What are the reasons many children rebel when they grow up?
They may have learned to behave right, but they never really learned to "convert" their thinking.
If their thinking isn’t "converted," when they have the freedom to behave the way they want, they naturally act according to an old way of thinking.
Now, by "convert" we don’t mean they change religions. Rather, we mean they "change" the way they think. They switch from thinking like humans and now, think like God.
But how do you help your child think like God?
Obviously, the work of the Holy Spirit in their life is required first. Without the Holy Spirit’s help, any attempt to think like God is futile. Worse, it opens them up to idolatry, just as Satan thought of himself as God. That’s not what we mean when we say “think like God.”
- Instead of thinking we “are” god, thinking “like” God means we think so highly of God and His thoughts, that we want to emulate Him.
In order for your children to think “like” God, they first need to know who God is.
So the first step in teaching your children to think “like” God is to teach them everything you can about God.
- Don’t teach them what you think “about” God.
Teach them what the Bible says about God. It’s far too easy to confuse them with human (and incorrect) ideas. Stick to what the Bible says about God. If you need help with this, pick up a copy of Arthur Pink’s book, "The Attributes of God"
and teach your children the Scriptures used in this book.
Second, your child needs to have a very clear understanding of who he is.
It’s especially important to contrast who they are in relation to God. Forget self-esteem and all the pop psychology you hear today. Focus on the Scriptures. What do they say about who your child is? The contrast between God and man will become very clear as you do this. The result, assuming the Holy Spirit is working in your child (a big assumption), will be humility and a realization that he needs God completely.
The third step is to teach your child to apply the first two steps in everyday decisions.
Since most adults struggle with this, it’s important you have a good grasp of this. Otherwise, you’ll teach your child incorrectly. The best thing you can do – and the best thing you can teach your child to do in this regard – is to pray for wisdom. Once you have a knowledge of who God is and who you are, the everyday decisions become pretty clear. The reason most people make poor decisions is because they have a wrong view of God and/or a wrong view of themselves.
Remember, Satan tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden by changing her view of God and her view of what would happen to her.
Once he did that, she stopped thinking like God and it was easy to get her to make a poor decision.
The fourth step is teach your children to act on what they know to be true.
This is where behavior comes in. If you teach your child to behave a certain way without the first three steps, you’ll likely see him rebel when he gets older. But teach him to act on truth, with complete trust in God, and you’ll see him overcome the temptations to rebel.
And, finally, you’ve got to pray for your child regularly.
You can do everything right, and still see your child rebel if he doesn’t have the Holy Spirit working in his life.
A couple of final notes:
All of these steps need to happen on a regular basis in your home.
- Don’t wait until your child has a knowledge of God to teach them the rest of the steps.
- Do all of them together.
- Also remember that this is a long process.
- Be patient and continue to teach him and pray for him.
- Getting a child to think like God doesn’t happen overnight.
- It takes a lifetime.
- Even then, we still fail regularly.
So your goal is to teach the Scriptures with regularity and to help your child develop thought patterns that will continually bring them to Christ throughout their life.
– Steve Kroening
