Power Point - January 24, 2006
But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. … Therefore, brethren be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly in the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. --2 Peter 1:5-11
How can you stay together as a rock-solid family when everything around us in the world seems to be coming apart? Teenagers and children today face pressures and problems perhaps like never before. There are several trouble spots that young people have to deal with today: peer pressure, broken relationships, attitude, boredom, learning, self-esteem and image, mind-altering drugs, and sex.
With all of these problems, what is a parent to do? How can we keep our children from stumbling and falling? What can we do to keep them rock solid in their faith? There are three ways to do this as a parent — by loving them, encouraging them, and enabling them. Youth and children today need affection and a warm embrace, constant affirmation through words of blessing and praise, and godly counsel from that will enable them to stand strong against temptation.
Give your children time to grow in the Lord and don’t expect perfection because this is a process. Learn together as a family about faith, moral excellence, spiritual understanding, self-control, patient endurance, godliness, compassion, and love through the Word of God. A key verse for parents is found in Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go. When he’s old, he’ll not depart from it.”
Laugh together as a family. Things don’t always have to be so serious in your home. Make it a home full of joy. But pray diligently and unceasingly for your children. The Scripture says to pour your heart out for them before God daily and lift your hands toward Him for the life of your children (see Lamentations 2:19). If you do these things, you’ll be able to stand before God in the eternal Kingdom and say, “Father, we’re all here together and we were rock solid in our faith for You.”
BUILD YOUR FAMILY UPON THE SOLID ROCK WHO IS JESUS CHRIST.
