Cyber-Discipleship

It is wonderful to be raised in a Christian home. But if the parents are not teaching their children the Word at home, but leaving it for the church, they are setting their children up for failure. They are only teaching their children that church attendance is enough to get to Heaven. These children believe they are saved based on their parents’ faith. This may be one reason why they depart from the faith and leave church when they leave home.

This may have happened to me. I was raised in a “Christian” by godly grandparents but I don’t remember them explaining to me the Gospel. It’s not that they didn’t believe it but they didn’t know how to tell it. Maybe they thought we’d learn in the church. However, when I was baptized, I don’t know if it was because I really trusted in Christ or gave mental assent to His existence.

When I was in college, a student minister came to my dorm room and helped me to understand the Gospel. To this day, I don’t know when my salvation happened. I can only testify that it has.  Currently, I call my dorm room experience my Apollos moment (Acts 18:24-26). Like Apollos, I had all the pieces but I don’t think I put them all together. God is great in His mercy.

So, parents, teach your children the Word and live the Word. It has been my experience that many parents teach the world more than the Word, then the wonder why their child has turned away from God.

It is not too late to change. And no, teaching them is no guarantee of the acceptance of Christ, but at least you are pointing them in the right direction and acting in obedience to God. If you don’t teach them God’s Way, the world will teach them its way.