the morality of his mother at the time of his conception. David is referring to the innate depravity of mankind. Now all who come after Adam, though originally created in the image of God, are reproduced in the image of fallen Adam.  “And Adam lived to be a hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth.”5

          Therefore, each child born to the human race now is born with a lower sin nature that is rebellious against God and all authority from birth.  This Scriptural teaching is directly opposed to secular thought that contends a child to be a clean slate, basically good in its nature and intent, or at least evolving to that state.  The bible is very clear; regardless of environment or influence a child is born with foolishness (wickedness and rebellion) in his heart.6  This concept is of vital importance because it is the very foundation and truth upon which we will build a biblical child training strategy.  Worldly strategies and their beliefs hang upon the humanistic supposition that man is basically good and in the right environment (i.e., positive reinforcement) he will ultimately excel.  Yet the Word of God tells us that man is born in sin and will self-destruct if left to himself.   Sin holds dominion over him, and he must have help from outside to overcome the destructive powers that lie within him.  This happens for our children as you and I become instruments in the hands of almighty God to begin to prepare and shape their hearts for the day when they welcome Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into their young hearts and the grace of God sets them free from the law of sin and death.

The Role of Parents

          The primary role of parents is to provide the external help needed to bring the will of the child into submission and then to teach the child how to control that will by submitting it to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.  “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself brings his mother to shame.” Proverbs 29:15 The phrase “left to himself” in the original language is a picture of animals allowed to pasture without restraint or fences.  The result is stray sheep that are malnourished and undisciplined.

          A child that has not had his will brought into submission by his parents will be subject to struggle with that will for the rest of his life.  When it is time for him to control it himself, it will rule him with an iron hand.  Neglected, unrestrained children are insecure and angry children as their source of love and security in the early years is centered around the loving restraints of parents.  Uncontrollable rebellion in the teen years is primarily due to a failure of parents to provide proper restraints in childhood.  In fact, many children (not all) declared to be “strong-willed” have, as we will see, been taught to be so by their parents.  Surely, as adults and parents, we can all look back and wish that our parents had exercised more discipline with us as we struggle today to control certain areas of our lives.

          The command of Scripture is to “Train up a child in the way he should go . . .”. Securing the will of the child is just the first step in responsible child training.  The Hebrew word for “train” is translated other places in the Bible as “dedicate”, and it means to place something on a selected pathway.  Parenting has been for many just a nudge in the general direction desired.  However, Godly parenting is so much more than that. We are to train our children, to point them toward a specific life purpose (loving the Lord Jesus Christ with all their heart, and all their soul, and all their strength), and to launch them like a bullet towards its target.

          A young dad was attending one of our parenting seminars. During a question-and-answer session he voiced some serious concerns.  He started by describing a near perfect son in his childhood and early teen years.  But suddenly, and almost without notice, the young man seemed as if “someone had put a giant syringe in his ear and sucked out all of his brains.” (His dad’s words.) His grades dropped and he suddenly hated his parents.  It seemed as though his whole attitude had become negative, and the direction of his whole life had changed.  The perplexed father ended his description by saying, “All this child training stuff looks good on paper, but it doesn’t really work. My boy grew up in a Christian home, was in church every time the doors opened, and was educated in the finest Christian school in the area. Look at him now.”

          What happened here? Why did this child turn out the way he did?  Further investigation revealed that these wonderful Christian parents had mistaken telling and exposure for training.  Training, by definition, requires that the person being trained be able to actually perform at a certain skill proficiently.  Just telling a child what is right is not training, nor is simply exposing them to a Christian home or educating them in a church or Christian school.  Christian education is so much more than academics.  It embraces the very heart and character of the child.  The finest Christian surroundings and schooling will be ineffective if the child has not been trained to respect and obey authority.  J. Richard Fugate, the director of the Foundation for Biblical Research and author of “What the Bible Says About Child Training”, writes this concerning the role of parents:

          "If you desire for your child to become obedient and willing to accept God’s standards as his own, you will have to utilize the process that God has designed to obtain these results.  Biblical child training produces a quality character much different than would have naturally developed had the child been left alone to grow up according to his own nature."7

           The role of parents is to become a tool in the hands of God used to train their children to demonstrate with skill the character of Christ.  This involves restraining the child’s natural tendencies to rebel against authority, and it involves teaching, discipling, and mentoring him along the correct path of life.  As parents we restrain with external force, and then we teach toward control with internal power from above as a love for Christ grows within the child.  

          When parents fail to train their children, it does not condemn them or their children to hell.  But what it does is forfeit many years of delight available to parents who endure in their child training roles.  Parents who fail, whether by default, by neglect, or by a failure to develop the appropriate skills, are subject to many hours of pain, suffering, and sorrow as they see life potential slip away from their own lives and the lives of their children.

Basic Biblical Child Training

            Child training is the process used by parents that will cause a child to reach the objective for which he has been trained.8  If a military recruit completes his basic training and is still unable to perform the basic skills of a soldier, he is recycled.  He has not been trained.  Similarly, child training should produce a young adult competent in basic life skills commensurate with biblical objectives.  Anything short of that and the child has not been trained.  So, how is this done? How may we ensure that our training efforts for our children will ultimately be effective? It really isn’t as hard as you might think.  I will develop for you a biblical model, that is, a plan that will direct your training and will serve as a plumb line to help you evaluate your progress and determine the appropriate steps for you to take in almost any difficult situation.

            As the Hebrews came out of Egypt and started their journey towards the Promised Land, they first had to travel through the wilderness.  In the wilderness they were given the Law of God and were tried and tested multiple times.  Under the Law they were burdened by rules, regulations, ceremonies, and Sabbaths, all of which were designed to show them the awesome power of God and the total depravity of man.  The Law was never designed to save anyone.  It was designed to bring death to all men.  Not physical death, but but the recognition of a spiritual death whereby man was convinced that the only way out for him was to surrender his will to God and cry out for grace and mercy.  Once the Law has done its job, then grace takes over and accomplishes with inward power what the Law could not do with outward effort. “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”  Romans 8:3, 4

            God’s process with man is basically two-fold: Law and Grace.  Law brings death and brokenness, and grace brings life and power.  This process, then, becomes our model for training our own children.  First comes a time of law, followed by a time of grace.  The time of law is characterized by outward control and restraint. It is designed to bring the will of the child into submission to the authority of the parents just as man must submit his will unto God. During this time, “because I said so” is a perfectly good answer. For this part of his training the goal for the child is "instant obedience with no backtalk." Failure to control the child during this time will set him and you up for failure during the teaching time. You will never be able to teach a child that is out of control. To be clear, you are not trying to break the will of the child. A broken will yields a wounded spirit. The writer of Proverbs tells us, " The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear?" (18:14)  Brokenness in the life of the believer simply means that the person has submitted his will to God. Your goal is to have your child submit his will to your authority as a parent the same way God requires us to submit our lives to His will in order to be saved and experience the abundant life we are promised in Christ. The person who fails to submit to God in humility, disqualifies himself for the grace God has prepared and secured for his eternal salvation. James tells us, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." (4:6) Grace granted to an unbroken person, a person who lacks humility, will yield license not obedience. God inspired brokenness always manifests itself in submission, not destruction of the will.

            The time of grace is a time of teaching and mentoring.  During this period of training, we teach them the fundamental biblical principles behind the standards we live by.  The U.S. military has long understood the process of restraint and then teaching.  A young recruit is immediately taken through a series of events that are all designed to bring his will into submission. This is so that his superiors can be assured he will follow procedure and orders that will one day make him a great warrior and an asset to his fighting group as a vital team member.

​

​          A failure to recognize and honor these two stages of child training will result in a diminished or failed training experience.                       Herein lies the two most common causes for failed parenting.  First, a failure to control or restrain the child during that time of training will result in an inability to teach or mentor the child.  You can’t teach a child that is out of control.  The wise parent understands that the issue here is not the child’s creative abilities or his ability to show initiative.  The issue is who is in control.  Restraining the will of a child will not hinder or stifle his creativity, it will release it.  A lack of restraint will allow the natural propensity toward sin in us all to cloud and cloak his creativity.  Paul said, “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”9 Genuine liberty is not the ability to do what you want, it is the power to do what you ought!  When a child’s God-given creativity is submitted to the power of the Holy Spirit, his possibilities are endless.  However, if he never learns how to submit himself, first to his parents, and then to God, he’ll never know what that power is like, and he will live his life in bondage to his own desires and narcissistic tendencies and behaviors.  

          Second, a failure to transition from control to teaching as the child moves from one stage of his life to another will incite rebellion where there was none. Around the median age of twelve years a child transitions through what we call “The Age of Teachable Readiness”.  This is a time that varies from child to child and may be as early as eight or nine, especially for young girls.  At this point they are asking out of genuine curiosity for the “reasons behind the rules” and it’s time to tell them.  The teaching time has begun.  This is a time for building relationships with your children that will last a lifetime.  As they enter this stage of life, “because I said so” is no longer valid. It leaves them frustrated and searching for answers.  If you don’t provide those answers, they’ll get them elsewhere, and you have lost their trust and their ears.  On the other hand, if you are ready and willing to take the time to share solid biblical principles, they are all ears, and you are scoring big points. As their training progresses, your adolescent will come to realize the cause and effect sequences written by God into the universe and will recognize the logic and wisdom of the Scriptures. Many times the result will be standards set for themselves that are higher than your own.

          Teaching time is a time of grace where their internal controls begin to come online.  If we have been effective during the control time, the teaching time can be a delight as we watch the emergence of a young champion. The most difficult part of teaching comes when you must grant new freedoms with demonstrated responsibility on the part of the teen.  You, as a parent, are relinquishing control and trusting the child to make proper decisions.  This is a vital and necessary step if the child is to mature, but it plays on every fear in the heart of parents, especially mothers.10  The temptation is to try to retain control and protect the child from every danger by increasing the rules to the point that your fear is relieved.  The problem lies in the fact that you will never make enough rules to cover every temptation or opportunity to sin that the child faces.  We must convey wisdom, understanding, and knowledge, not just more rules.   

          The imposition of law as a substitute for your lack of teaching and willingness to trust will foster rebellion in even the most compliant child.  Nothing frustrates adolescents more and destroys teen/parent relationships faster than parents who refuse to grant increased privileges when trustworthiness and responsibility are demonstrated by faithful teens. Yes, the Bible does exhort children, teens included, to obey their parents, but it also exhorts parents not to exasperate or provoke their children.11 They will make mistakes; you and I did. But there’s often more to learn in failure than success and God’s grace will be sufficient.  (Gross stupidity included.)

          I was in a parenting conference explaining why parents should have a solid reason if they are saying “no” to the requests of their teens and how life situations should be seized as teaching opportunities.  Suddenly a dad with teenagers shouted out, “I don’t have to explain anything to my teens, God doesn’t explain Himself to anyone!”  On the contrary, God beckons us to ask!  The first chapter of James challenges us to ask of God when we don’t understand.  “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him”.12  Wisdom is the ability to see things from God’s point of view.  Jesus certainly had times of structured teaching for His disciples, but his primary format for mentoring was dealing with life situations as they presented themselves day to day.  If we want our children to take our faith as their own, like Jesus, we must be prepared to teach at a moment’s notice.

Foot Notes:

1. “So God created men in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them.” Genesis 1:27
2.“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned . . .” Romans 5:12
3. Romans 7:21-22
4. Psalm 51:5  
5. Genesis 5:3 
6. “The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.” Psalm 58:3.  Again in Proverbs this is confirmed, “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child . . .” Proverbs 22:5.
7. What the Bible Says About Child Training, J. Richard Fugate, Foundation for Biblical Research, Copyright 1980, 1996, page 84.
8. Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. , “training”
9. 2 Corinthians 3:17
10. Genesis 3:16 explains that part of the consequences of the fall of man is that the woman will bring forth children with pain. To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children . . .”.  Author and conference speaker Bill Gothard feels that this includes, not just pain in actual childbirth, but a heightened sensitivity to the pain, emotions, fears, etc. associated with each child as it grows up. Perhaps this is one reason a mother seems to experience a child’s pain and emotions more that a father and typically struggles with greater fear when the time comes to grant greater freedom and responsibility to the child.
11. “And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.” Ephesians 6:4
12. James 1:5

 

​Basic Training For Your Young Champion