A Parents Role in Raising Godly Children



A Parent’s Role in Raising Godly Children (part 1)

It is God’s requirement of parents to teach their children three main points to raise God fearing progeny: Respect for others, personal responsibility, and the fear of God in the affairs of men

My Dad, may Yahweh bless him, did teach me two of these lessons very well in my earliest and most influential years. Dad taught me respect for him and personal responsibility. Unfortunately he coached these from the rotten foundation of force, a, “do it because I’m bigger than you and can make you” emphasis, rather than from what is true. And once I grew large enough, and embittered enough, I lost all respect for his lessons and him. Dad had been very wrong.

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At first I loved my Dad so very much and we got along as a father and son should. I remember well our love for each other then. And Dad constantly was complimented about the model behavior my sister and I showed everyone we met. But when Dad divorced my Mom and married another woman, he gave up disciplining me himself. My Dad’s new wife then adopted my sister and me, as Dad had made sure my Mom was nowhere to be found.

My new mother, Gudrun, did not have the example of Godly discipline in her life my Dad had from his, from the nanny that had raised him. Dad’s nanny was a Godly woman and didn’t let him “get away with” anything, as a little boy shouldn’t. And that was the way I was raised – to be a well mannered and polite young man.

At least that was true until I turned six and then I learned something very wrong. I learned that what Dad meant by “respect” was only given to people who earned it. Once Dad handed over discipline to Gudrun he started to be abusive and harsh. My new Mom was terrible in the way she would wait to discipline until she was so angry she exploded in fury and then would abuse my sister and me terribly. To some of her defense she had been abused by some monstrous Roman Catholic Nuns while living as a child in post-war Germany, but no excuse can justify the torture of a little boy. Gudrun would get so angry with me she would hit me with bent wire coat hangers, hiding the wounds from my Dad and lying about the way she treated me. My sister tried to defend me but she was only a year older. So many times all she could do was watch in horror and mourn; to this day she cannot forgive Gudrun how she terrorized me. What my sister does not yet understand is that God commands His children to forgive, or we will not be forgiven by Him. He does this to encourage our compliance, for our own good.

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So, knowing I had to forgive, that God could enable me to forgive, that I could let all that evil go and love her anyway, truly relieved me of a terrible burden and made a way for me to love anyone unconditionally, where all I could do previously was seethe in my hatred of her and my Dad. Unforgiveness is the worst result of a tortured mind as it imprisons better than any facility on the earth could, and as it wounds more deeply than any beating could. And hatred ensures the one who carries murder in their hearts can never be forgiven of their sins by God. Hatred snares the soul forever, unless you repent of it completely.

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God did not leave me there in that impregnable prison. Inexplicably, God delivered my wounded soul from my prison by the hands of complete. These strangers had come all the way from a mission field in another continent, only to find themselves ministering to a damaged and vicious young man. They even begged God to relieve them of me, as I was a terrible beast, but He would not. And so they yielded seven years of their lives to my rescue. They willingly surrendered to God’s love for me.

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A Parent’s Role in Raising Godly Children (part 2)

It is God’s requirement of parents to teach their children three main points to raise God fearing progeny: Respect for others, personal responsibility, and the fear of God in the affairs of men

(Continued)

And these kind people taught me what I should have learned from my Mom and Dad.

Lee and Kathy Headley taught me that all authority is not earned but God given, that men are personally responsible to God for all they do, and that respect for another can only result from not just a changed man, but a new man. They explained to me that no man can earn God’s favor, that he cannot pay for his crimes against God, and that all violations of God’s Laws are against God Himself. Every sin, whether against man or God, is all against God, the one who made every man. I was taught that all men have to, I had to, answer personally to our Creator, whether we liked it or not.

God is not subject to our opinions; God is not concerned with our approval; and God will have His way.

But I was also taught that this God, who will hold every man to the LETTER of the Law; this God who will hold a single violation as seemingly minor as a lie the same, for it has the same punishment, as the most heinous murder: for He judges the hearts of men. And the heart of every man, my heart, is desperately and irretrievably evil: I had to be given a new heart.

I also learned that this same God, who is so terribly strict, had also made a Merciful Way that cannot be understood in the extent of the forgiveness He shows, this side of eternity. This same God, who killed seemingly without mercy, is the God who sent His own Son to die for those same murderers and lost souls he killed and had killed: for me and my lost, self-centered, tortured soul.

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I was at quite an impasse over this seeming dichotomy, for quite some time. I could not understand my own depravity and God’s mercy, His harshness and my desire to be right with Him. These mysteries caused many sleepless weeks for me, many long nights of talking, yelling, screaming at, and with, Lee and his near endlessly patient wife, Kathy. But God’s Word prevails, always, when preached unequivocally, with such honesty and unmerited compassion.

One day I did see. I did finally understand how God had to satisfy the letter of the Law with the Blood of His own perfect, sinless Son. I did finally grasp how I can live under the Spirit of the Law, in His merciful Grace, once attained through my forsaking of all my crimes, delivering myself to His will.

Once understood, once preached clearly with that Law to the Proud, Grace to the Humble thesis Jesus used so often and explained so many times; it would seem no man would, no sane man could, reject so great a salvation.

And yet I have learned some still do. That is the greatest, most horrifying mystery of all to me. And I see this rejection of so tender a mercy as has no equal, has roots in the lessons of childhood.

All parents have a duty to their children to be the stewards of their little souls, while they are theirs to protect. In those few years of influence we must be faithful to them and to our Creator, to teach every precept, every truth, not missing any if we can. But, if we will but be faithful in passing on these three simple, yet profoundly important, points, we will do very well in preparing our children to be Godly men and women:

1. ALL authority is God Given, not earned.

2. All deserve our respect, regardless of their actions.

3. We shall be personally accountable to our Creator for our every thought, word and deed.

No man, who is not a fool, can deny God, every wise man fears authority as God’s hand, and all men know respect is given; yet few men know the value of unearned favor.

The wages of sin is death, but the free gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Yes, Dad, there is more to that verse.

All will be wise to learn and teach these things… not one parent would desire their Hell for their children. See that these little ones avoid the Lake of Fire at all costs or you will answer for it to God HIMSELF.

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