This devotional is dedicated to my brother-in-law Donnie Holbrook, whose life inspired both children and adults to follow him. My husband, his younger brother, surrendered his life to Christ just days after he saw his big brother come to Jesus in 1976. You may be gone home, Dondon, but your influence in the lives you touched lives on. See you soon, brother.
Passage:
Deuteronomy 11:18-24:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%2011:18-24&version=NASB
Key Verse:
“You shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up.” Deut 11:19(NASB)
Jeryn is your typical 9-year old: lively, fun and with enough energy to get three of me going for an entire day. As she sits around while her mom and I talk, I would never imagine that she paid attention to what I do or don’t do or to what inspires me. Therefore I was surprised when she handed me a small gift bag containing her personal gift for my birthday two weeks ago. Inside it, I found something she had picked herself: a beautiful, tiny sculpture of a flying eagle coming back to her nest, where eaglets anxiously wait for their food. It’s actually the sculpture you see my baby girl holding in the picture below.
My little friend looked up at me, her face beaming with pride of her finding. Her mom proceeded to tell me that she found the sculpture in a garage sale and thought of me. She proudly used her own money to buy me the gift. Needless to say, her gift blessed my heart. But I honestly was taken by surprise that little Jeryn – busy-hopping-around Jeryn – had watched long enough to know that her mom’s friend loves eagles so much. Yes – little Jeryn may be busy playing hide and seek with my children, but she is certainly watching. And so are my two little girls. And so are your children, grand-children, nieces and nephews. Their little eyes and ears are watching. And their little feet are eager to follow you.
In the above passage in Deuteronomy, Moses instructed God’s people to obey God’s laws. He emphasized the importance of teaching them to their children. And although it seems like he was only talking about speaking truth and teaching God’s principles, I believe he meant much more than that. He encouraged the Israelites to teach them as they sat around their homes, from sun dawn to sun set and as they went by doing their daily routines. In other words, he was also admonishing them to live what they preached.
“Do what I say, but don’t do what I do”
I know that there are exceptions to this, but I believe that, for the most part, one of the reasons so many teenagers and young adults who were raised in church later rebel against God, is because they lived in a home filled with hypocrisy. I have heard that from so many people and have witnessed it in lives around me. Many of us, who go to church every week and are highly involved in ministry, are not always teaching God’s principles with our actions. Of course that we all do it to a certain degree, because we are human. Therefore at times you and I will fail to present a godly character to our children and other people in our lives. Life gets tough some days and we may get too tired or too worried about things that are happening and find ourselves having a bad attitude. If your heart is beating, that is normal, as long as these attitudes are the exception, not the rule. On days like that, we must remember we have God’s grace, repent, ask the person whom we hurt to forgive us (yes, even if it’s your 3 year old), learn the lesson and move on.
The problem is when our entire lives are the opposite of what we preach. If you make your children quote and memorize the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5, but on that same day they witness you lose your temper with their daddy over something small (for the fifth time that week), guess which lesson they learned? Yep. Not joy, peace, gentleness, patience, love, goodness and self control! They just learned that mommy does not apply the fruit of the spirit to her life.
If you go to church and shout praises to the King, close your eyes and lift your hands in worship, come home and curse them out for the smallest thing, guess what little Sally, who was standing right beside you during worship, think? Probably, “which one is my mommy, after all?”
If you are at church each time the door is open, have time to take on one more responsibility in the name of Jesus, but have no time to listen to your preteen share her struggles at school, I can almost guarantee you that she will resent church and possibly God.
The truth of the matter is – as Moses instructed God’s people on how to teach God’s statures to their children, He made it a point that they should teach them with their lives, not only with their words. If we live what we preach, if we strive to follow God with all our might, not to impress people, but to attract them to the Savior, the first ones who will want to follow us are the little ones in our lives. They will see the joy, peace and contentment that we display and their feet will be eager to follow us. And as they do, the promises of God will follow the next generation, just as He has promised the Israelites:
“(…) so that your days and the days of your sons may be multiplied on the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens remain above the earth. For if you are careful to keep all this commandment which I am commanding you to do, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and hold fast to Him, then the Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours(…)”Deut 11:21-24 (NASB – emphasis mine)
My prayer is that we will hold fast to the truth that no matter how much we proclaim the gospel, if we are not allowing our lives to be transformed by its power, we are failing. Moreover, if we serve God in whatever ministry God has called us to do, but are pushing the children in our lives away from Him because of our hypocrisy, we have certainly failed. Our ministry is first at home with our families and very especially, with our children. Because they are the next generation to further God’s kingdom and inherit His promises … or not.
Verses to memorize:
“The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:9
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23
Actions
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Ask God to show you if there is anything in your attitude that is directly opposite of what you preach with your voice. If and when God shows you, make an effort to pay attention to your actions and change them so that your walk matches your talk.
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Make an effort to be more aware that the people in your life and especially children are all ears and eyes and are constantly watching you. Ask God to help you be a godly example that will make them want to follow Jesus.
Beautifully said. Thank you for this encouragement to press on to be a woman of God. I want my family more than anyone to see Jesus in me.
Thank you my sister. I praise God for you that you are an example, I love to see how your daughter join in with you. I phant after the qualities in His word.
I was saying to myself the other day that your daughter, she should start her own site for the Sunday school children:)
Praise the Lord!! I thank God for you and His Light that shines so brightly in you…….What A Mighty God We Serve