Pastor John D Jakes

Let’s continue looking at Dennis and Barbara Rainey’s article called “40 Lessons We Sought to Teach Our Children.”
Here are the second five:
6. Believe God for too much rather than too little.
7. Real strength is found in serving, not in being served.
8. The power of moral purity and a clean conscience.
9. How to motivate people without manipulating them.
10. How to handle failure.
These next five are at the heart of internal strength. It is one thing for our children to be outwardly skilled or strong. It is something entirely different for them to have internal strength. These five focus on that.
What can we parents do? The first thing we can do is ask ourselves if we use the strength these little statements offer. Do we believe? Do we serve? Do we practice moral purity? Do we motivate with love and honesty? Do we learn and walk forward from our failure?
I was speaking to someone this week about something similar, and we agreed that these lessons come from a lifetime of teaching as our children watch us. They grow strong as they see us growing strong. As we believe God then they learn to believe God too. They learn that we are strong when we serve others because they see us not shirking from serving. They understand the power of a pure conscience when we refuse to compromise or hide when we sin.
Ultimately, they learn as they watch us. Do you try to hide your reality from your kids? I am sure we do it because we don’t want our kids to be discouraged by our failures. Yet, isn’t that how we show them how to deal with failure? Isn’t it by failing and then getting back up again?
Let’s get back up again, for our kids’ sakes.

Here’s to families,
Pastor John