Jesus says in John 13:35, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Our homes are the first place our kids learn about God. We know inherently, and research substantiates, that a) children learn by watching and b) parents have a powerful influence – the greatest – in the life of a child. This logically leads us then to believe that children will learn how to be a disciple of Jesus by watching how we love.
Kids are learning how to love from us: both how to love others as well as how we love them.
Think for a moment about how you express love to your children. You probably clean-up their messes, feed them, buy them clothing and toys, and generally care for them. These are all good and important things. But the way we do them is indicative of our walk as a disciple of Christ.
It’s easy to get caught up in all of the doing for our kids and forget the greater purpose! We are to be pointing them to their beautiful Savior who can love and care for them infinitely more than we can!
Here are three questions to help you evaluate how you’re discipling your kids:
- Do my kids see my love for Jesus daily: praying, reading, and studying the Bible?
- Is my service to the Lord done from a place of joy? Am I connecting my service with my love for the Lord?
- Am I loving my kids out of the overflow of my love for my Savior and from my Savior? In other words, do my kids know that I love them and serve them because of the grace of God?
Whether your children are two, twelve or twenty, you can be an example of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus because of the way you love. Loving our children in the day-to-day, through the strength of the Holy Spirit, will give them a living, breathing picture of how to be a follower of Christ.
And this is his command:
to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ,
and to love one another as he commanded us.
1 John 3:23
Do your kids know you’re a Christ follower because of the way you love?
By Jenna Hallock
Wife to Mark
Mom of two
1 Corinthians 13 Parenting Team Member
Family Time Training
Check out the Family Time Training Team Curriculum DVD series!