A Prayer for My Children

Heavenly Father, thank You for my children’s salvation. Thank You for choosing them to be children of mine and Yours.

Thank You for lavishing Your riches and inheritance on them, even though they could do nothing to earn it or deserve it.

Guide Their Steps

I pray for my children’s legs. May they always walk with You. Keep them from racing ahead, lagging behind, or wandering away.

Day by day, help them walk with Jesus so that He is their constant companion. God, take them where You want them to go. Keep them from the places they should not go.

Give them strength when they feel weak. Give them courage to keep walking with You, even when the road ahead looks uncertain and dim.

Also, give them grace to bridge gaps, leap walls, and span the separations between people and groups.

Help Them Stand Firm

I pray for my children’s feet. Place them where You want them to stand. Plant their feet on the immovable rock of Jesus.

When storms come, or when the world tries to lure them down its path, speak to their hearts. Whisper to their spirits, “Stand firm.”

Use Their Hands and Arms

Through my children’s arms, do Your work. Strengthen them, hold them up, and direct them to do whatever You want them to do.

Make their time valuable for eternity, not just for the brief span of their days on earth.

I pray for my children’s hands. May they often fold them in prayer. Make them mighty in prayer, and teach them to pray after Your own heart.

Enable them to live in such a way that others will see Your signature on their lives: “This one is the Lord’s.”

Strengthen Their Will and Character

Give my children the patience to wait on You, Lord. Renew their spirits so they may soar as on eagle’s wings.

By Your power, make their will as strong as iron when they cling to what is good and resist evil. Cause them to be unyielding in following righteousness and rejecting anything that is not pure, holy, and completely from You.

At the same time, make their wills toward You as pliable as spun silk. When You convict them of sin or show them their own ways, give them tender hearts and teachable spirits.

I pray for my children’s character. Make it strong and godly. Use godly men and women to mold, shape, and weave their character, beliefs, and view of You.

Keep Their Conscience Clear

By Your grace, help their conscience stay clear. Teach them to keep a short list of accounts with You.

Help them quickly acknowledge their wrongs and confess their sin. Give them humility to seek forgiveness from those they offend.

Also, enlarge their hearts so they can forgive freely when they are wronged, even before forgiveness is asked for.

Guard Their Hearts and Bodies

I pray for my children’s hearts. Guard them. Keep them protected, covered, shielded, and sheltered from all harm.

Make their hearts soft when compassion is needed. Make them firm when tough love is required. Above all, keep their hearts holy.

By Your power, protect their bodies. Keep them well and safe. Heal them when they are sick or injured.

Hold them and comfort them when they are afraid, lonely, sad, or discouraged. Give them the strength and courage to keep going when they feel they cannot go any farther.

Fill Their Minds with Wisdom

I pray for my children’s minds. When it comes to the things of Christ, fill them with knowledge and wisdom.

When it comes to the things of sin, keep them innocent. Give them Your wisdom and discernment to evaluate what they see.

Light their eyes with the light of Christ shining within them. Filter what they see through holy filters.

Protect them and keep them, because the devil masquerades as an angel of light. Give them holy understanding to see past the surface, view the world from Your perspective, and respond as You would.

Guide What They Hear and Say

Father, put Your Word in my children’s ears and hearts often. Keep them from listening to unwise counsel or foolish talk.

Instead, lead them to seek Your wisdom and Your ways all their days.

I pray for my children’s mouths. May words of praise and prayer always be on their lips.

Keep them from speaking rashly or without thought. Let their words bring honor and glory to You.

I also pray for my children’s countenances. May their faces reflect Your glory and the radiance of the hope that is alive within them.

Teach Them Stewardship

Sanctify their pocketbooks. Teach them to be good stewards of what You give them.

Show them the principles of Your economy. Teach them how to manage and use the things You lend them.

Beyond finances and possessions, make them good stewards of their talents, time, and opportunities.

Help them remember that everything belongs to You. Because of that, they do not need to worry or fear loss.

Keep Them in Christ

I pray that they will abide in righteousness and live worthy of the One who purchased their lives from destruction and eternal death.

Show them that life is in Christ alone. There is no other lasting source of life, joy, light, peace, comfort, love, or truth.

No one else is pure or holy but You.

Final Prayer

Father-God, I place all these things in Your hands. I pray in the name of the One who is able to do all things, beyond anything we ask or imagine.

To Him be all glory, honor, and praise. Amen.

By Charley Gunter
Used by Permission.

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More Prayers

• Praying for Children
• Another Prayer for Our Children

• Prayer for Me as a Parent and My Family

The post A Father’s Prayer appeared first on Thoughts About God.

“And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” Malachi 4:6(ESV).

A friend of mine was preaching yesterday. His text was on John the Baptist. He made the connection between the verse in Luke 1:17 and the corresponding verse reference in Malachi given above. What struck me was something quite simple within this verse in Malachi.

I had never noticed before this aspect of Fatherhood. Something within said that there is a danger, where parents are too busy for their children, that it can have effects on the family and on the society both present and future. The sins of the parents will be visited on the children, a self-fulfilling prophecy for the people, with a curse as consequence for the land.

I talked to my wife about this thought and in reply, she mentioned an article in her magazine entitled something akin to: “How to be a mother in 60 minutes a day“. It raised the question in my heart “Why are we so keen to have families and yet not give them the priorities given in scripture?” Yes, we need money to live but at what a cost?

Jesus was keen to receive the small children, wants us to come to Him with the uncluttered and wholehearted faith of children. They are important to Him because they are just the same in spirit as those of us who are older, in a more capacious container. Why then is the bus-I-ness (ie. being too busy for too long) of work creating an acceptability of absenteeism that is in danger of consuming the society we hoped to grow and be a part of, where there is no space for more.

I think about my own parenthood. How has this been influenced by my history? How, in turn, am I influencing, have influenced, my children? How will this influence my children’s children?

Matthew 18:3 (ESV):- and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

PRAYER: LORD, I thank You that You do not treat us as our sins deserve because we come to You in the name of Jesus the Christ. Hallelujah!
LORD today, deliver us from this evil: being too busy for our loved ones. Thank You that You are never too busy for us. Grant that we may live a good example of what may be a right balance between worship, work and play in our lives.
LORD, You love the childlike simplicity of the Young. Heal those of us who have hurts and burdens that we carry with us which make us too busy to be able to care. Amen.

by Rod Marshall
Used by Permission

FATHERHOOD

A Call to Fatherhood

Godly Fathers – a Biblical perspective

Leaving a Legacy for Christ

What My Dad did Right

A Good Dad is “There” for His Children 

Ten Things to Teach your Son about True Manhood – by John Grant

The post Children and Parents appeared first on Thoughts About God.

“Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”  Ephesians 5:18-21 (ESV)

I will be the first to admit that I don’t have it all together. And I certainly don’t have my walk with Christ fully figured out. However, through my years of rebellion, new life in Christ, and growth in Christ, I have figured out a few things along the way. The first and most important one is that if I want to have successful relationships, especially within my family, I must be able to submit to others out of reverence for Christ.

Submitting to one another — or submitting to anything — is viewed by the world as a weak and unhealthy way to live your life. The world says be strong and independent, and look out for yourself first.

The problem with this worldly way of thinking? When it comes to family, there is “no ‘I’ in team.” If one member is independent from another, then there will only be division and discord. But when a family submits to one another, with Christ as the head of household, there’s unity, gratefulness, forgiveness, mercy, and joy.

A true mark of being a disciple in Christ is to live a life of submission. This doesn’t mean we become a doormat for our loved ones or for the society in which we live. But it does mean that in all things we submit our lives to His way — God’s way. When we surrender our lives to Him, we learn to submit to each other in Him, creating a very healthy and vibrant way of life.

Father, help me to want to submit my life to You in all areas, especially my family. Teach me to submit to others out of reverence for You. Help me to re-learn how You want me to live my life and to not be led by others or society. You are my first love, and I only want to live for You. Amen.

By Rev. Daniel Forster
used by permission

The post A Family Led By Reverence appeared first on Thoughts About God.

Cathy, our third daughter, was our shy one. When company came to the house, she’d run to the bedroom and hide. She wouldn’t stay in Sunday School class for half an hour unless I was with her.

Imagine my surprise then when during the closing ceremony of grade one, I saw my shy little girl walk on the stage, lift up her little face to the audience and sing a solo. To me it was nothing short of a miracle. How had it happened?

I remembered the teacher’s words to me that first day of school when I’d warned her of Cathy’s shyness, “Cathy will be just fine,” she’d said. This positive message had been repeated many times throughout the year. Gradually my daughter  had been able to believe the message and accept little challenges the teacher gave her to do until she was able to perform such a feat. As Cathy kept listening to the positive voice and reaching for her potential, her confidence grew until today she’s  a confident, assured young woman. Believing the right message about herself made all the difference.

The world bombards us with negative messages. “You’re a failure,  nobody could ever love you…”

When these negative messages come , change the channel. Pick up God’s word, the Bible, and hear what God says about you. “God so  loved you that he have his one and only Son, that if you believe in him you will not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16) God values you that much. When called upon to do a difficult task, listen to his recorded message in the Bible, “Christ in you the hope of glory (success). Nothing is impossible with God. With God’s help I can advance against a troop. With God’s help I can scale a wall (Psalm18:29) This is the truth about you. Read  it out loud.

Thank you, Lord, that you valued me enough to die for me. You love me just as I am for you created me. Today I will take freely of your resources. I will go forth in your strength and energy and I will succeed in your name.

By Helen Lescheid
used by permission

FURTHER READING

• 12 Ways to Love Your Wayward Child
• The ABC’s of Parenting Teens
•  Salvation Explained

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The post Speak Faith, not Fear into Your Children appeared first on Thoughts About God.

Is a person a Christian merely because they have been born into a Christian family?

Of course, the thoughtful answer is no, even though a person may subconsciously subsume some surface-level measure of their parents’ faith, yet never allow it to make any deeper impact on their life. And then people wonder why they  have never experienced this ‘faith‘ thing!

Rev Victor Shepherd notes in his excellent recent book, Do you love me? And other questions Jesus asks:

Christians of every generation are slow to hear that God has no grandchildren. God certainly has children: We become God’s children as we seize Jesus Christ in faith and vow never to let go. Grandchildren, however, are those who try to ride the coattails of their parents’ faith, sooner or later to find that what they assumed to be possible – faith at arm’s length, faith secondhand, faith on the cheap -isn’t possible.

If you today are wondering if you have been living as a grandchild, and not a child of God, I implore you to please take a moment to consider what it means to be living a Spirit Filled Life:   Have You Made the Wonderful Discovery of the Spirit-Filled Life?

It may be the most important few minutes of the rest of your life!

by Darren Hewer
used by permission

FURTHER READING

• Adopted
• No Child Ever Leaves God’s Sight
• Home Coming!

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The post Born into it: Are You a Grandchild of God? appeared first on Thoughts About God.