WINSOME PARENTING
Proverbs 15:2 GNT/HCSB
The tongue of the wise makes knowledge attractive {appealing}!
Titus 2:5 Phillips Bible
They {wives} should be a good advertisement for the Christian faith!
It is my deepest conviction that as parents there is nothing more important in the world, no greater priority in our lives, than winning our own children to Christ and winning them over to the Christ-way of life.
For decades my life motto has been – Making Christ attractive to the world! That the lost would want to know him, that the saved would want to follow him! What this means is this: That the way I live and carry myself, the way I interact with other people, the way I treat them, and the way I do my job and live my life is so attractive to them, so winsome that they begin to desire what they see in me. God wants the very way we live, speak, act and carry ourselves to be powerfully persuasive as to the reality and relevance of Christ! We ought to be making people thirsty!
But my very first priority was making Christ attractive to my children in my own home! In my very way of life and marriage.
Let me ask you a simple penetrating question. If you were your children living every day with you at home, living under your parenting, would you want to know the God you say you believe in? Would you want to embrace the Savior you are revealing to them? Would you want to embrace the Christian way of living that you are presently practicing before them?
Many years ago, a friend of my oldest daughter, who grew up in a Christian home, but struggled, asked my daughter why she thought she and her siblings were all following Jesus Christ as young adults. My daughter wrote back and shared some of the reasons. One of her reasons was this: My dad made Christianity look cool. The world just couldn’t compare, it had nothing of interest to offer me.
I had no idea she would say that. I hadn’t told her to say that. She was simply sharing her honest observation and personal experience. I worked very hard to demonstrate that Christianity is truly cool. That Christ is the greatest thing in the world. She saw my passion firsthand. She heard me speak firsthand. She saw me live firsthand. She saw the way I loved her, loved her mom, and loved her siblings. She saw and heard me preach. She saw the way I interacted with other people, how I loved them and treated them. She witnessed my faith in action.
My wife also played a tremendous role in making Christ attractive to our kids. In fact, Kathy had the privilege of personally leading all 4 of our kids to Jesus Christ as their Savior. She nurtured their faith in some meaningful way every day. Kathy was so attractive in her day-to-day life and living. She always looked her best. She never slogged around the house in pajamas or sweats. She always fixes herself up at the beginning of each day. She was so pleasant, so kind, and very patient with the children. But in addition to being their mom, she was also their school teacher every day till they left for college. She spent thousands of hours with them. Patiently helping them learn, in all their studies. She spoke kindly to them, wisely to them, and she didn’t put them down or belittle them. When she corrected them or disciplined them it was done in such a way that they responded and changed. She did not humiliate them or take the heart out of them. She encouraged them, she trained them with much love, tenderness, and patience. She served them day in and day out. She was thoughtful and considerate. She was a woman so gracious, and so excellent in what she did. She gave herself wholeheartedly to loving the Lord first and then her family. Her devotion was exceptional. Kathy was a great advertisement for the Christian faith to our kids.
So many Christians and pastors make Christ and Christianity boring, irrelevant, and unattractive by the way they live, dress, speak and act. In other words, they are a bad advertisement for the Christian faith.
It is vitally important that each of you gives careful consideration to the concepts and insights in this article. Your child’s future really is at stake. You and your spouse can make all the difference in the world.
For those of you who really want to grasp this in a much deeper way, who are eager to learn and understand more, please listen to this message series.
I believe you will be truly enlightened and deeply moved by what you learn.
https://strongdisciple.com/
Helping you become a Strong Disciple,
Because of Jesus,
Pastor Mark Darling
