This morning I wanted a warm and comforting breakfast. I pulled out my box of “Cream of Wheat” and as it had been a while since I made it, I looked carefully at the instructions printed on the box.
I reviewed and performed the task of making it in detail. I realize it’s just a bowl of hot cereal, but I’ve eaten it when it wasn’t made well, and I don’t like it. If you use the wrong amount of water, if the water is too cold, if there is too much cereal, or if you dump it in and don’t stir it, with a whisk, repeatedly, the product is displeasing. I have had “Cream of Wheat” served as thick lumps that are cold and dry in the middle, and that is not the warm and comforting breakfast I wanted.
As I checked my instructions and set a timer for boiling the mixture it dawned on me that this practice is very much like serving my children the gospel.
If I only serve them a halfhearted attempt at a representation of Christ, they may not like Christ.
If I don’t check the instructions on what love is, and give them an unbalanced amount of truth, they will believe truth is dry and undesirable.
If I don’t continuously stir up love and good works, and if I neglect the fellowship with other Christians, my kids will think faith is a matter of personal taste, not personal conviction.
If I pour out a selfish and unstudied representation of faith for my children without even a taste of the Word of God in it, they may end up with a lopsided, unhealthy, distasteful version of Christianity without substance, and without defense.
And they will begin by saying they don’t want to go to church when they are young. And they will say they don’t want to talk about faith as they mature. And they will end by saying they don’t really share my faith when they are adults.
The world is coming against my faith, ridiculing, marginalizing, minimizing, complicating, and making every effort to disprove it’s merit. If I want my kids to know Christ I can’t just tell them it’s a good thing, I can’t just take them to church for events, or once in a while, and I can’t live an angry, selfish, withdrawn, and distracted life and tell them Christianity is all they need.
When I was a kid the only barbecue sandwich I had ever tried was the one from my school cafeteria. I believed I didn’t like barbecue sandwiches, but the truth was, I’d never had a good one.
What are you serving your kids as faith?
Do they believe they don’t like it, or have they just never seen it work?
Are they basing their definition of Christ on who He is, or on what they hear at school?
If you aren’t serving the Word, you aren’t serving Christianity.
If you don’t look at the instructions, and then check them again, and again, you won’t give them the intended product. The Word is your manual for everything you are, and everything you give. Don’t neglect it, and please don’t ignore it.
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Hebrews 4:12
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Psalm 119:105
Don’t go to the Word simply looking for a list of instructions. Go to the Word looking for Christ. Instruction will follow. Your time in the Word is the avenue the Holy Spirit uses to produce friendship with you. As you spend time with Him, He saturates your heart and mind with His love and His thoughts.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23
Soak up the fruit of the Spirit for yourself, and you will give the fruit of the Spirit to your kids.
Keep going to the Word daily, and serve your family something they will love.