True Woman - More than a list

Nancy Leigh DeMoss's next devotional starts with this inbox teaser:

More Than a List

We send our kids to school. We give them piano lessons. We put them on sports teams. But who’s teaching them about modesty?*

• There are formal, structured times to teach your children the ways of God, but more is taught in the course of everyday life using teachable moments and opportunities.
• Ask your children questions so they can discover truth themselves. Then they will have ownership of it and it will be much more valuable.
• If your children's hearts are to please the Lord and to make choices that are based on the Word of God, then they won't just conform to a list that you’ve come up with, but will become difference-makers in their culture and in their generation.

In this teaching Nancy points out that if you want to teach your child how to live properly, you need to teach them the heart stuff first. This is why God wants you to act in a certain way, this is right, that is wrong.

Start with the principles of God’s Word. Teach your children, beginning at the earliest ages, what God thinks and what are the principles that need to govern our lives when it comes to modesty—things we’ve talked about on this program, such as:

• The principle of ownership: Your body is not your own; it belongs to God once you’re a child of God.
• The principle of Lordship: Jesus is Lord over all.
• The principle of citizenship: If you’re a child of God, you belong to a different kingdom; you don’t belong to this world.
• The principle of stewardship: God has entrusted some things to you, like a body. He’s entrusted beauty to you, and you have to use that in ways that are pleasing to the Lord . . . teaching the meaning of modesty in things that we have talked about at various times on this program.

To reinforce this imperative...that we teach our children, Nancy turns to Deuteronomy 6

⁴"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. ⁵You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ⁶And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Oh....but this indeed what we need to do. To teach our children to love God wholly...ALL your heart, ALL your soul, ALL our might. This is my job as a parent. Yes, I can't "MAKE HIM" become a Christian...but I can teach him the joy of God, the fear of God, the wonder of God, and so on.

Oh...that I might do so. This is my greatest heart's cry.

Help me Lord to teach my boy that you are indeed good for him completely. That he was made to bring glory to your name. Let his heart remain soft before you.