The two most important things.

I have been challenged recently in my parenting.  

Not because my kids are acting any worse or because we have hit a new hard stage.  

Because let's face it, every stage has its challenges and every stage of parenting is just hard.  

My challenges have come from me.  

God revealing things to me on how I need to be parenting versus how I am parenting.  

Through my summer reading and what I have been studying in the bible, I feel like I have honed in on the two most important things that we need to teach our children. 

1.  The purpose of our life is to glorify God.  

2.  We are sinners in need of a savior and the grace that only Jesus Christ can give.  

These are two things that I know myself.  

These are two things that affect me daily. 

But I do not think that they have been the two things that I have been focusing most of my efforts on in teaching my kids.
I think I have focused on obeying mom and dad, table manners, using kind words, sharing, respect and basic things.  None of which are bad things and all things that do need to be taught.  

And of course we teach our children about the love of Christ, that he died for us on the cross, that he rose on the third day, that we are cleansed from our sins.  

Cole memorized Romans 5:8 this past year which reads "while we were still sinners, Christ dies for us."  It is one of his favorite verses and he says it frequently.  

He also corrected me when I commented to someone that we were Christians, and he said "no mom, we are sinners!"  Well, we were both right:  sinners seeking Christ!

But am I teaching him that he is separated from God until he makes a personal decision to live his life for Christ?  

Am I focusing on the "you need Christ to transform your heart full of sin" part?

Because until he realizes that he needs Christ, not just that he wants Christ, wants to be a christian, wants to be like mom and dad, wants to obey to earn praise, but that he truly will be lost his whole life until he humbles himself before Christ, then his heart will be wanting to do things for the wrong reasons.   

I do not want these three to grow up obeying because they want to please me.  I do not want them to obey because they are scared of discipline.  I do not want them to obey because of social pressure or for physical/tangible rewards.  

I want them to learn obedience because in their hearts, they desire to be like Christ.  They want to submit to the authority of God because they know that they are sinners in need of a savior, and in need of immense grace.  

And when we submit to God, and accept his grace, the desire to glorify God becomes our focus, our purpose.  

Ultimately, the only thing that we will be accountable for is how we used our life, what God gave us, to glorify him.  From the way we used our time, our words, our money, our work, our faith, our everything....we will be held accountable.  

We will accountable on how well we raised our children and used our marriage to bring honor and glory to God.  

Everything we do falls under this umbrella.
And all the things that we must teach about sharing, respect, kindness, love, patience, manners, honor...it all comes back to giving God glory.  Using what we have and who we are to bring glory to God.

Like I said, these are not new ideas.  And they are things that I practice in my life.  

But do I talk with my kids about the choices that they make being for the sake of "because I told you so?" or do we talk about choices of the heart, about choosing to do things and say things that glorify God?  Do I tell them enough that the only way they will succeed in overcoming their sin is because of God's grace and because he conquered sin for us?

Many parents may think these things can be taught later, when kids can are older and can understand better, but I disagree.  Molding a child's heart starts at the beginning.  

And these two most important things are what matters the most and what we should spend time modeling for them, teaching them, and guiding them.

**Shepherding A Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp and Give Them Grace by Elyse Fitzpatrick are the two books that I read that inspired this post.  Such good books!