Today I’m fielding questions about gospel-centered parenting since I frequently hear from mamas who have many of the same questions I had as a young mother. They want to know…

• How do I pass on my faith to my children?
• How can I be sure I’m training my children in the way they should go?  
• What does it mean to bring them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord?
• How can I protect my children from bad, soul-crushing influences?
• Why do my kids sometimes act annoyed, even when I do my best not to exasperate them?
• Where do I find strength to continue when I’m frustrated or fatigued or feel like a failure?
• How can I ensure my children love and honor God their whole lives?
• Are there any guarantees my parenting efforts will ever be rewarded?

I get many more questions in that same vein, but this is a good start. And we’ll touch on all of them in this week’s episode of Loving Life at Home, so listen in.

5 Tips for Gospel-Centered Parenting

Contrary to popular opinion, children are not born as blank slates. They come preloaded with a sin nature. One of our jobs as parents is to help curb our children’s impulsive expressions of sin as we point them to the only Hope and Remedy for what ails them: Jesus Christ.  

As Christian moms, we’d all like to raise godly children who love the Lord with all their heart and honor him in all they do. To see our little ones grow up to be responsible, caring adults who love and serve the LORD with their whole hearts. We long for “no greater joy than to hear that our children are walking in the truth.”  (3 John 1:4) Right?

The good news is, the Bible has a lot to say about raising children. And it has even more to say about living out your own faith in genuine, consistent way – which is foundational to gospel-centered parenting and is one of the very best things we can do as parents to point our children to Jesus.

1. Provide an example.

Practice what you preach.

My husband did his residency at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. It was a county hospital, and he got a TON of experience. He saw everything there.

The mantra of his training program was “See one. Do one. Teach one.”

That’s because they knew, you can’t teach it until you learn it yourself. And if you haven’t learned it well enough to teach it, you haven’t learned it well enough.

Even Deuteronomy 11:18-23, one of my favorite parenting passages, bears this out. First: You must store up God’s Word in your own heart and soul. Then: You teach it to your children. Because you cannot pass on what you do not yourself possess.

Root yourself in the Word of God. It is “profitable for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” ( 2 Timothy 3:16) So read your Bible. Memorize it. Meditate on it. Put it into practice. Examine everything you read or hear or see or read (whether in books or blogs or sermons or podcasts or on social media or the Internet) in light of God’s eternal, infallible word. 

Consider the fruit of the Spirit — Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-Control. — and take stock: Are these evident in my life? In my daily interactions with my family? Do they see these qualities spilling over in my words and actions, whether I’m happy or stressed? Feeling rested or exhausted? On time or running late?

God’s Word and our service to Him should constantly at the forefront of our minds. Pouring over the word. Memorizing it. Meditating upon it. Discussing it. Weaving it into conversation. Encouraging with it. Praying it. Singing it. Applying it in our everyday lives. Building our lives upon it.

Again: We cannot pass on what we do not possess ourself. Sp let’s delight ourself in Him, and He will give us the desires of our heart.

2. Prepare the soil.

Nurture the things you want to grow.

When I first decided to start flower gardening, I ordered over 200 bulbs and perennials to plant in front of my house. Although we’re in Tyler now with sandy loam where I can bury my arm up to my elbow and grow almost anything, we were living in Mesquite back then in a house with a slab foundation resting on hard, black clay.

When my bulbs arrived, I went outside and chiseled a bunch of holes in the rock-hard ground, dropped a bulb into each one, and never gave them a second thought until the following spring when only six of them came up and only three bloomed.

Given what experience has since taught me about gardening, the surprising thing is not that 194 of those bulbs never came up, but that half a dozen of the 200 I planted showed any signs of life at all, given the neglect they’d suffered.

In the same way, planting the seeds of God’s Word in the hearts of our children is not a one and done proposition. We must do it over and over and over again.

We cultivate. We break up the fallow ground. Water and fertilize as needed. Pull weeds as soon as they come up. We don’t wait for them to grow big and take over. We nip them in the bud.

We want the Word of God implanted to have the best possible chance of taking root and bearing fruit.

Mark 10:14 tells us: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

So we bring our children to Christ.  Bring them to God’s Word. Bring them to the LORD in prayer. We don’t relinquish this duty to Sunday School or Vacation Bible School or youth programs or private Christian schools. 

All those things have their place, but they’re a poor substitute for godly parents living out their faith and discussing it with their children day in, day out, as they sit in their house, as they walk in the way, when they lie down, and when they rise up. (Deuteronomy 11:19)

We must teach them “precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.” (Isaiah 28:10) This idea is also repeated in Isaiah 28:13, but to no effect — the children of Israel ignored all that good teaching and hardened their hearts.

Which is a good reminder to us, because apart from God’s grace, nothing else we do will have the desired effect. Which is why we must pray, pray, pray, pray, pray.

3. Pray without ceasing.

Remember that parenting is a work of grace.

So we pray that God will soften our children’s hearts. Pray He will draw them to Himself from an early age. Pray that He will fortify them against temptation. And pray that He will give us wisdom as we raise them.

As wonderful as it would be to see our children walking in the truth and never straying from the narrow way we’ve pointed them to, I have to warn you, if you make that your GOAL, you are setting yourself up for frustration.

That’s because what our children do once they leave our home is completely out of our control.

So I make it a matter of prayer, yes. I beg God to draw my children to faith and keep them on the straight and narrow.

But my goal is simply to honor God in the way I raise my children. To be obedient to the scriptures that tell me how to instruct him.

I pray God will use my life as a means of grace to draw my children unto himself, that He will graciously make up for my lack, and that He will not let me be a stumbling block or hinderance to them in any way.

But I can’t make my kids Christians any more than I can make the sun rise or the grass grow. There is no failsafe formula. No recipe I can carefully follow, combining all the right ingredients — homeschooling, weekly church attendance, regular Bible reading, and family devotions — in a specified amount for a guaranteed result.

We simply must do our part faithfully, obediently discharging our duties as parents while praying on behalf of our children and entrusting the results to God.

I love what my dear friend Abbie Halberstadt says: “Prayer should be our frontline defense against Satan’s schemes, not our last resort.”

Don’t wait until you’re desperate. Pray now. Pray for God’s strength, comfort, wisdom, and grace. And pray that He will bring to completion the good work He began in your children when He placed them in your Christian home.

4. Pick your battles.

Be strategic and pay attention!

Don’t view spiritual training as behavior modification. The heart is so much more important. Let’s not get bogged down in things that don’t really matter.

Our utmost concern should not be what others think of us or our children, but where each of us stand individually before God. The heart must be our primary concern.

There is no room for arrogance in gospel-centered parenting. No room for pridefully asserting or even entertaining the thought, “My child would never do that!”

[I saw a funny meme on Instagram: “As soon as I say, ‘My child would never,’ here he comes nevering like he’s never nevered before.”]

Remember that verse, “Let the little children come unto me and do not hinder them?“ How do we hinder them?

One big way is by failing to practice what we preach and live lives of integrity. But another is by being more concerned with outward behavior than heart issues.

If you’re picking your battles based on what the neighbors might think, you’re probably picking the wrong battles. Don’t let your own pride dictate what issues get addressed in your children, or you’ll end up spending all your time just whitewashing tombs – both theirs and your own.

Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. Behavior modification is not enough in and of itself. We’ve got to prioritize heart issues.

Luke 16:15 – “And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.”

The Bible is clear about some issues: no stealing, lying, cheating – those things should not be tolerated. Instead, we must deal with them swiftly, consistently, and decisively.

But in matters of taste and opinion? What they eat. The clothes they wear. How they style their hair. What electives they take in school.

There is a lot of leeway and room for grace in matters such as these. Especially as our children move closer and closer to adulthood.

We need to provide a listening ear. To be fully present when our children try to engage with us. I have a friend, a significantly older woman whose son is my age, who once told me her biggest regret was not being more available to listen when her son wanted to talk.

Good communication is so key! So listen. Let them ask questions. Respond, don’t react, to the things your children tell you. Remember James 1:19 – “But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger;

This is especially important as our kids reach their teen years. We need to anticipate their questions. It’s part of a natural process many kids go through while making their parents’ faith their own.

Don’t feel threatened by this or act overly defensive. Answer their questions to the best of your ability, and when you don’t know the answer, admit it and then search for it together. Faith that can’t stand up to scrutiny is not worth having.

5. Persist in well-doing

Parenting is a marathon, not a sprint.

We must fix our eyes on the finish line, not on what everyone else is doing. And we should not grow weary:

We can faithfully do all these things as parents, but they will be fruitless apart from God’s blessing. There is no guarantee. No recipe that promises if you put in all the right amounts of the right ingredients, you’ll get the desired result.

Godly parenting is often the means of grace God uses to draw children unto Himself. But our children still have free will. That means they might reject everything we’ve tried to teach them.

I like what the editor of WORLD magazine, Joel Belz, had to say about God’s purposes not being dependent upon our actions. “As soon as you start thinking God needs [your] effort to achieve His ends, you’ve quit being faithful.”

So why even bother?

Because the reverse is also true: If we view God’s ability to accomplish His purposes independent of our effort as an excuse for ignoring His commands, we’re being unfaithful as well.

And that is why I do what I do in parenting my children. I do it because God’s commanded me to. I do it to be obedient. To steward well the responsibility He gave me when He entrusted me with these 12 eternal souls. I do it because I want to run with endurance the race set before me. And because I long to hear, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” when I reach the finish line.

And I encourage you to do the same.  Fulfill your parenting responsibilities cheerfully and consistently. Bathe all your efforts in fervent prayer. Then leave the results to God.

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