No one ever told you that raising a baby was so much work. Or maybe they did, but you didn't think they were serious. But, Child of God, let me tell you: There's sacrifice involved in parenting.
When we have these little babies - these little blessings from God - we don't always think about the work side of it. We don't always think of it as parenting a real person. That person will require teaching, training, discipline and correction. All we think about is how much we want a baby. But I'm telling you, friend, parenting is work.
It Starts With the Parent
The Bible says, "Oh that they had such a (mind and) heart in them always (reverently) to fear Me and keep all My commandments, that it might go well with them and with their children forever!" (Deut. 5:29)
You see, God has a purpose. He has a mission for your children. And you must realize that it's your job and your responsibility to direct them to the place that God would have them to be.
Your children's peace, joy, and everything they need concerning their childhood, adolescence, and teenage years is based on how well you obey the commandments of God. It's your lifestyle, your habits, and how well you do what you do that will affect how your children will operate in this world.
You can try to teach them one way, but if they see you doing another, they're going to adopt the behavior and actions they see. That's why we have to teach them God's way and make His Word the final authority.
Many times, we don't see the full picture. But God sees the end from the beginning, and He knows what He has called your children to do. He knows the anointing and the gifts He's placed within them.
For them to fulfill God's plan, it's our responsibility as parents to know how to shape their will without breaking their spirit - to teach and train them in an atmosphere of love, not in an atmosphere of terror, fear or condemnation.
It means we don't impose our own wants and desires on them. We can't follow our own opinions. Instead we must be led by the Lord in how we teach our children. We must base their training on the Bible.
How Do You Perceive Your Children?
Your children were not given to you by chance. God has a purpose in assigning you the children that you have. They aren't there to irritate you or to get on your nerves. He has a purpose for them.
Therefore we should be sensitive to our children and learn to understand and perceive them for who they are in God's sight. Child of God, begin to see that the end result is not how your children may be acting or what they may be doing right now. God sees them as signs and wonders in the earth. Look at them with a new perspective. View them as your heritage and your inheritance.
That's why it's so important for you to teach your children the Word of God. Help them to store up God's Word in their hearts and to lay it up as treasure so that in a time of need, they'll be able to minister and also to defend themselves by speaking to the enemy, whenever possible. That's a parent's responsibility.
Creflo and I are taking responsibility with our children. We put the Word in them daily. We have devotions, pray with them, and discipline them so that they'll know how to apply the Word in their everyday lives. We're teaching them that it's not just something to do at church.
I hated church when I was growing up. Sunday school was boring to me. The teachers were mean, the chairs were hard and I hated it. I was always looking for an opportunity to take a vacation from church. I just wanted to get away from that place. There wasn't any real instruction or an explanation about the importance of God's Word and how it could be applied to my life.
Sometimes the children of pastors and people who are in the fivefold ministry never end up serving God. It's usually because the faith and convictions that their parents had were never imparted into the children and made practical to them. The ways of God - why we tithe, why we go to church, why we do what we do - were never made real to them.
We must instill God's Word into every one of our children until they understand that His way is a way of life for their parents and for them. Teach them how to apply the Word in their lives on a daily basis so that when they go to school, they'll know how to pray for God to help them, and they'll know how to stand on the Word so that they don't walk in fear.
They Will Not Depart
The Bible says, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Prov. 22:6).
Now some people have interpreted that scripture to mean that we should train our children, and when they get to a certain age, they may turn away from the things of God, and then will return.
What God is saying here is that we are to train them so well that they never depart from it - not even for a little while. They won't stay with it until they become teenagers and then leave and come back to it once they get married. No, that's not God's perfect plan.
God said to train them up in the way they should go and when they are old they won't ever depart from it. That means He doesn't want your children to be unsaved and get beat up by the devil because they didn't get the training they needed or because they didn't understand how to live.
To train children means "to mold character, to instruct by exercise, to point in an exact direction." When you teach your children, you give them the information they need. But when you train your children, you make them responsible for what they've been taught. You make them responsible to do their chores, to do their homework, to be polite, to pray and to read the Word. You point them in the exact direction that God would have them to go.
You must teach and train them to the point where they know how to obey God and to do what He leads them to do. And one day, when the time comes for them to make a decision to be in ministry - or whatever God calls them to do - they'll be pointed in the exact direction. It will just be a matter of them being responsible and making the right decision when you fulfill your responsibility and shape them God's way.
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Taffi Dollar is a celebrated author, teacher, and well-known conference speaker. Together with her husband, Creflo Dollar, she pastors more than 30,000 active members at World Changers Church International, World Changers Church-New York, as well as a host of fellowship churches throughout the U.S. and internationally.
