Cultivate Godly Character in your Children
A Four Week Series
Over the next four weeks, I will be posting a series of cultivating godly character in our children. We will be studying a few attributes of God and showing biblical truths of how we are to be molded more into His image. We will also look at how we can apply what we learn to our children, ultimately deepening our relationship with God and encouraging our children to grow too.
What does it mean to cultivate godly character in our children?
The definition of cultivate is to encourage, nurture or foster. We cannot give our children a heart for the Lord. We cannot change our children’s hearts at all. We may be able to change external behaviors with punishment and consequences. But we cannot, in and of ourselves, transform the internal.
That is a work that only the Holy Spirit can do. God is in the business of changing hearts, and molding us, from the inside out. And we can fully trust His sovereignty and capabilities in this.
However, we are called to teach our children. We are called to be an example to them. God placed us as the main influencers in their lives, and we can do our best to encourage, nurture and foster their love for Jesus.
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Deut 6:5-9
Did you notice it starts with us? Verse 5 commands us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and strength. Then we are commanded to teach our children His Word and wisdom at every opportunity. As we lie down, wake up, when we leave the house and when we are at home.
But we must first see that it starts with ourselves. We only have control over ourselves, and even in that, we do not have the power or strength within ourselves alone to change. Only with the power of the Holy Spirit, can we change to be more like Him. To be molded and sanctified and matured into God’s image.
We can grow in our relationship with Lord. We can choose to spend time in His Word and prayer. We can choose to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and strength. And though we often fail at this, we can choose to repent and turn back to God. God’s love can shine through us and overflow into our parenting and children’s lives.
The age old saying that more is caught than taught is true. At the same time, if you teach, along with being a good example, your chance of succeeding in nurturing your children’s hearts towards the Lord skyrockets.
There are five main ways to encourage your children to love the Lord with all their heart, soul and strength.
Five Ways to Cultivate your Child’s Heart Toward the Lord:
- Be an example to them – live out God’s Word in your life, spend time in the Word and in prayer yourself.
- Pray for them – pray scripture over them, pray for them and with them. For more ideas on praying with your children check out my Pray More with your Children Cheat Sheet.
- Teach them God’s Word – be in the Word together on a consistent basis, for more ideas on Bible time with your children check out this post.
- Teach them God’s wisdom – this is where we practice living out and applying God’s Word in our daily lives. In those everyday teaching moments with your children, point all things back to God.
- Love them unconditionally – praise them for their efforts, delight in them and enjoy them, spend quality time with them, and walk beside them when they fail
We will look at God’s example of how He nurtures our hearts. How He trains us to be more like Him, helping us develop godly character in ourselves. And then we will examine ways to practically pass on what we are learning through example and living life with our children. The four character traits we will cover in this series are: forgiveness, gratitude, generosity and honesty.
An overview of what we will be exploring:
Forgiveness – What does God say about forgiveness and how can we personally live this out and be an example of forgiveness in our parenting. Practical examples of how to teach our children to practice forgiveness, with step-by-step action for children to ask and receive forgiveness.
Gratitude – Gratitude is God’s will and we will be exploring what the Bible says about gratitude. We will learn the benefits that God gives us through gratitude and how to pass on an attitude of gratitude, instead of grumbling and complaining, to our children.
Generosity – God wants us to be a cheerful giver, but this is not so easy when we are battling with our selfish flesh. Discover biblical truths about generosity, and ways to practice generosity as a family.
Honesty – We will be diving into God’s Word and seeing what Jesus said about honesty and how He lived out a life of truth and integrity. We will learn why honesty is so important and what to do when your child is caught in a lie. We will also take an honest, hard look at the ways we model honesty to our children.
Our main goal as Christian parents is to raise children who love the Lord with all their heart, soul and strength. We want to be winnsome with our children and win their hearts over for the Lord.
It starts with us being imitators of the Lord, so that we can say with our words and actions to our children…
Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
1 Cor 11:1
The best way we can raise our children unto the Lord is to live out our faith and walk, to teach them God’s Word and wisdom and to love them unconditionally. Be sure to come back next week as I update this post with a new character trait to train our children in.
Your turn! What godly character traits do you desire to see in your children?
