One Word From God Can Change Your Family (8 page)

Another opportunity for ministering the Word is bedtime. This is an especially powerful time to deposit into your children. They may have a special need for your comfort, love and approval, encouragement, assurance, or just a listening ear. The words you speak before bed last all night and are there first thing in the morning.

Using a fun, casual atmosphere, you can be very effective in impressing powerful truths to your children. As a family we frequently tell the stories about how God delivered us from Satan’s grip; how He rescued us from a particular situation; even how God brought Dennis and me together to be married; and how God miraculously gave us a child when medically it was impossible. In this way, our daughter can grow to see God’s Word as part of our everyday experience.

If your children are not to be drawn off target as they grow, they will need to see Christianity as not merely a lifestyle, but as life itself! Reach beyond the limitations of the mental realm and communicate with the hearts of your children.

What have you trained your children to prefer? Have they developed a taste for the things of the world, or the things of God? Determine to model your life in such a way that it makes growing up something worth attaining.

Children learn by example. Impart wisdom to your children through your companionship. Cultivate and nurture friendship with them.

If you aim your child like the warrior would aim the weapon in his hand, you will not be ashamed. Your meaningful relationship with your children will cause them to see the truth and appreciate your wise counsel. And the joys of living in the promises of God’s Word will bless them through eternity.

Chapter 12

Ian Britza

Parent, Be the Anointed Plugger-Upper!

“He who spares his rod [of discipline] hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines diligently and punishes him early.”

—Proverbs 13:24, (The Amplified Bible)

Escape artists...I’ve been fascinated by them for years. Performers like the late Harry Houdini have amazed many people for decades using techniques and illusion to convince the crowds they had found the hidden way out of seemingly immovable constraints.

But it’s not these escape artists who capture my attention the most. No, my interest is in the real pros—the ones who without tricks or illusion find their way out of air-tight situations in no time. These outstanding masters of escape search and probe and test relentlessly to find the weak link or loophole that will free them of their constraints. These are really the world’s great escape artists. And they live right under our noses!

You know who I’m talking about? The escape skills of our children are highly advanced! They can smell a loophole miles away. If they can find a way out from correction, they will smell it and go for it.

So what does a parent do to bridle the escape artists? We have to be anointed “plugger-uppers.” We have to plug up our own loopholes of deceived attitudes and wrong actions that provide our children an escape from the loving, positive, Bible correction they need. Read on and I’ll show you what I mean...

The first loophole you’ll need to plug as a parent is any humanistic thinking on your part. With its rejection of the supernatural and emphasis on using reason to discover self-worth and identity, humanism has caused some parents to conclude that only by leaving children to themselves will they be happy and fulfilled. Humanistic thinking teaches that parental authority and correction are wrong and only hinder the true freedom of the child.

But you don’t have to go to a university or be a rocket scientist to know that if you leave your child by himself, he’s going to end up in trouble. That’s why it’s not when your child is making noise that you get concerned. It’s when he’s quiet that your ears perk up!

Children left to themselves don’t produce actions that will make them happy and fulfilled and truly free later in life. Instead of true fulfillment and wisdom being bound up in the heart of a child, Proverbs 22:15 says,
“Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.”
I don’t care how cute your little one is, he does not need to be left alone to do his own thing. He needs (and wants) your loving, biblical correction and guidance.

Many parents leave loopholes in the correcting of their children. They fail to understand the real meaning of the word
love
so they “go soft.” Proverbs 13:24 says,
“He who spares his rod [of discipline] hates his son, but he who loves him diligently disciplines and punishes him early” (The Amplified Bible).

Some parents really have trouble with that. They say, “Well, I love my children too much to spank them.” On the surface this sounds good. But this is a false love that falls short of the kind of love God wants parents to show to their children. It’s a deceived mind-set that falls prey to this false love.

You see, without true love, there really is no true correction. Hebrews 12:6 says,
“For the Lord corrects and disciplines every one whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes” (The Amplified Bible).

I used to think I surely must hold the record for being in the pastor’s office the most for correction. I don’t know how many times I heard these words, “You know, Ian, it’s a joy correcting you.”

“Thanks,” I said. (It may have been a joy to him, but I usually wasn’t feeling so joyful at the time!)

“You know why?” he would continue. “Because I know that you know we love you. And because you know and I know that we love you, when we tell you what needs to be changed, we know you’ll do it.”

True love is God’s love. It’s the kind of love that desires the best and highest for every individual. To let foolishness or anything else stand between a child and God’s best for his life is not true love.

The rampant child abuse of our day is another major hindrance to proper correction. There are different kinds of abuse—sexual, verbal, physical and emotional—and they are all horrible.

But let me suggest another form of abuse that people often overlook—neglect. It is the failure to provide loving correction, as we’re instructed in the Word. Proverbs 23:13 says, “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die” (New International Version).

That word “punish” does not mean punching or thrashing or knocking a child around. It means to hit with a reed-like instrument. Perhaps the closest thing to it is a piece of cane with the end burned so that it is smooth—something flexible enough to sting, but not to injure.

Don’t use a paddle made of wood that is not flexible and can possibly injure a child. And don’t use your hands to smack your child. Remember, your hands are made to love, not to correct.

The point is that you want to start young enough with your children so they learn that you give them correction because you love them. You want them to learn to receive correction and learn the value of obeying promptly.

As important as the proper use of the rod is, there is much more to positive correction than the sting of a spanking. Positive, Bible correction. It takes time—time to make sure the child understands what he or she has done wrong, and time for repentance and restoration.

This means parents must plug the loophole of laziness in their own lives. The reason we often don’t like to correct our children is because we’re so busy. We’re always in the middle of something when the need for correction arises. We want to speed through the correction and get it over with quickly.

But true correction cannot be done quickly, because it is not punishment. It is ministry to the soul of the child—and each child is different. When my son Timothy was much younger, he usually knew when he had done wrong. He would just say, “Hey, I know” and receive his correction. But his brother, Michael, always had a defense. You had to take the time to prove to him that he had gone against God’s Word. Once you had done that, then he submitted.

It takes time to make sure your child knows he or she has sinned. It also takes time to make sure they have received the correction in their hearts. Don’t let a child go back to playing with a bad attitude. Make sure they’ve truly understood. I test this by having them hug me after I correct them. If they hug me like a sack of potatoes, I spend more time with the correction, I remind them that I love them and look for them to receive the correction. A child who does not receive the correction in his heart has not been trained in anything. Nothing eternal has been imparted into his life—nothing that will help him succeed in life as a Christian and as a contributor to society.

I taught my children that once we deal with the correction, it is finished. When our relationship is back together and we go outside that bedroom door, I’m not holding anything against them and they are not holding anything against me. That’s why their hug is so important.

Parents can also fall into the trap of taking action only after issuing continual warnings, or after reaching the point of personal anger or frustration. The reason so many children don’t obey until their parents have asked them four or five times, or until their parents become angry and threaten them, is that they have been trained to wait until then.

Children learn quickly when their parents really mean what they say. They will transfer that to their relationship with God. If they have been trained to delay being obedient to God, they’ll only listen to God when they’re in trouble, without money, sick and at the point of death. If they are trained to expect several warnings, they will learn to ignore God’s first instruction. What if that instruction was to keep them from a life-threatening situation? There may be no second opportunity. It pays to hear the first time.

By enforcing prompt obedience, we train our children to hear God’s voice. Children should learn that their parents mean what they say, and that their parents expect them to obey the first time they give an instruction.

Parents use a number of excuses for not disciplining their children. Some of the following may be familiar to you. All of them are loopholes that can keep your child from receiving the kind of consistent, loving correction that will bring positive results in their lives...

1. My little blessings aren’t old enough to understand.
If a child is old enough to know the words “doggie, bye-bye, da-da, no-no,” he’s old enough to understand. As cute as our children are, they still have a sin nature. As parents, we must address this and discipine our children.

2. He’s tired today. He’s always naughty when he is tired.
It’s remarkable that two minutes before the child disobeys, he’s not tired. Even though a child may be tired, he can learn to behave and watch his attitude. Children need to be guided, molded and taught how to behave properly.

3
. But it isn’t his fault.
This puts the blame for your child’s obnoxious behavior on the child he was playing with. Are we going to say Johnny learned to lie from Peter, therefore it isn’t Johnny’s fault? Even though children are around others who may show poor behavior, parents must still require proper behavior from their children. Children need to learn that the fact everyone else is doing it doesn’t make it right.

4. He’s the way he is because we’re not at home.
I’m sure we’ve all used this one somewhere along the way. It sounds good when we’re saying it. But it can’t be an excuse.

You are your child’s security. Your word is to be obeyed whether you are at the shopping center or at the zoo. Once I was messing around on the back pew while my father was preaching. He stopped in the middle of his sermon and announced, “I’m going to have to get down from the pulpit.” He walked to my row, pulled me out, took me outside, gave me a wallop, then sat me next to my mother. When he returned to the pulpit, he announced, “I lead by example.” A few other parents took their children out and gave them a wallop.

5. He’s not feeling well.
If a child is very sick, he’ll be too sick to be naughty. You know when your child is naughty and when your child is sick. If they are naughty, they are not that sick. Even when you are sick, if you have been trained, you will still be doing the Word.

6. He’s just like his uncle. His uncle has a real temper, too.
You don’t sit still and let every bad hereditary trait manifest in the life of your child, so don’t put up with this excuse either. The power of God’s love and deliverance working through your loving correction will deal with those hereditary traits.

7. He’ll just outgrow it.
Maybe so. But he won’t outgrow the attitudes associated with that disobedience. Children whose parents let them develop wrong attitudes will take those attitudes right up into their teenage and adult years.

It takes great strength for parents to plug the loopholes of correction. Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s easy. It takes the greatest strength of your Christian nature to know how to correct your children when they’re young.

Don’t be fooled by those little cries and those cute little blue eyes that look at you— those cries and looks that would cause you to stop and to put correction aside. And make no mistake, your children know just which of your buttons to push. They know how to turn you on and how to turn you off. If you love your child, you’ll not be swayed by outward emotions.

Remember, real love chooses the best. That is why it must bring correction to anything within your child’s life that will keep him from the best. If you really love God, and you really love your child, you will do everything in your power to correct him. And you will start by teaching your child early that correction is an expression of love.

Now, this is completely opposite the philosophy of the world. That’s why it’s so difficult. It’s easy to do what the world says to do. It always takes faith to do what God’s Word says to do. It takes faith to plug the loopholes. But the results are worth it, and your children will thank you for it.