Dear COA Family,
Recently I was speaking with a Christian couple who had a young daughter in primary school. One day, after she came home from school, her mother casually remarked to her, “I am not sure whether I should wear the red or blue dress for a dinner tonight.” Her reply was, “It’s ok mom. Just follow your heart.”
Her mother was shocked. She had never taught this phrase to her child before nor have her nor her husband ever uttered these words. Yet her child replied in a way as if she had been living out its philosophy for all her life. This mother has a good reason to be concerned. This is because the prophet Jeremiah explicitly tells us that “the human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (17:9, NLT) We cannot trust our hearts and should not unilaterally yield to our desires in all matters but subject our decisions to the teaching and counsel of God’s word and Spirit.
Yet the other reason to be concerned is how easily the influences of the world can seep into the family, even if the parents have been faithfully teaching their children values from God’s word. Our young spend much time in school with their friends and much time consuming content and ideas from the internet. We should not be too surprised at how much they can be influenced by worldly philosophies and values.
This calls us as parents and grandparents to be alert to the lurking dangers and diligent to teach our young biblical values. God commanded the Israelites to teach his commands to their children “when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” (Deut 6:7) We can do this by first being regular in our church worship and then being consistent in our family devotions.
As a church, we will also be embarking in intentional ways to strengthen and equip marriages and families within our church community and beyond to walk in God’s ways in the coming year. I will be revealing more about this in the coming weeks.
The reason for this urgency is because the influence from the world on our children (and even ourselves) is strong and we need to fill our hearts and mindswith God’s word before it is too late.
Blessings,
Rev Ian