Blueprint For A Godly Kid Series

That’s (part of the reason) why God stresses that WE teach our children about God at every opportunity.

III. Now there is one – even more powerful – thing we need to teach our children.

The writer of Psalm 78 tells us: "We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders he has done." (Psalms 78:4)

Did you catch that? We don’t want to get tied up with just teaching a bunch of rules and regulations - a list of “dos’ and don’ts” that they must memorize and obey. We need to communicate to our children what a privilege it is to serve a LIVING God. A God who does things:

Praise worthy deeds

Marvelous wonders

Displays of power and might.

A God that cares so much for us that He actually does mighty things.

We need to read to them the powerful stories of how God worked mightily in the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. In the lives of all the great men and women in Scripture who sometimes stood alone against terrible odds and who saw and felt the power of God.

We need to tell our kids about how God has done mighty things in our own lives. How God has interceded in miraculous ways to make our lives better and more focused.

And, we need to share the stories of how God has interceded in the lives of other people.

ILLUS: A couple of years ago, I read some stories to my son Jonathan out of a “Chicken Soup For the Soul’ book. He was so impressed that he kept asking me to repeatedly read the same stories over and over to him.

Jonathan just recently went on a long bus trip with his 4th grade class. He was all prepared with various books and pencils to occupy his time on the bus. I was intrigued to find that he had couple of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books with him. He said he’d already read most of the stories in the books but he wanted to read some of them again.

Why did these stories impress Jonathan? Because they talked of a powerful God. A God of might and mercy. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The God of Daniel; and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

This isn’t so much a God to be feared… as it a God who deserves reverence and respect.

This is a God who doesn’t so much DEMAND your obedience… as He is a God who so fills you with awe that you want to obey.

This is a God you want on your side!!!

CLOSE: 8 year old Danny Dutton, from Chula Vista, California, obviously had been taught by his parents about God… For his third grade homework assignment to "Explain God" He wrote the following:

"One of God’s main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die so there will be enough people to take care of things on earth. He doesn’t make grown-ups, just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way, He doesn’t have to take up His valuable time teaching them to talk and walk. He can just leave that to mothers and fathers.

God’s second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on, since some people, like preachers and things, pray at times besides bedtime. God doesn’t have time to listen to the radio or TV because of this.