"The Greatest Gift"
Watch
Listen
Read
A macaroni necklace. A glitter-bomb birthday card. A "World's Best Dad" coffee cup. If you've ever opened a present from your child, you know it's not the money they spent that makes it valuable. Instead, it's how the gift expresses their love. That's why parents can honestly say, "It's the thought that counts." But what's the greatest gift a parent could receive from their children? We've given stability and shepherding, but what do we hope we've prepared them to do? We send them out, hoping to rejoice with them when our Lord becomes their Lord.
The Big Idea
What a gift — when a "son" or "daughter" becomes a "brother" or "sister" in Christ. Imagine the day we serve our King alongside them as adults!
While hopefully, everyone loves their kids, maybe not everyone likes them. Some children grow up and become people you don't admire or enjoy being around. That's why we work every day to bring them under the shepherding and shaping influence of God. Faithful children don't happen by accident but by continually placing the Lord above all in a family's life (Titus 1:5-6).
Sometimes we're the bad guy, saying "no" until they learn to say it for themselves. Rather than treating our kindergarteners like buddies, we invest in disciplining them while they're small so that eventually, we can enjoy friendship with healthy, spiritually developed adults. Don't rush the process! And so we send them out into the world — not to leave us forever, but to build their own lives and families on what we've given them. We want to share our lives with their families because that's our family.
As parents, we look down the road beyond the piano recitals, report cards, and career decisions. It's fun to see our kids succeed, but life is full of hard choices. They need to know that if they lose their soul, they've lost everything (Mark 8:36). So keep the faith and remind them every day about the greatest gift ever given: salvation in Jesus!
The Big Question
Will your kids become people you enjoy being around?
