The Tragedy of Parental Hypocrisy!

Why do parents bring their children or youth to church? Ideally, it would be because they want them to come to know, love and follow Jesus according to His word!

Look at what Jesus said -

John 10:27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.

We sure better want young people listening to God's word and following it, as Jesus says, their eternal destiny hangs in the balance. A faith that does not listen to His word and follow Him, is not a saving faith! Wow, that would make being at church, under sound teaching, a very high priority indeed - a good reason to bring your young people to church.

Also, Jesus said -

John 15:5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.

If our young people don't abide in Him, they will accomplish nothing! No matter how much education they get, how talented they are or how outwardly moral our children/youth are, their lives will have been 100% wasted if they don't abide in Him! 

How do they do that?

Jesus says it requires His word abiding in us/them and that is what gives us knowledge of what to want/ask for, His will not ours, so we can "bear much fruit". Basically, us abiding in Him, His word abiding in us and the fruit which results, is the disciple life, and any other life comes to naught in the end.

As a disciple is a student or pupil, it makes so much sense that parents would bring their children and youth to church, as that is a primary place (home is also) where God has called us to disciple those who believe, including our young people.

Hypocrisy check -

What if when they look at your life, it doesn't look like the life of someone who is first and foremost a disciple/student of the word?

What if you regularly drop them off at Church for some teaching/program, while you go do something else?

What if you don't spend time in God's word yourself at home?

What if you don't talk to them throughout the week about how God's word relates to things they are facing?

What if your life, if you say you are a Christian, is actually lived very contrary to how the Bible describes a disciple of Jesus Christ?

What will be the fruit of that hypocrisy be?

Will they be lost?

Will they come to believe, but be forever weak in knowledge and fruit, because we modeled a faith which placed little value on learning the word?

Will they be anxious to grow up, so they can skip church like you do?

We can take them to church to be taught some stuff, but we can't expect our own witness, day after day and year after year, to have no affect on their thinking about God's word and His church.

I am not suggesting that we should never miss a church teaching time, that we must have a certain amount of personal bible study or a required amount of family devotions and prayer with our young people.

What I am saying is that our commitment to Gods word and His church is the strongest witness our young people have.

Either we are striving to set an example as disciples for our young people to emulate, or we are hypocrites who will need to give an account for our apathy toward God, His word and His church and yes, our apathy toward our children and youth who where told by us that God's word and His church were important, yet they saw us live like they were quite optional!

It is not too late to start! 

"Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved."