In our previous post, we
began discussing the need to invest in our family and then we provided solutions to investing in prayer for
our spouse. If a spouse is all that you
have in your family, then I would encourage you to reread that post and double
down on your investments. However, if
you are like me then you have a collection of younger people in your family
called children that are also in need of a prayer investment.
So how are we to pray for our children? Are there any particular areas of prayer that
we should focus as we invest in our children with prayer? Let me say the answer to that question is a resounding "YES!!!"
As we invest in our children, I want to
offer five sound Biblical prayers for your investment plan. First pray for the salvation of your
children. 1 Timothy 2:4 makes clear that God
desires for everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the
truth. So we have every confidence that
if this is God’s desire and if salvation is a spiritual work then praying for
this work to come to fruition is not only acceptable but encouraged.
I have personally prayed for the salvation of each of
my children from their birth and beyond that I pray for the salvation of every
child that attends the church I pastor.
1 Peter 5:7 calls for us to cast all of our cares upon the Lord for he
cares for us. We should pray for our
children’s salvation because we care about the salvation of our children and
God, who cares for us, cares about their salvation as well.
Let me make this clear, prayer is not a good luck
charm. Ultimately your child will come
to a place where they will believe or reject the gospel. Nevertheless we can pray for God, through
the work of the Holy Spirit, to call to our children to himself, to convict our
children of their sins, and to convert our children unto salvation and we can
have confidence in God’s good, faithful, just, and merciful response to our
prayers.
Second pray for your children to be holy. The apostle Paul prayed for the Thessalonian
church to be sanctified through and through (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Sanctification is the process by which we are
made holy in a practical sense. When our
children come to faith in Christ they are made holy by Christ and through their
position in Christ. However, there is a
practical holiness that must be pursued throughout this life. We, as their parents, ought to pray for God to
make our children holy just as Paul prayed for God to make other believers
holy.
Often we are concerned about our children’s
happiness. While there is nothing wrong
with having happy children, our greatest concern should be for our children’s
holiness. Happiness is an emotion. Holiness centers on their character and their
relationship with the savior. While we
cannot merit the salvation of God through our activities, a lack of holiness
will result in stunted spiritual growth and the development of character
draining habits that may follow them throughout their lives. Most of all praying for your child’s holiness
reminds us, as parents, of the spiritual battle that is often waged over
character and keeps us moving forward, as our children’s guardians, with a proper
perspective.
Third pray for your children to grow in
godliness. Paul told Timothy to
discipline himself for the purpose of godliness in 1 Timothy 4:7. While
holiness is a focuses on what we are set apart from, godliness focuses on what
we are set apart too. We pray for our
children to be godly. That they would
practice those things that illustrate God’s presence in their lives.
As we pray for our children’s godliness,
this also encourages us to lead our children in this practice. This spurs us to love our neighbor, to share
the Gospel, to practice patience, to illustrate gentleness, and to minister to
the least of these. As we pray and model
godliness, the practice of godliness becomes real and becomes reality to our
children. Rather than focusing on making
our child a great athlete or a great student, as good as those things are and
as valuable as those things can be over the long term, let us focus on making
the practice of godliness the priority of our homes.
Fourth pray for the protection of your
children. Jesus said, “The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy…” in John
10:10. Consequently, we pray for the
protection of our children. While we
often pray for protection from the physical harm of this world, I would
encourage you to pray for protection from the spiritual dangers that this world
brings to bear.
Pray for God to protect your children from
the influence of worldliness, materialism, ungodly sensuality, and overbearing
negativism. Pray for the Lord to keep
them from the grasp of temptations that can lead them down paths of sin and
suffering. Pray that God would protect
them from addiction and from a sense of hopelessness.
You are the parent of your child. God has given a responsibility to guard them,
protect them, and to love them. The
first line in fulfilling this responsibility is to pray for their protection.
Fifth pray with your children. This final investment is perhaps the greatest
of all. Praying for your children is
crucial, but praying with your children is more crucial still. As you pray with your children they have the
opportunity to see your faith in God on display. They have the opportunity to hear your heart
from your lips. They have the
opportunity to learn how to pray from your example.
Praying with your children also allows them
to grow in their practice of prayer.
Pray for mommy, daddy, sister, teacher, the church, the pastor, the
Sunday school teacher, the missionaries, Ironman, and Sofia the First. As your child grows in faith they will learn
more and more about what to pray and how to pray it, but wherever they are in
their development pray with your children.
A continual investment of prayer in your
children is a reflection of our understanding of our role as parents. We are not called to simply raise up good
people and solid citizens. We are called
to bring forth a godly offspring under the rule of a holy God (Malachi
2:15). As we pray, we seek God for the
spiritual undertaking such a charge requires.
We eliminate the distractions that often pull us aside from that goal
and we reorient our parenting and our purposes to God’s. We are entrusting him to do what only he can
do in our children’s life and reminding us to fulfill the charge that we as
parents have been given.
I cannot stress the need nor the value of
this investment enough. Invest as much
as you can as often as you can. Invest
faithfully and fully. Invest trusting
God to provide a faithful return. Invest
knowing that your investment is not in vain.
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