The first stage of raising our children is NOT to be spiritual. Things of the Lord are according to the Lord, His timing and His working. For our children, especially when young, we present them the moral law of God. The moral law works together with their God-given humanity. This is very important. There is something within each child that God placed within them, a kind of humanity that will respond to whatever is of God. Only God in Christ can come to a person and save them. We cannot make our children love the Lord. Only Christ can. However, we can help them believe in God as their creator because that corresponds with their God-given humanity.

I want to stress this point because our history and the history with most believers is that we want our children to grow up properly, and we want them to love the Lord and we want them to be in the church. Believers in every kind of Christian group feel this way. But we all make a big mistake: somehow we think that we can teach our children to love the Lord or make them love the Lord. We forget that this is the Lord's job, not ours. Only the drawing of God causes a person to love Christ. So what can we do? We can “plant and water,” and allow God to bring the growth or increase (1 Corinthians 3:6). We can incline our children's heart toward God in making them a God-honoring, God-revering, and God-fearing young person. We can raise them to know that there is a God and we can teach them about God, but eventually each person will be held accountable for how he or she lives based on a spiritual interaction between Christ and that person. The Lord knows the events and timing in everyone's life. He knows what He must allow each of us to pass through. He knows what kind of experiences each of us needs before we will receive and experience Christ as powerful and dynamic within us.

As parents we can do a lot to cooperate with the Lord in His working in our children throughout their lifetime. Firstly, we give them the moral law. Based on Galatians 3:24 the law is a child conductor to lead us to Christ at the appropriate time. The law here is not merely referring to the ten commandments, although the ten commandments are reflective of the entire law. The moral law is actually a type of Christ, a picture of Christ in His love, light, righteousness, holiness, and so many other virtues. Christ two thousand years ago was a real Person on earth, not a phantom. And 1500 years before His time, the moral law wonderfully depicted this Person in all of His virtues. Therefore, as parents we put our children into a particular and definite shape based on the humanity, the morality of Christ. We shape their character and their humanity in the form of Christ.

Ezekiel 1:4-11 mentions living creatures all with four faces: the face of a lion, the face of an ox, the face of an eagle and the face of a man. This caricature represents the humanity of Christ, God Himself, displayed on the earth for all men to see and know who He is. This same depiction is seen in Revelation 4:7 showing that Ezekiel prophesied what would come to pass when Christ came to earth to die and resurrect, manifesting God in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:15-16). In the gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, we can see this marvelous portrait of the humanity of Christ, which confirms the moral law written in the Old Testament and depicted in Ezekiel and Revelation.

Matthew depicts the lion, the king, who positively pursues life, sets high standards and goals, reaches after things beyond his reach, views all things with a purpose, and carries out everything commissioned to him. Christ is this lion who is full of purpose, always going after things, productive, occupied in the proper things. Isn't this wonderful for a human being? We can endeavor to make our children like the lion: purposeful, diligent, productive.

Mark displays the side of humanity that matches the ox - our children need to learn to work hard, to be disciplined, to plod along with strength and endurance. The ox does not quit. The ox does not give up. The ox plows straight away. Again we see that this is none other than the Lord Jesus Himself. Sometimes I consider the kind of worker He was! The Bible says He tried to go through all the hundreds of towns of Judea one by one. Many kicked him out, yet He brushed off the dust seemingly in failure and plowed on. City after city; result or no result; He was just an ox, plowing, plowing, teaching, teaching, plowing and teaching.

Luke raises the standard even higher in regard to the Lord's humanity. It is too marvelous and profound to see the Lord's humanity as displayed in the gospel of Luke! Yet, as parents we should raise our children to be men-honoring, men-respecting, compassionate, kind, merciful, thoughtful, respectful of their elders, responsible for kids younger than them. In other words, they know how to live with people as a noble person.

Finally, according to the gospel of John, Christ in His humanity depicts the eagle in Ezekiel 1 and Revelation 4. He is a God-honoring person always seeking to do what is right, soaring above the circumstances to new heights of attainment, focusing on every minute detail yet keeping the broad scope in view.

This kind of view for our children should uplift the meaning of raising them. Our job as parents is just like potters shaping the clay in every detail and from every angle. Consider the Old Testament viewpoint. The law to the Jews shaped every single part of their being. Deuteronomy 6:5-9 unveils that from the time they got up in the morning until they went to bed at night, mom and dad infused their children, spoke to them, inspired them, incited them, instructed them, reproved them and corrected them all the time. “Remember this. You've got to do this. And you've got to do it this way. You've got to say `thank you' and `please'” and so forth.” It is just constant for many many years!

You may argue that children are born sinners and have sinned, and we will never help them escape sin totally. Sin is more powerful than any good that is inside of them. Until they receive Christ, love Christ and follow Christ in their spirit, this is true from one side. Nevertheless, our view and labor before the Lord is to raise dignified, noble, thoughtful, considerate and purposeful human beings. We endeavor to raise our children to be young men and women that are respected, honored and appreciated. We would say, “A person you can be proud of.” This view does not negate sin nor the problems and consequences related to sinning. Every child will have problems. They are going to sneak out when they are 16 years old, they are going to get in trouble, they will have to learn many things “the hard way,” and unfortunately this is a given. However, that scene becomes only a minor thing in comparison to the positive kind of person they are becoming.

According to Galatians 3:19-25 this positive infusion, instilling, inspiration, shaping and forming by the parents creates within their children a knowledgeable and healthy conscience, sensitive and ready to receive Christ and live for Him. Therefore, as parents we seek the Lord's wisdom and proper assessment of our children because the higher their humanity, the more we should impose the law on them, the more we should teach them how they should be, with the end result being a more sensitive conscience ready to meet the Lord Himself whom they have heard so much about all their lives.

The conscience works according to knowledge so parenting is the highest and most crucial job on earth because it educates the conscience in preparation for the Lord's coming into a person. Let's consider how a proper and healthy conscience functions. When the children fall short as in laziness or sloppiness, they feel condemned in their conscience. When they quit or only do what is expected and no more, again, they feel condemned. When they mistreat their brothers and sisters they are condemned. When they are disrespectful to teachers or those in authority - condemned. How wonderful that we are raising “condemned” children. Please take this in a good sense. I do not mean we beat them down to be cruel, to show our dominance or for any reason that is improper. We must see Gods wisdom. Why would He impose the law on our children first thing? Because when the law is given to the children it makes their conscience ready for salvation! Hallelujah! Parents have the most direct responsibility to bring their own children to Christ. This is sobering but it is also an inspiring and wonderful privilege.

This same process should have occurred with the Jews when they faced the Lord Jesus on the earth in the gospels. In coming to Matthew chapter one, the Jewish people had been prepared by God for 1500 years. Instead of receiving Christ almost all became religious even to the point of killing the Lord Jesus on the cross. I say this as a warning to us related to our children. I have watched some children “perform” very well on their so-called Christian side. They can perform in the church meetings, in the young peoples' meetings, and maybe in other gatherings with Christians. But when you take a close look at their lives you find big, gaping holes in their humanity. They hurt other people, they disrespect adults, elders, and those in authority, they isolate themselves from the family and circle of people we associated them with. In a sense that is exactly what the Jews did after being under the law for all those years. The law should have made them so hungry for Christ. They should have fallen on their faces when Jesus walked up to them and pleaded, “Where is salvation? Where is salvation? Where is my consolation?”

Fortunately this was the reaction that Anna and Simeon had as recorded in the gospel of Luke chapter one. They were ready and watching for the coming of the Messiah, Christ, so as soon as the baby Jesus was brought to Simeon he immediately proclaimed, “This One is the consolation of Israel!” The Jews had been under law for 1500 years! The law exposed their failure, their shortages, their limitations, their weaknesses, their rebellious nature, their greedy, selfish, murderous tendencies, and much much more. They should have felt condemned before God to the uttermost, longing for, pleading for consolation and comfort from Him. This was Simeon's case.

How about us today? When we raise our children under the moral law in cooperation with a living Christ and according to His Word, they will have a definite yet proper sense of condemnation. And as soon as someone preaches the gospel to them they will shout, “I need salvation. I need Jesus! Save me from condemnation!” This is the healthy end of the law regarding our children: they come to Christ and joyfully receive Christ! But what is even better is God's ordination for creating children with a God-given humanity. This is so encouraging! Deep within every child is the longing and deep desire to live according to the humanity God created in them. They actually want to live this way. God made them this way. When we talk to them about setting goals, about being productive, about pressing on and not giving up when the “road is rough,” about overcoming failures, about loving other people, respecting other people, honoring other people, esteeming other people, etc. we are speaking to an element inside of them that God created. So as soon as they hear these kinds of virtues they want to emulate them, to pursue them.

My wife and I operate a small private school in Cleveland. We practice this view a lot to develop and cultivate the students' character. You might be surprised to see how you can shape children because you know what is inside of them. Even when a boy or girl has a bad attitude we have a simple way to help them. We just find one or two little things they do right and develop that. For example, two boys, one was a third grader and one a fourth grader, had been repeatedly naughty, but hallelujah they finally did one thing right. So as soon as they did that right thing I had the teacher send them over to me and I sat them down and I said “You know, I just want you to know how proud I am of you.” They began to beam. Not too long after that the parents gave me a call, “Thank you for speaking to my son. He is just so positive!” On one hand, they are still the naughty little boys, but by speaking to the God-created good inside of them, the good can be inspired.

You may argue with me that this only enhances the poor behavior by not addressing and dealing with it. I'm not saying we should not address a child's improper behavior, but we must recognize human nature and accept God's way of discipline. As fallen human beings we may have a child with 50 positive attributes and 1 negative. We will find the negative to reprimand. On the other hand, God sees hundreds of negatives within us, without us and around us, yet He gazes until He finds one positive to enhance, bolster and cultivate.

We should note that the older children get the more difficult it is to shape them in such a way, but we should go to the Lord on behalf of our children to find the grace to infuse, inspire, incite and encourage them as they grow older. So much positive shaping of our children can take place by using the moral law, the law of teaching them what is good, with the view of cultivating their God-given humanity. Parenting needs to be proactive, not reactive. We should take action to shape our own children according to the Biblical principles laid out by God. Saints, do not let anyone else shape your children apart from your oversight. You do it! By teaching them, by training them, by teaching, by training, by teaching, by training, etc. The way they are shaped is by what we put inside of them and not what someone else puts inside of them.