These words I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:6-9
In these trying times it’s not enough to just tell our children about Jesus. It’s not enough to bring them to church or Bible school. We must be sure that they understand why Jesus is so important. Here in our Scripture passage, Moses is stressing the importance of keeping God’s commands and his statutes.
He will go on in Deuteronomy chapter 28 to explain that there will be curses for the Israelite’s disobedience and blessings for their obedience.
We have talked about how bad things are and how they are bound to get worse. According to paho.org there has been a 38% rise in suicides from ages 10-24 in the last decade. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there has been a slight improvement between 2023 and 2025, but there has been no improvement in serious consideration, planning, or attempts. They also stated that persistent sadness and hopelessness has increased over the last decade.
And wifitalents.com+1 has shown risk factors to be rising including mental health disorders, access to lethal means, and social pressures.
Our children need the Lord more now than they ever have. And sadly, it’s not just enough to tell them that Jesus exists and that He loves them. They need to be brought up understanding the importance of prayer and Bible study. They need to know that we all face hard times, but we serve a God who will be there with us and work things out for us.
They need to know that when the world comes against them, we serve a God who will fight our battles for us if we only ask.
They also need to know that the devil is real and hell is real. They need to understand the consequences of sin. They need to grasp eternity and be sure that they have chosen the right eternal destination.
When we are trying to help children understand these things a “Do as I say” mentally won’t cut it. We have to live out God’s love in our homes. We have to let our children see what it’s like to have Christ living inside of us. We have to model Christianity for them just as Christ modelled it for us.
You can get your children regular health checkups; be sure they eat healthy and exercise. You can be sure that they brush their teeth twice a day. You can be sure they excel in their schoolwork. You can provide extracurricular activities to make them well rounded and expose them to many cultural things. But if you don’t help them to see why God is so important and why we should follow Him, trust Him and obey Him, you have helped them be doomed for eternity.
That may sound pretty harsh, but it is what it is.
I will tell you that I was raised being dragged to church every time the doors were opened and I still strayed in my later years. But like the prodigal son I returned. I knew that my way of living would not work and I had to get my life back to Jesus.
Proverbs 22:6 tells us to train up a child in the way he should go and even when he is old, he will not depart from it. You can’t force your child into Christianity, I get that, but are you doing all you can do to show them what it looks like to live in a close relationship with the Lord?
Pay close attention to what Moses told the Israelites. Spend time showing your children just how important it is to be in a close relationship with the Lord. There will come a time when you won’t be there for them, but He always will. He will never leave them nor will he forsake them. Be sure they know this.
Have a great day!