Wednesday, September 14, 2011
2 Timothy 3:15 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for ... rebuking.
USE THE SCRIPTURES TO REBUKE YOUR CHILDREN
We praise God for making our children wise for salvation through faith in Christ. We rejoice that through Holy Baptism He adopts them as His own, dressing them in robes of righteousness, the clothing of saints, for Jesus' sake. Yet we know our children are far from perfect. They've got an old Adam clinging to them which leads them to think, do, and say things that are, well, un-saintly. Teenagers are confronted by a special set of temptations prepared by the evil one for their downfall. There's the temptation to cave to peer pressure, to "go along with the crowd" in order to fit in, and to compromise their faith. There's the temptation to let the ungodly thinking of the world shape their attitudes instead of the Word of their Savior. The faith of young Christians, planted by the Spirit in their hearts at baptism, is subject to many a severe test!
But isn't it encouraging to hear what God's Spirit-inspired apostle writes to Timothy in the Bible passage above? The Word of God is beneficial, not only for bringing our children to faith in Jesus but also for rebuking them when they go stray from His paths. When our children allow their flesh to get the best of them, the Lord of love promises to use the Word of rebuke that we lay upon their hearts in His name to aid in leading them to godly repentance and to guide them back onto His pleasant pathways, all the way to heaven.
