If you don’t make God real to your kids, they will likely fall to the enemy’s buffet table of worldly desires. They must see and experience spiritual transformation while they are in your home and this goes beyond the moment they accept Jesus into their lives.

Whether your kids have accepted Him or not already, the parental diligence is the same to help them experience God and his truth. Courageous parents know that it’s possible for kids to fall away from the faith and you may slowly let it happen if they don’t witness you experiencing God as they grow up in your home.

In this episode, we cover practical ways you can help your kids know God is real.

Five Ways To Help Your Kids Experience God:

Personal Relationship

• You know you’re a believer by your actions when no one’s looking.
• Share the importance of spiritual disciplines
• You know you are growing in relationship with God if you are praying when no one’s looking. If you’re praying when no one’s looking. If you are reading your bible in your own prompting. If you are thinking of Him and trying to be obedient to Him.
• It’s important to “Deal in Reality” with your kids so that no one is playing Christian but instead they have real introspection.
• But be ready to proactively share it’s okay to doubt, have questions, and discuss whether God is real or not. This is vital!!!!!
• Here are some practical examples:
  • Conflict with a friend, encourage them to pray for them and their friendship
  • Experiencing God comes through your obedience
  • When scripture comes alive to them they are growing in experiencing God
  • Our three year old got in trouble, we told him to pray to God. Twenty minutes later his brother heard him still praying, saying, “I’m sorry God”. Then his brother asked him “Did you hear back from God?”. The three-year-old says “He said, I forgive you”.

Visuals

• Don’t refer to events in the Bible as “Bible stories” as kids are used to stories being things that are made up and not real.
• If you don’t believe in Noah’s Ark, the Flood, Creation and so forth, then you don’t believe in what the whole Bible says and this will hurt your kid’s belief.
• We went to the ArkEncounter in Kentucky to experience the life-sized replica of Noah’s Ark. It was amazing, but even more amazing was the huge diagram on one of the inside walls that proved all the animals would fit.
• God’s creation itself proves God is real and we need to talk about it. Just one of many examples; If the Sun were any closer or further away we would die of heat or become frozen. It’s the absolute perfect distance to stay within the livable temperature range for humans. Kid’s love this stuff.
• Did you know that there’s a unicorn in the bible? Go discover it for yourself.
• As we continue to find evidence of the past it just continues to prove Biblical truth.
• Share stories happening in the world that validate God and the Bible.
• Part of your job is to be in the know of what’s happening in the world and translate that to how it’s relevant to what the Bible says.

The Bible

• Do we agree that it is the infallible word of God?
• Have you read everything in it? You want to be able to say “I’ve read this, and say it’s the infallible word of God with conviction.
• What about the dinosaurs and creation?
• Are you going to have questions from your kids that you don’t have the answer for? Yes absolutely, this is a good thing actually.
• One of the greatest moments of your parenting will be when they ask you a question you don’t know and say “I don’t have the answer for that, but let’s look it up together”
• This is how you cultivate a love for learning to give them the confidence to find answers themselves
• No perfect parents allowed! If you are trying to look perfect by always having the answer for them, that’s called pride.
• Pride comes before the fall. The fall might be your kids not believing God though.
• Prideful parents produce prideful children.
• You are leaving a legacy whether you are intentional about it or not
• Over 300 prophecies have come true about Jesus already! You gotta tell your kids these things.
• Experiential learning by doing activities, traveling, museums, and mission trips help
• Help your kids realize the events in the Bible are real places in the world, look them up and show them.

Prayer

• It’s vital to acknowledge God’s answer to prayer
• How would you be able to do that if you never pray with your kids?
• Do you actually pray with faith? Do you actually believe when you pray that God will do it?
• God hears every prayer, if it’s in His will, and you ask with faith, The Bible says He will do it.
• But sometimes God knows what we want isn’t what’s best for us. Do your kids understand these things? It’s vital!
• After our RV trip we had a family meeting and counted over 100 prayers answered and ways God provided or protected us over the three months. Talk about a powerful faith experience.

Transformation

• Your conversion story is worthy
• You have 18 years with any given kid, if they don’t experience people being transformed by the gospel, it means your family is not on mission.
• There should be situations where your tribe sees or hears of real-time transformation of people around you.
• Here’s a challenge: Find some kind of mission to get excited about with your kids
• When your kids see you being a missionary right where you are it makes a big impact on them.

Scriptures From This Episode

John 15:5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”

1 Peter 3:15 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear;”

Job 40:15-23 “Look now at the behemoth, which I made along with you; He eats grass like an ox. See now, his strength is in his hips, And his power is in his stomach muscles. He moves his tail like a cedar; The sinews of his thighs are tightly knit. His bones are like beams of bronze, His ribs like bars of iron. He is the first of the ways of God; Only He who made him can bring near His sword. Surely the mountains yield food for him, And all the beasts of the field play there. He lies under the lotus trees, In a covert of reeds and marsh.  The lotus trees cover him with their shade; The willows by the brook surround him. Indeed the river may rage, Yet he is not disturbed; He is confident, though the Jordan gushes into his mouth,”

Job 41: 1, 12-22 “Can you draw out Leviathan with a hook, Or snare his tongue with a line which you lower?”, “I will not conceal his limbs, His mighty power, or his graceful proportions. Who can remove his outer coat? Who can approach him with a double bridle? Who can open the doors of his face, With his terrible teeth all around? His rows of scales are his pride, Shut up tightly as with a seal; One is so near another That no air can come between them; They are joined one to another, They stick together and cannot be parted. His sneezings flash forth light, And his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go burning lights; Sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke goes out of his nostrils, As from a boiling pot and burning rushes. His breath kindles coals, And a flame goes out of his mouth. Strength dwells in his neck, And sorrow dances before him.

James 1:6 “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.”

Biblical Resources Mentioned

The go-to place for the proof of Biblical creation, The Flood, and tons of resources is AnswersInGenesis.org.

Here are the links directly to the Creation Museum and the life-sized Noah’s Ark

Be sure to see what our friends Jon and Ann Dunagan are doing at MissionMindedFamilies.org   They are a family of 9 and their kids have launched into the world having big Kingdom impact!

Also if you want to see the Vlog from our 3-month RV trip around the US which includes visiting Noah’s Ark, check it out here.

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