Teach Jesus

Yesterday, I was asked what the single most important parenting tip that Good Lookin’ and I would give someone…

No doubt, it is… Teach your children about who Jesus is!

If your children KNOW who Jesus is, they will know the truth and can use that knowledge to understand the world around them.  We have Trained our Children in Truth.  So that they can hear a new idea, measure that against the truth they know, and make a solid decision under that information.

Jesus is the Father of truth, and Satan is the Father of lies, so we better figure out what is truth so that we are not fooled by the master of deception.  Also, Jesus did not leave the option of just being a good teacher open as a description of himself.

As C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity says, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” 

We have seen this understanding play out throughout our children’s schooling (our children go to public schools).  When an idea is taught that they have not heard before, they bring it home and ask us questions.  They remind us of what Jesus taught and how this new idea stands up to that.  They can then make a wise decision.  As parents, we do not have to be afraid of all the possible thoughts, teachings and ideologies that they will encounter, nor do we have to try to teach them about everything they might encounter in advance.  We have taught them who Jesus is through rigorous time and discussions together.  He is our source of truth. 

The first Bible study that we take our children through is John (which is why, it is the first study that I have put on this blog).  (See Discipleship.)  Studying through John allows them to learn about Jesus and who he is!  John, the author, wrote this book because he wanted his readers to understand that Jesus is God’s son, the Savior of the World, as he specifically writes in John 20:31.  31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. 

One day, I was a part of a discussion with a group of ladies and one lady was going through a rough patch of life and another consoled her by saying, “Well, you deserve to be happy.”  Hmmm.  My truth radar started pinging!

That night, I asked my children (I had two high schoolers, one middle schooler and an elementary age kid) what they thought of that statement.  Do you deserve to be happy?  The conversation was intense.  They wrestled through their feelings, what their heart wanted, what they knew from their friends and what they had learned from Jesus.  After a lengthy discussion, they settled on “We deserve death (and dishes)!”  (The dishes part is a story for another time!)  It was amazing to hear such young people come to agreement that they deserve death!!  They were able to articulate that the sins that they had committed were too heavy a debt to be able to pay for on their own!  And to pay for that sin, they deserved death.  And then to praise Jesus for his unselfish love to pay that debt and give them ETERNAL LIFE in exchange!  

That discussion has framed many a conversation in our home.  When a child has a particularly intense case of PMS (Poor Me Syndrome), I often hear the reminder that they don’t deserve to be happy… to be thin, to be popular, to get a good grade, to stay up late, to sit on the couch, to eat bon bons while others are working… but they DO deserve death!

This feels heavy to even say.  But I am so grateful that my children understand the reality of Jesus’ amazing sacrifice that gave us a gift that we could never afford and definitely did not deserve.

Remember, in John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”