“And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Deuteronomy 6:5-9

The greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Parents are charged with instructing our children in this command. A few years ago, I did an activity with my oldest to help him see and understand the concept that we often fill our hearts with things that we love more than God. He’s older now and more things are fighting for space in his heart. We talk often about how hard it is to not place toys in that spot made only for God.

“There’s a God-shaped hole in all of us
and the restless soul is searching
There’s a God-shaped hole in all of us
And it’s a void only He can fill”
(from “God-Shaped Hole” by Plumb)

For this activity, I traced the top half of my son onto a large piece of paper. We drew a large hole shape and filled it with words and pictures of things that people put in their heart instead of God. We talked about each idol and why it might be one for some people and not for others. Only God can help us keep second things from becoming first things in our heart.

For a smaller version, these two cutouts of people have words describing idols in the one on the left and the one on the right is what is produced in our heart when God is the center.

Do you have any “teach me Jesus” moments to share this week?

Courtesy of my friend Lisa

This photo is of my two boys. It captures their personalities perfectly. They are all boy and they love to fight-especially with each other.

I live my days as a referee. I separate fights. I resolve conflicts. I teach over and over again how brothers should love one another.

I hear one getting angry at the other because he has damaged something the oldest was working on. I ask, “When you get angry about the damage your brother did to what you’ve made, are you showing your brother than you care more about what you’ve made or about him?” Then we talk about the priority people should always take over things. I ask, “Who made your brother?” He responds, “God.” I ask, “Since he is God’s creation, what might God be thinking when he sees you yelling and hitting something He has made?” We talk about all Jesus endured at the cross and how he didn’t once hit back, yell back, spit back but instead he prayed for his enemies.

Sibling rivalry is a battle all families deal with every day. I remember well my own battles with my little sister. I find that even in the midst of instructing my children on being kind to one another that the Spirit convicts my own heart.

I tell my boys to respond to each other with a kind tone of voice. How often do I respond to them in sigh’s, sarcasm, or a raised voice? I tell them to put each other first. How often do I put my own needs and desires first, above my children?

Each time I confront sin in my children’s hearts, it’s always a reflection of the sin in my own heart. Often though, I miss the opportunity to see my reflection and instead walk away frustrated. This means that I miss the opportunity for repentance and growth in my own heart. I need to be more spiritually aware of what God may be teaching me through my children rather than wondering to myself, “Why don’t they get it?”

Because after all, it may just mean that God is asking me, “Why don’t you get it?”

Have you had any teaching moments to share this week?

“Teach Me Jesus” is just that, teaching Jesus to our children. But who is the Jesus we teach our children about? This season, as we celebrate the arrival of our Savior, I want to point out to my children a key characteristic of our Lord-His humility. His very birth is a story of humility.

When I read the Christmas story from the The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name, the humility of our God jumps out from every page. From the young, simple girl chosen to be Jesus’ mother to the first night he spent in a cattle’s trough to the smelly, ostracized shepherds who were the first given the great news-all stories of humility.

Yet, my children don’t quite understand what it means to be born in a stable. I’ve found pictures online of babies of royalty and where they were born. I’ve found pictures of castles where royalty live. I’ve also printed out pictures of a cattle trough. Comparing and contrasting, I show them the place where one would expect royalty to be born and reside and what it would have looked like where Jesus was born. I point out to them how different Jesus’ arrival was from what everyone expected.

God doesn’t do things the way we might expect. He uses poor, uneducated and simple people to carry out his plan. He lowers himself and takes on flesh so that we can better understand who he is. He does the worst of all servant’s jobs as he washed the disciples feet. All of these acts of humility point to the greatest act-his sacrificial death on the cross.

The Christmas story and the story of redemption itself is one of humility. I want my children to see the humble details of the story. I want them to see Jesus as more than a cute baby bundled in cloth.

I want them to see him as God incarnate-the Savior of the World.

What “teach me Jesus” moments have you had this Advent season?

Today I have a blogging friend doing a guest post. Wick Anderson writes about similar issues on teaching Jesus to his children on his blog so I thought he would be a great guest blogger for today. Enjoy!

I remember taking “Speech” back in college. All students were required to participate in an all-day speech tournament, and there were rules/guidelines we each had to follow. I decided I would do a speech that helped me with a paper I was writing for “Bible”, and so mine was on the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. What I hadn’t thought about was how boring of a topic that would be for a speech competition. I tried hard to make it entertaining, even making a visual set of “caves” from which I removed each note-card for my speech. But in the end, I only lasted one round.

But in the process of teaching others about the Dead Sea Scrolls, I became more knowledgeable on the topic myself. I could answer any question, and would even find ways to tell others about them - because my brain was wrapped around this topic. I’ll tell you, I was a real hit at parties around this time. (sarcasm)

It’s a natural temptation, sometimes, to think about our role as Spiritual Guides and Bible teachers to our children as completely “for the kids”. But to do this is to miss out on a huge aspect of God’s desire for our parenting journey.

Take a quick test. If you look back over this past week, and notice you’ve missed some prayer or Bible conversation times with your kids, what thought comes to mind? If it’s only “My kids missed out, I’ll have to make it up to them sometime next week.”, then we are selling this discipleship process short!

You’ve probably heard this phrase before: “One of the best ways to learn something is to teach it!” Maybe you’ve already experienced that truth, especially if you’re a home school parent, or Sunday School teacher of some sort. When we prepare to talk about Truth to others, we dive into that Truth in deeper ways than if we were simply checking it out on our own.

God has given us an amazing task as parents, to lead the next generation in following Him. But He has also given us an amazing gift/tool that will transform and grow us if we allow it to. In the midst of passing on our faith to the next generation, and inviting them to all that God is doing - we find ourselves becoming more and more centered on and transformed by Christ! Just as preparing for a speech in college made me a (temporary) expert on the topic, daily teaching my children about Christ will naturally make my life more influenced by Jesus Himself.

With that in mind, when we notice our past week was missing some important times of prayer and Bible conversation with our children, it makes us feel like we missed out ourselves too! God has instructed us to pass all of these things on to our children (Deut. 6:7), not simply for their sake, but because there is a continued work He desires to do in our hearts and minds as well!

As you teach and reveal Jesus to your children this week, may God surprise you by revealing how He is using all of this to transform YOU as well…

Wick Anderson was born and raised in Mid-Michigan. He attained his BA in Youth Ministry from Olivet Nazarene University in 2003, and has experience in speaking, writing, and leading worship. He is currently an ordained Elder in the Free Methodist Church, and serves in Illinois with his wife, Sarah, and their three children. He can roast a batch of green coffee beans using a wooden spoon and a wok, and has conquered the “Bonus Round” of Wheel of Fortune (aired September 17th, 2007). When he was in 5th grade, he won an award through Young Authors for his creative book “Tongue Twister Teasers”, and loves the NHL playoff season.

Although he would never even try to write a book on “How to be a Parent”, Wick Anderson believes God can use it to mess up our lives in great ways. Wick is passionate about parenting, and offering God the act of parenting as a Spiritual Discipline. He blogs regularly on his site: https://www.differentparent.com (Subscribe Today!) and is excited to offer his first book “Different: how God uses parenting to transform us wholly” on Kindle, iBooks, and softcover!!

This is my favorite time of year. I love cooler weather (which for us means the 70′s), apple cider and pumpkin pie. As this months brings us Thanksgiving, I wanted to spend time with the boys focusing on what it means to be thankful. We’ve recently studied in homeschool the story of the Pilgrim’s and their life that first year in America. We learned about the Native Americans who helped them learn how to live in this land, particularly Squanto. And we’ve learned about that first Thanksgiving Day.

This month, we are focusing even more of our thoughts on gratitude. The Psalms contain some of the best words of praise to God for all He has done. During our devotional time, we are reading passages of thanksgiving. Here’s a couple of favorites:

Psalm 100

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness;

come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God.

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with
thanksgiving

and his courts with praise;

give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;

his faithfulness continues through all generations.

1 Chronicles 29:10-13

Praise be to you, O Lord,

God of our father Israel,

from everlasting to everlasting.

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power

and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,

for everything in heaven and earth is yours.

Yours, O Lord, is the
kingdom;

you are exalted as head over all.

Wealth and
honor come from you;

you are the ruler of all things.

In your hands are strength and power

to exalt and give strength to all.

Now, our God,
we give you thanks,

and praise your glorious name.

We have also made a “Thanksgiving Tree.” Using tree branches in a vase, we’ve hung leaf cut outs on the “tree.” Each day, we are writing on the leaves the blessings we’ve been given from God.

A heart that overflows with thanksgiving will share that abundance with others. One of the ways we like to share our abundance of grace is to participate in the shoebox drive with Samaritan’s Purse. The kids went with me and helped pick out items for the shoebox’s that Samaritan’s Purse gives to children in need at Christmas time.

Do you have any “teach me Jesus” moments to share? I would love to hear what you have done with your children.

My investigative skills are used on a daily basis.

They come by it naturally-this skill of losing things. The firefighter often asks this detective to help him search for lost keys, wallet, phone, etc. For the boys, it’s lost Lego pieces, favorite toys and shoes.

And the world seems to stop spinning while we search high and low. Everything else is of less importance. The missing object must be found! Tears are shed while we search under couches, beds and in plain sight. “Where did you see it last?” becomes my daily inquiry.

Teaching moments can appear in many situations. Lost Legos become an opportunity to share about lost sheep. We read in Luke about the shepherd searching for lost sheep. “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” Luke 15:4-7

The joy my boys feel when they find their lost treasured Lego man is just a glimmer of the joy expressed in heaven when one sinner repents. We meditate on the love the Father has for us.

And this teaching moment is one that can be referenced each and every day.

How about you? Have you had any “Teach Me Jesus” moments this week?

For those who regularly visit here on Thursdays, I have a few printables to share.

Click here for a copy of “Our Family Rules.” To view the posts related to this printable, click here.

For those who remember my post on anger management and children, click here for a printout to use for teaching anger management skills.

If you missed my post on The Family Conversation Jar, click here for the list of conversation ideas.

I’ve also developed a prayer calendar for praying for our children. It is a list of 31 concerns to bring to God about our children. For a post about that list, click here.

Happy printing!

Reviewing catechism questions with my kids the other day, I was deeply struck and convicted. The question I asked was “Do you have a soul as well as a body?” And their response was, “Yes, and my soul is going to last forever.”

This catechism reminded me anew of why I do this thing called motherhood. Raising children is an investment in eternity. All the energy and tears we put into this calling has an impact that will last forever. Forever. Have you ever thought about how long that is? Most of our tasks and responsibilities in life don’t have a lasting impact. But the investment in a human soul does.

In our society, children are rarely viewed as having such lasting importance. Many in our current age don’t even belief in an after life. Instead, they believe this life is all there is. Because of this belief, their time, money, energy is spent on accumulating and using their resources on what is only temporary.

How would our world be different if we all believed that children were given souls that last forever?

I often fail to remember this truth myself. Distracted by all the pretty things the world has to offer, I focus on the here and now. I spend my days on household chores, running errands, browsing pinterest. “Not right now, Buddy, I’m busy.” “Let me just finish folding these clothes.” All the while, two little souls exist in my care needing my intentional influence.

I need to value my children the way Jesus did. “Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14) Our Lord’s heart is tender toward children. He paused to intentionally bless them in the midst of a busy day of ministry.

And He intentionally nurtures and blesses my soul. His grace is always abundant and overflowing. He is always ready to hear from me. When I remember how much I am loved by the Father, it helps me to remember to love on my children. Focusing on His love and grace for me turns me away from the distractions of this world and to what is eternally important. The more I turn from what’s temporary, the more I will invest in the forever souls of my children.

“Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Luke 12:33,34