It is vitally important that you really know Jesus Christ personally as your Lord and Savior, and that you are living for and serving Him. You can't very well raise your kids to serve the lord if you don't serve Him, too.

One minister we know was sitting around with friends back during his Bible school days. They were all taking turns telling about their personal experience with the Lord. When they got to the last fellow, he just said, "Oh, I was always saved; I was born in a Christian home."

Maybe you too were born in a Christian home, but that won't make anybody a Christian. No matter where you were born, you were born into sin. It makes no difference how good your mom and dad may have been; you were still born into sin. There comes a time in your life when you have to repent of your sins and say, "Lord, I'm a sinner, so please forgive me." You have to experience salvation for yourself.

God has no grandchildren - only sons and daughters! It doesn't matter if you were baptized as an infant or if you went to church every time the doors were open.

You may have looked like a Christian and acted like one. You may have attended church and Sunday school all your life, and you may know the Bible inside out. But you can never really experience God's presence in your heart until you have confessed your sins and accepted His forgiveness.

You have to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior before you can be a true Christian, a born-again child of God.

You have to pray a simple prayer like this:

Jesus, I don't know You, but I want to. The Bible says You died on the cross to save sinners. Lord, I'm a sinner, so I ask You to forgive my sins and put Your Holy Spirit in me to help me live as You want me to live.
Thank You, Lord, for Your forgiveness and for making me a brand-new person.

A little prayer like that - if you prayed it with a sincere heart and meant every word of it - opens the gates of heaven for you.

Second Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6).

If you really want to raise your children to serve the Lord, the first thing you have to do is serve Him yourself.

Source: How To Raise Your Kids In Troubled Times by Buddy & Pat Harrison.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers