One Word From God Can Change Your Family Read Online Free PDF Page B

and training. I was trained to love the Lord and to seek His decision first before anyone else’s. And I never rebelled against God’s Word.
    That doesn’t mean I didn’t have some challenges in dealing with worldly authorities in my life. When I was 18, I had a teacher who was teaching evolution. He knew I was a minister’s son and a Christian, and he would try to use the Bible to prove his point. He and the class would ridicule me for not believing in evolution. When they did, I just laughed at them.
    I’ve had pressure put on me from the world. But when that outward pressure came, my training kept me from the kind of inner pressure to doubt God and compromise His Word.
    It never occurred to me to seek the world’s opinion. I thought the world’s opinions stunk and was never embarrassed to say so. I was a force to be reckoned with because I learned early what true obedience was and that correction was good for me.
Trained in True Obedience
    Training a child early includes teaching them what true, Bible obedience is. By teaching them to obey you promptly and without question, you are teaching them to trust and obey God Who cares for them and wants the very best for them.
    Training a child in true obedience will include teaching him to obey when he doesn’t feel like it. Have you ever heard of a sergeant who asked his men, “All right, you little blessings, would you please get out of bed now?” No, that sergeant demands immediate, unquestioning obedience.
    Why? Because in combat, those soldiers will automatically do what they’re trained to do.
    True obedience means teaching your child to obey unconditionally. Your children need to learn to respond to your voice in the same way those soldiers respond to their sergeant. They need to learn to obey for the sake of obedience.
    That means they need to learn true obedience isn’t bought through bribes of money, gifts or favors. True obedience isn’t doing something because of what they think they’ll get out of it, but because it’s right and expected (Ephesians 6:1). Teach them that to “obey your parents in all things...is well pleasing to the Lord” (Colossians 3:20, New King James Version).
    Bribes will only teach them to try to bargain with God. You don’t want them growing up telling Him, “I’ll do this if You’ll do that.” God doesn’t bribe His children. He wants them to obey Him because they love Him, not because of what they’re going to get.
    True obedience also means to obey completely and wholeheartedly. Children want to do just what is necessary—then quit. For instance, it takes proper training for them to see that cleaning up after dinner doesn’t mean just doing the dishes in the sink. It means cleaning the sink, wiping all the table and countertops, and putting away the tea towels.
    Take the time to show them how to do the job right. Show them what a completed job involves, and make sure they understand that partial obedience is really disobedience.
    Finally, true obedience means to obey promptly. Prompt obedience is the way you train your children to hear God’s voice. Your children should be trained to obey the first time you ask them to do something in your normal tone of voice. As they learn to respond to simple directions when they’re young, their hearts will be prepared to obey the Lord in more important areas when they’re older.
    Your primary responsibility as a parent, is to develop the character of your children. As they grow to value obedience for the sake of obedience, they will begin to experience God’s favor. Their strength of character, coupled with God’s favor, will help them make a difference as young men and women in our world.
A Force for Faith
    The child trained to trust God unconditionally will grow into a person who can boldly turn the pressures of the world into opportunities for faith. And those pressures will come.
    I was asked to speak in an Australian city to the members of a popular civic club. The