Our Children's Role Model

Our children and teenagers are watching everything we do. In today's post on fighting for our children from a culture that wants to suck them in to immorality, I want to build on yesterday's message. I'll use 2 verses:

Deuteronomy 6:5-7a

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children.

Matthew 24:38

For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen...

So how do these two verses converge? How do these verses teach us about protecting our children from the enemy?

Jesus is describing life prior to the flood in Noah's day. Notice He does not condemn eating, drinking and marrying etc... What He's pointing out is that God was no where to be found in the lives of the people who were eating, drinking and marrying. God was not a part of their life. They were completely indifferent to the God who loved and created them. Yet catastrophe would be just around the corner...

What a lesson for us today. In the walk of everyday life, our actions, our attitude, our words and our decisions convey our heart attitude toward God. Are we living out what we learn on Sunday morning? Are we setting the example of the priority of personal prayer and Bible reading to our children? Are our children seeing us turning to God in times of trouble? How are they seeing us respond to the lunatic that cuts us off in traffic?

Let me give you an example: When I was in high school, my mother always had her nails done every two weeks. When she stopped having them done, I inquired. When she realized that she was spending more on her nails than her tithe to the church each month - she stopped. This is living out the Word in a practical way!

I'll give you another example: We used to go on big family vacations. There is not a morning in my childhood that I cannot remember my mother reading her Bible. On one family vacation, a family member was surprised that my mom had brought her Bible. My mom chuckled and said, "God goes on vacation too!" Do you see what I mean? This was her life - not her add-on. This lifestyle, in turn gave me a reverence for God and His Words.

I don't know about you, but I want to be my daughter and my son's role model - not the teenagers on Disney. When Will begins to think about picking a wife - I want to him to pick a Proverbs 31 woman. (She's amazing!) And I want Caroline to learn to BE a Proverbs 31 woman. How can they learn this, unless it's lived out in front of them day after day?

Notice that Deuteronomy says that the commandments are to be upon our hearts - then we are to impress them upon our children.

Do you see... it starts with us! From how we dress - to how we talk - to how we are entertained - to what we watch on TV - to how we respond - to how we live. If in utter frustration, I speed off in my car, well, I can expect my kids to respond the same way when they are 16 and are in a frustrating situation. If I'm putting on my mascara behind the wheel and driving down the road, I can expect Caroline to be doing the same thing one day. If I'm a big drinker and a party girl, I can expect my children to follow suit. If I dress like the hoochie-mama, Caroline will too and Will will be drawn to slutty looking girls.

Our children desperately need biblical role models in a morally and spiritually corrupt world. They need a holy fear of God's Word - not indifference or nominal Christianity that sadly, we too frequently see.

So how will you respond? Are you willing to be the Biblical role model that our children so desperately need? I told you this wasn't going to be easy. Some of this might require lifestyle change for some of you. Oh girlfriend, do it! The character and purity of our children are at stake.