day no. 16,626: parenting for the perfecting of their saints

"Remember the word that the conqueror Caesar always used to his soldiers in a battle. He did not say 'Go forward,' but 'Come.' So it must be with you in training your children." — J.C. Ryle, The Duties of Parents

Parents must urge their children to join them in fighting the good fight. Children must do what mom and dad command and forsake what they forbid. Parents cannot in good conscience send their children into battles they are unwilling to fight. They must not, like David, send out the soldiers while they recline on the rooftop. Disaster soon pursues that course of inaction. Lack of ambition is aggressively courting destruction.

1 Corinthians 11:1

Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.

Like Paul, parents must implore from out front, not send from somewhere else. Parents must already be going where they command their kids to go. Mom and dad must sometimes show the back of their heads to their children. They must often fix their eyes on the prize and lead the way. They must stop and tie shoelaces and wipe noses too, of course, but always from the superior position. We can tie their laces because we're not tripping over ours. We can wipe their behinds because we've got our crap together.

Philippians 4:9

Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

Mom and dad must be at peace with God by grace through faith in Christ and obedience to Him alone and urge their children to copy them in their conviction and conduct so that they might be the same. A child should know Christ more for knowing his parents and if your son parrots your ways, it ought to produce an increasing likeness to Christ.

Ephesians 4:11-13

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

And He also gave parents for the perfecting of their saints (1 Cor. 7:4).