Building up believers and the New Testament church
Training Children
The Goal: Prepared for God
Before we can move towards a goal, we must know what the goal is. What is our goal in training? Is it to prepare our children for this world? Is our emphasis on having them learn certain skills, such as the trade we happen to be in? Or, are we preparing them for God and His purpose? Do our children belong to us, or to God? If we have truly been before God, we can have only one answer to these questions. Our children belong to God, and our task is to prepare them for God. We cannot make them Christians. Only God can, by filling them with His divine life. We cannot choose God for them. Only they can choose, when they come face to face with the Lord. But during the years they are entrusted to us, we can begin to prepare them for God, and that is our task.
Under the Old Covenant, building the Tabernacle and the Temple was preparation which was accomplished by man under the direction of God. When the preparation was completed, God came to abide. If we are laboring in faith, we are looking forward to that day. With the vision held before our children in life, everything will be adjusted with this goal in mind.
The strong guidance that is necessary to reach this goal is completely contrary to the philosophy of this world. The world says, "Don't be too strong, let your children do what they want to do." But God commands us to train them for Him. He gave them to us, and we have no right to train them for any other purpose. They may not understand some things in the beginning, but one day they will be eternally thankful for the direction we gave in the early days.