This is a very special episode, we are going to share four key points that have to do with your kids’ relationships with God and how your testimony and growing story can make a massive difference in their relationship with God!

If you are hiding your story from your kids or not opening up about your life and history to your kids and sharing it with them that could be a detriment as well. 

We cannot save our kids. Only God through the grace of Jesus can give eternal salvation, but we as parents have such an amazing opportunity to invite our kids into those special places where they get to experience God by watching us experience God. This is the core of the point we are making in this episode and that can look different for everyone in different stages of life and circumstances. 

We are going to get really practical in this episode and dive into a lot of scripture. 

Every Christian parent wants their kids to be saved and the reality is that most Christian parents are fearful that their kids are going to have to rebel in order to come back to the lord, or they are scared that they are going to rebel and not come back. There are a lot of myths out there that parents believe. A lot of parents don’t want their kids to suffer, they want them to be successful, there are a lot of things that parents desire for their children but the longer you walk with the lord the more you realize truths such as growth happens in the valley and recognizing that if you want your kids to be growing in the Lord they are probably going to have to walk through some hard times in their lives. 

We as parents want what is best for our kids but if we have a biblical perspective we no longer focus on materialistic things but our heart’s desire becomes more eternal

So we have four key points for you in this episode 

Your Kids Will Never Learn From What You Hide From Them

1. The Power of  Your Testimony

2. Your Story Keeps Growing

3. Share Your experiences with God 

4. Pride = Religious, Humility = Relationship

1. The Power of Your Testimony

• With this point immediately what comes to mind is what your testimony is. How you came to know Jesus and what caused you to come to that place. Some of you may know exactly what your testimony is, maybe you were not raised knowing Jesus and through the circumstances of life came to know him and it was a very powerful experience. Or some of you may have been raised in a Christian home and there is not one day that you remember not loving Jesus and so you struggle with the lie that your testimony is not powerful because you didn’t have an incredibly exciting conversion. Don’t you want your kids to have a testimony of faithfulness? Because if you grew up knowing God and have loved him ever since that is a testimony of faithfulness and that is a great testimony! Just because you didn’t have a crazy conversation does not mean that you are naive. All testimonies of knowing Jesus Christ as our savior are equally valid and equally powerful!
• Luke 8:39 says “Return to your own house, and tell what great things God has done for you. And he went his way and proclaimed throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.”
• Your children look up to you and they should know your testimony, it is an incredible act of humility to share your testimony with your kids. Humility is really the key thing that we want to drive home in this podcast because the character attribute of humility is something that everyone should have but if you are a parent and you don’t have humility then you are going to have major problems in your parenting journey. If you ever get to a point where you don’t have humility then you probably have pride because it takes a humble heart not to be prideful.
• ( Isaac shares his radical conversion and testimony of coming to know Christ, click the link to hear it!)
• We as parents need to tell our kids that we would be drastically different people if we didn’t have Jesus in our lives. We all know how Jesus has personally transformed our lives, but we have to make that known to our kids so that they have an appreciation and thankfulness towards God that their parents are saved and living biblically. If your kids are not thankful for your testimonies and how God has transformed your lives then they will probably take for granted being raised in a Christian home. 
• You need to share with your kids so that they don’t take things for granted, and you need to show them contrast because if they don’t understand how different their lives would be if they weren’t raised in a Christian home then they will not be thankful, they will not have appreciation, and they will not respect you for how you are choosing to raise them. 
• As parents, we should be sharing our current and past struggles with our kids and share with them the truth that through Jesus we are made new and all of our sins are forgiven so that they know that there is hope in their life when they are struggling with sin. 
• Psalm 119:1-5 says “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord! Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, Who seek Him with the whole heart! They also do no iniquity; They walk in His ways. You have commanded us To keep Your precepts diligently. Oh, that my ways were directed To keep Your statutes!”
• Psalm 119:24 says “Your testimonies also are my delight and my counselors.”
• Throughout Psalm 119 is scripture proving the importance of testimony!

2. Your Story Keeps Growing

• Point number two is that your story keeps growing, at least it should.
• Is your life about pursuing what is comfortable or pursuing God’s will? If your life is about pursuing God’s will then your story will keep growing because there are always more experiences to be had and to share when your walk with God is growing. 
• If we don’t have anything to share with our kids about what we are learning in the Lord then we really need to ask ourselves a hard question, and that question is “why? Why do we not have anything to share? Is it because we are not growing?” Because if that is the truth then how can we expect our kids to grow in the Lord if we are not modeling that? Modeling this for your children is not just having the bible open, it’s sharing the things that God is teaching us.
• You don’t want to overprotect your kids either. A lot of the time parents won’t share the hardships, they won’t share the tough stuff and they won’t share their struggles with their kids because they don’t want to overwhelm them or burden them but sometimes it’s because of pride and they don’t want their kids to see their struggles and sins. If you don’t share the struggle then you can’t share God’s miraculous work in your life. Now, of course, everything your kids hear should be age-appropriate so if you are not sharing something then it better be for the protection of your kids but again, don’t overprotect your kids!
• You may be struggling in your marriage, now, we are not saying that you go to your kids and say “your dad/mother and I are having a hard time” because in their mind they may be thinking that their parents are on the edge of divorce when that is not the reality. You have to use wisdom in what you are sharing, but let’s say your business is failing. Why wouldn’t you share that with your children? Is it because of pride? Do you not want your family pa\rayoing and asking God to save the business? Maybe you don’t want to tell your kids something because you don’t want them to be scared, well if they are fearful what would that cause them to do? Would they pray? Is that such a bad thing? Would it cause them to be more thankful for what they have? 

Weekly Tip and Date Night One Sheet!

3. Share Your Experiences With God

• Matthew 5:16 says “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
• There are a lot of different ways that you can experience God, there are good experiences: successes, joys, prayers answered, having a baby there are all kinds of good experiences that you can share with your kids and then sometimes there are hard experiences whether it be a business failure, a relative passes away or someone gets seriously hurt. A lot of the time parents may not want to share difficult things with their children because they don’t want to mare or scare their childhood when in reality these things could potentially be character-building things their kids that would help them become more compassionate for people and maybe even lead them down the path that God has for them!
• You need to be inviting your kids to be a part of the experiences that you are having with God. even if you are in a season of your life where you are not experiencing God you need to invite your children to be a part of that because they need to see how you react, they need to be able to follow your example because they are going to feel the same thing one day and they need to be prepared to know how to deal with it good or bad. 
• Some parents feel like they can’t have deep conversations with their children, they feel like they don’t have a good enough relationship or that they don’t know what to talk about but if that is you then you need to ask yourself why. Why is it that you don’t have a testimony to share? Why don’t you have something to share with your kids that you learned from god this week? If you are having a hard time inviting your kids to be a part of experiencing God with you is it because you are not inviting God to be a part of every aspect of your life? 
• Sharing what you are learning, showing your kids that you have a humble heart posture towards God, showing them that you don’t know it all and that your heart is to be constantly growing and increasing in the faith, doing these things will drastically benefit your relationship with your kids and it will strengthen their relationship ship with God. if you come across as if you know it all and you’re this perfect christian and they sense that you expect that same thing from them then they are not going to have the same teachable heart towards God. 

4. Pride = Religious, Humility = Relationship

• Proverbs 11:2 says “When pride comes, then comes shame; but with the humble is wisdom.”
• So, when pride comes in parents and their parenting when you don’t want to tell your kids something because you are too busy or you say it’s none of their business what comes later is shame. Your kids can tell when you are being prideful. No parent is perfect and there are gonna be times when you screw up, and in those moments if u are humble you will apologize right away and if you are prideful you won’t.
• Proverbs 29:23 says “A man’s pride will bring him low, But the humble in spirit will retain honor.”
• Being humble is something that every human needs accountability with because it is our human nature to be prideful and selfish. If you have a humble spirit in your community then you will retain honor but if you have a prideful spirit you will retain shame and your kids will see that! 
• Often in religious centered homes, kids are required to be perfect and everything is rule-based and set in order and they don’t know the reasons behind any of it. In a religious centered home often children will feel like they are walking on eggshells and they are not allowed to make mistakes. In a religious centered home it is very clear how you are not supposed to act but unclear on how you should act. You do not want this to be the atmosphere of your home. You should be striving for a God-centered home that is more focused on relationships instead of religion and rules. 
• There is a need for obeying God’s word and not backing down on that and having biblical truth in your home for sure, sin is sin. What we are saying is that we should care about what that sin in is a symptom of in someone’s heart and how having that be the focus of conversation during discipline. 
• You do not want a home that has high expectations and a lack of relationship. God is about relationships and high expectations. Often when you have a religious centered home with high expectations and a lack of relationship those kids will walk away later on because what happens is you have kids who grow up doing what they are told was right and what they thought their parents wanted for them and then when they grow up and start thinking for themselves they turn away because there was never a real relationship with God and they were never told the why behind what they were doing. 
• Another point we want to touch on is church. If your kids don’t know the why behind going to church then they are most likely not going to continue going to church later on in their adult years. Your kids should not be going to church just because they are told, you as the leaders of your family should know why you go to church and you should , make sure your kids understand why too. We go to church because we love God and when we go to church we get to experience God and his spirit and we get to be a part of a fellowship of people who love God and encourage each other in that love for God. In your church you must have strong biblical relationships. The bible is very cl;ear on the importance of accountability, carrying each other’s burdens and walking through life with true brothers and sisters in Christ. If you don’t have that at your church then maybe you need to try harder to develop those relationships, and if you have tried and people just don’t want to go deep then maybe you need to find a new church. 
• Your kids will never learn from what you hide from them. Remember that. It is important that we live transparent lives in our homes and our kids should be experiencing and learning from the ups and downs in our relationship with God. They should be able to look at us and use our lives as a model for how they should live their lives and we should be teaching them the why behind what we do and not have high expectations without healthy relationships.

Scripture In This Episode:

Luke 8:39 – “Return to your own house, and tell what great things God has done for you. And he went his way and proclaimed throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.”

Psalm 119:1-5 – “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord! Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, Who seek Him with the whole heart! They also do no iniquity; They walk in His ways. You have commanded us To keep Your precepts diligently. Oh, that my ways were directed To keep Your statutes!”

Psalm 119:24 – “Your testimonies also are my delight and my counselors.”

Matthew 5:16 – “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Proverbs 11:2 – “When pride comes, then comes shame; but with the humble is wisdom.”

Proverbs 29:23 – “A man’s pride will bring him low, But the humble in spirit will retain honor.”

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