Family Devotion Time

I'm pretty excited about sharing some new materials our family will be trying out. My husband went to the book store this week and picked this new book up for our family. I had never heard of it, but he is really excited about it. It's called "Cold Case Christianity for kids." I am so proud of my husband for taking the lead in our family devotion time and making it a priority in our family. I do most of the teaching during the day for our school time, because Dad works. It is so important that Dad is involved though especially when it comes to teaching God's word and as the head of our home he leads our family devotion time.   This book that he bought is written by J. Warner Wallace. This is the guy that also wrote the book Cold Case Christianity (the adult version.) This kids version just came out in the stores this past week. What is really cool about this book is that the author is an actual cold case homicide detective. He decided to take his methods of solving a homicide case to investigate the claims of the Bible. This is basically an apologetic book for kids, which is so desperately needed in these days that we are living. It is crucial that our children understand why they believe what they believe if they are going to make it in this world.

There is also a website that goes with the book. It has resources, such as coloring and activity sheets, notebook pages, and guides for parents to use while going through this with their family. To find a link to the web page you can Click Here.
This is a nice little certificate that each of the kids get when they complete the book.

I know I've mentioned this before, but it's something that has been on my heart, so wanted to talk a little about the importance of family devotion time. The main reason we chose to homeschool is so that we can give our children a solid Christian education and the curriculum I choose is not just for academic reasons, but I try to choose materials that will lead my children in a closer walk with the Lord. Our ultimate goal is not just to educate our children, but to disciple them. This topic of disciplining children goes far beyond homeschooling though. As Christians all parents have a responsibility not just to raise our kids, but to make disciples of them. We often stress the need for evangelism and reaching the world, but we fail to realize that as a parent the greatest calling or ministry we will ever have is to disciple our own children. Disciplining your kids doesn't mean taking them to church, sending them to Sunday School or handing them off for someone else to teach them God's word. All of those things are important and good. I'm thankful that we have a good church and my kids have classes to teach them the Bible. Ultimately though it is the job of their parents to train them in the "way they should go," to model for them the attitudes and lifestyle of a Christian, to teach them, study with them and answer the hard questions about God. I'm afraid that too many Christian parents in this nation are just assuming that their children will grow up to know Christ, because they raised their kids in church. Statistics however show that that is sadly not the case, rather the majority of kids who grow up in church walk away from the Lord once they hit college years. It's not enough to just be around Christianity and assume they are being taught by teachers. We MUST disciple our children at home.

It's our job to make sure our kids know why they believe what they believe. When kids are young they tend to just believe every thing. That's why we call it child like faith right? The problem is they don't stay children forever. The older they get the more this world will challenge that faith. The views and the secular beliefs all around them will rob them of that innocence. The older they get the more they will doubt and question. I've seen this with Sis, she's gone through periods of real questioning of what she believes. Questioning what we are being taught is good though. Acts 17:11 says that "the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians...they examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." We don't want our kids to be blind followers. Why were the Bereans considered noble? Because they didn't take the apostle Paul's word for it, they questioned what he was saying and weighed it against scripture. As our kids grow and begin to question their faith we have to be there showing them how to study the scriptures and find the truth of God's word on their own. They have to know not just that we say it is true, but why it is true.

Some times we stress so much about our children's math grades or how well they are reading. We will spend hours doing homework or trying to teach our kids different skills, but often time neglect devotion time with them. There should be nothing more important to us in this life than where our kids spend eternity. As a homeschooler I would say I spend most of my life trying to educate my kids. Their education is important to me. I spend hours lesson planning and preparing, doing experiments and providing projects for them. However, if we stop in the middle of all of this busyness to look at the big picture; What good is it if our kids get a good education, get a good job, grow up to be the best moms and dads, have beautiful families, but do not end up following Christ and spending eternity with Him? Then we missed the point! We raised our kids in a Christian home, but we did not disciple them.  I understand that I can not save my children, that is the Holy Spirit's job and it's beyond my ability. However it is my job to do everything in my power to make sure that my kids really understand the gospel and have had every opportunity to follow Christ. It is the responsibility of my husband and I to sit down and talk with them daily about the Lord, to have daily devotions with them as a family, to pray with them and answer their questions. If we neglect to do this because we are too busy with life, then we should not be surprised if our children fall away from the faith when they are on their own.

Proverbs 22:6 says "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." How many Christian parents are failing to actually train up their child though? I'll say it again, we can't assume that just because we are Christians and take our kids to church that they are being equipped to face the world when they leave home. It is getting harder and harder in the world that we live in to stand up for Christ. With ideas and beliefs that contradict Christianity becoming the norm in our society, the line between right and wrong is becoming blurred to the world. People's minds are so clouded by sin that wrong (such as abortion) seems right and right (such as standing up for marriage) seems wrong. It is naive to think that our kids will just grow up to make the right decisions, because they lived in a Christian home. We must train them. Christian parents we must make it our highest priority to teach our children the Bible. Do they understand why they believe the bible? Can they explain why the Bible is true? Are we teaching how to defend their faith? Are we teaching them how to pray? Are we worshiping with them at home? Or, are we teaching them that those are things we do at church on sunday, and other things are more important in our daily lives?

I understand it can be hard. Here we go though times when it really is a struggle to have a daily family devotion. Certain times of the year we get so busy. We go through periods of discouragement where we will stop for a while and then the Lord will deal with us and we will start back up again. We have tried different times, such as early morning before school, after dinner or just before bed, whatever works best for our schedules at that time in life. We try our best though to make family devotions a top priority. It is continually our prayer to become more consistent and not forget that this is our highest calling. If you are reading this and you have been neglecting to have a devotional time with your family I want to encourage you to start. Start small as the Lord leads you, there is nothing we can do for our children that is more important.