The nightly news is filled with tragic stories of young men and women who at an early age have committed acts of brutality and rebellion. On a recent broadcast one expert was observing that more and more even after being convicted, and sentenced for serious crimes many of today’s young people demonstrate no remorse or sense of shame when called to account for their deeds.
I’m afraid that this tendency is not limited to the hardened criminals of our society but even among young people in the church we can see lies told casually, immorality embraced, intoxication delighted in, laws broken, authorities mocked and rebellion admired. While it is true that the young of all periods of history have struggled I’m afraid what the young are allowed to struggle with in this age is much more threatening to their eternal welfare than the rebellious of the last generation ever dreamed of.
There are certainly many factors which account for this (some within and some outside of our control). However, it seems to me that there are a few things that we can do while children are very young to help preserve a tender conscience within them.
1. Nurture within them the understanding of their accountability to God. Behaving a certain way because a child’s parents demand it has it’s limitations. As soon as a child realizes that Mom and Dad don’t always know what they do, all the instruction in the world may “go out the window.” The human soul must realize that God watches over our actions at all times in order to govern our own behavior as we should.
2. Don’t treat rebellion lightly. When a little child looks in the face of their parents and defiantly tells them “no”, or deliberately disobeys a parent’s clear instruction they are planting the microscopic seeds which one day will produce the spirit that looks in the face of God and rejects His counsel. Certainly there will be rebellions, and I’m not saying we should treat each incident as if it is the “end of the world”. However, we must let children know that it is a serious matter to reject the authority which God has placed over us whether it be parents, teachers, our elders, civil authorities or Scripture itself.
3. Don’t let the world dictate what you will tolerate from your children. I’m not sure why it is but over the last few decades there has been a dramatic change in our expectations of the kind of behavior children are capable of. The world tells us “you just can’t expect a little child to behave themselves.” As a result when the parents don’t expect a certain behavior, it doesn’t occur. Certainly parents have been guilty of communicating to their children that they “aren’t good enough” (I’m not advocating that). What we must do is look to Scripture and determine for ourselves the kind of behavior God expects of His children and exercise the loving yet forceful influence we should to help produce that behavior in our children.
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