|
CHILD TRAINING
by James Manning I hear people say some times, why don't this guy write about something practical, and what they are saying is that they want me to write about things that are within the operation of man, But the plan of redemption is not the operation of man but it is the operation of God, and we must have faith in or be persuaded of the operation of God. God is the doer of all the work or activity, and it is when we have faith in or when we are persuaded of what God has done that his activity will become our activity through the person of the Holy Spirit. He will make our flesh comply to the will of God, This life that has been given to us through the Lord Jesus Christ is unlike anything that is on planet earth, when this life is manifested in our flesh we are literally a light shining in a dark place, and when this life is manifested in our flesh it will literally cause our flesh to glow and shine with the light of life. The following is how Jesus described it, Matthew 5:14 King James Version (KJV) 14Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Matthew 5:16 King James Version (KJV) 16Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Ephesians 5:8 King James Version (KJV) 8For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: The word of God is the seed that shall produce this light life in these earthen vessels, and this life is what I present to you in everything that I write, in all of it perfection, for this is your life, CHILD TRAINING One of the areas that we have fail so miserably in as the people of God is the area of real biblical child training The truth of the matter is that we have given the responsibility of training and instructing of our children not only to the government but also to the very environment of the society that we live in, And exactly what do I mean by this? We are sending our children into public schools where in today's world they are making it a part of their business to leave out and in many cases to sway them away from the things of the bible. And when they are not being indoctrinated by the school systems that we send them to, they are given to the television set and the electronic world for even greater indoctrination, In many homes of today when our children are not at school, they are in front of the television set or some electronic pass time where more time is spent there than with the parents, now you calculate that with the four to five hours a week that they spend at church, none the less we expect them to become spiritual giants, So the trainers consist of, Public school School activities such as sports Television and electronics Hanging with friends Time at Church (maybe 4-5 hrs wk) The training of our children must consist of more that this, Training Up A Child Proverbs 22:6 King James Version (KJV) 6Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. I recall when I first started out in the ministry when we would have testimony time some of the mothers of the church would stand to testify and they would use Proverbs 22:6 as their supporting scripture, And they would say something like this, well the bible says train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it, and that's what I did, and they may be out there now but the bible says that they will not depart from that training, and I know that where ever they go and whatever they are doing that training is still with them, and they will be back. I can tell you now that the sum total of the training that they are speaking of is that they sent them either to Sunday school or morning church service, and this is far from the type of training that is spoken of not only in proverbs but through out the bible. I remember my mother putting before me and my brothers and sisters the choice of either attending Sunday school or the morning service, one or the other, and we all selected Sunday school. We went to Sunday school, but as soon as it was over we left and went back to the house, and I do not recall learning anything about the need for Jesus Christ. Now get this, biblical child's training consist of a whole lot more than you sending or taking your children to church and Sunday school. In fact as you will see, every awakening moment must become a part of your child's training in the way that he or she should go. Now don't become alarmed by this because this is exactly what is being done in general, and in a very loose manner, and when I say loose, that is exactly what I mean, because there have been very few of the proper confinements, and you will understand what I mean by this later, now back to our scripture, Proverbs 22:6 King James Version (KJV) 6Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Let take a closer look at some of the words that make up this verse, Train up: The two words together 'train up' make up one Hebrew word that means to 'narrow' and it is also translated to 'dedicate' in the Old Testament, Way: The word way speaks of habit or a course of life. A habit can become a way of life. Therefore, to train up a child is to narrow that child down to only one way, he is to have only one course of life, and that is the Lords way, it is the way of obedience to the will of God, As I sad, when they dedicated the temple of God they were giving that temple to the purpose of God only and no other way, and this is what we must do with our children as we train them for the Lords way, now when I speak of the Lords way I am not talking about ministry, but I am speaking of that child's course of life, it is the life that he shall live here on the earth. Narrow is the way, Matthew 7:13-14 King James Version (KJV) 13Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Now get this, the gate way to life is a narrow gate and in order to enter in you must take the narrow way, and you can not enter in apart from entering through the gate, The word 'find' in this context is defined as to come forth to, and the reason that the many will not come forth to this gate way to life is because they for some reason are not getting the proper training, they are not being narrowed down to the narrow way from child hood. There are those who will say, James that's fanatical, but let me say this to that, if your children are going to enter into life you will have become the kind of fanatic that will hear and see things as Jesus saw them. Do you not understand what it means to enter into life while still here on planet earth? To enter in to life while still living on planet earth is to enter into the place where you receive God's, Protection Provision Direction It is that place where your child will reign in life as the righteousness of God Because our children are not receiving the proper training they are living apart from this grace, and this is why we continue to get reports of the destruction of our children, I'm talking about the kind of reports of how our children are being shot down at school, raped or victims of some other kind of hideous crime, their protection is in the training, The training will produce the necessary walk of obedience, and remember it was disobedience that got man in the mess that he is in, he started walking in unsafe, unprotected territory, To live in disobedience is to live in the hurt zone, it is like a house without a foundation or a foundation that is not properly laid. And do them, Matthew 7:24-27 King James Version (KJV) 24Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: 25And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. 26And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: 27And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. If you will note, you will see that this scripture text is in the same text as the verses that speaks of the narrow way, the narrow way is the way of obedience, and it is also the way that we must train up or narrow our children to walk in. It is when our children are narrowed or trained to only one way that they will be ready for anything that come their way, and nothing will be able to hurt them. By no means, Luke 10:19 King James Version (KJV) 19Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. This power is the ability not only to choose but to act circumspect, now think about it, just how secure your child will be if he/she could not only choose but act circumspect? To walk circumspect is to not err in our action, it is to have the will of God manifested in our action, and this is a God thing, and he will make it so through the person of the Holy Spirit. Now get this, when we walk circumspect according to the will of God the enemy can not touch us, and this is why the Holy Spirit is not just here on earth but he is literally living in us, to help us achieve this. But our children must be properly trained or narrowed to walk into this life style, and all good training must have good instructions, or accurate knowledge, and it is the Holy Spirit that supplies the instructions and knowledge. He said that nothing by any means shall be able to hurt our children when they are narrowed to walk in the way of life. Obey your parents, Ephesians 6:1-2 King James Version (KJV) 6Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. 2Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; The word 'obey' here means to listen with the intent of obeying, Obedience is always connected to hearing or listening. And it is a major part of the whole training exercise. Children are to listen with the intent of obeying their parents that are in the Lord. Why? Because the parents must participate in the training of their children, and that participation may consist of making sure that they have the proper instructors, those who are filled with the Spirit of God. This is how it works, hearing is a process, and hearing is incomplete until the process is complete, Hearing produces understanding or seeing Seeing or understanding produces action or obedience. Your child has not heard until he/she completes the process, Now get this, hearing, seeing or understand and the activity that is produced all is a gift from God that is packaged in the word of God, but this word must be spoken under the anointing of the Holy Spirit into the hearing of our children. Bring them up, Ephesians 6:4 King James Version (KJV) 4And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The quickest way for a father to provoke his children to wrath, especially his sons, is to mistreat their mother. But fathers we are to bring our children up in the admonition or exaltation of the Lord, we are to mature them in the things of God, and it is the things of God that shall exalts them. Now this bringing up, is the same as the training up, or narrowing of children in Proverbs 22:6 Now hear this parents, your biggest job and responsibility is the training of your children in the things of God in a world where there are so many things to choose from, I mean the distractions are so great, everything and every body are competing with you to win possession of your children, therefore, you must be that much more determine to see the will of God manifested in you child, And yes they will call you fanatical but so did they call the Lord Jesus. The chastening of the Lord Hebrews 12:7-11 King James Version (KJV) 7If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 8But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. God is our father and he will chastise us as a loving father will do, But when people read this portion of the scripture they have only thought of punishment, he is not talking about punishment here, but he is talking about correcting through all that is involved in the training. There is a difference in punishment and correcting, you can punish without correcting and this is what takes place in many instances. Let me say before I continue, I am not speaking against punishment, but what I am saying that we should not major in punishment, but we should major in the correcting that comes through bible training. I have seen where parents constantly beat a certain child but that child continue to do what he was doing, now why is this? It's because punishment is not correcting or removing the error from the child, you must deal with the error. And I am not talking about suppressing it, but we must correct it. The error is in his/her activity and this is where correction must take place, And the way to correct a child's activity is to correct his/her information input, And the information must be the knowledge of God and his son Jesus Christ. 9Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? Subjection to God comes as we accept his correction, and this correction is a part of the training or bringing up the child in the way that he should go. 10For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. For a few days they chastened their children after their own pleasures, Now we know that they did not beat them for a few day, But they trained them only for a few days and the training was after their own pleasures and not for the well being of the child. The training must not cease until the child has matured in it, the training must become who he is, the child must know only one way, and this kind of training is going to take more than a few days. 11Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. He is talking about boot camp training, your home must become a boot camp and it is not necessarily a time of enjoyment, not for you nor the child, Ha, this is the kind of world that you are living in and the pressure and influence is great, and they are after your children. Now you can raise children that are good church goer who sing in the church and do all the other stuff that we as good church people do, Are you can raise a child who is a champion in every way, and is ready for anything, and because of the very presence of the child in that school, live are saved. For the moment the training may be grievous, but afterward it will yield the kind of results that can not be matched by anything else. It will yield a circumspect walk in the child that will cause that child to be successful in everything that he does. I recall on the day that my son graduated from the US Marines boot camp, I asked him did he enjoy it, and he said to me no dad, and to tell you the truth he said, if I had it to do all over again I would not do it, but at the same time I do appreciate the end results, what has happen to me as a result of going through it, Now this is what my son told me concerning his feelings about the training that he under went in the US Marine boot camp. It's the end results that make it all worth the while, and the only reason why it is grievous to us is because it is going against our flesh and what it rather be doing. My son did not like the whole idea of getting up every morning around 4:am and being kept away from his family and so on, but now he is much more of a responsible young man. And the training of the Lord will take our children to much higher level of living than any branch of the US arm forces can. I'm talking about the kind of training that will teach our children, How to develop the hearing ear How to recognize the voice of the Lord from that of a stranger Knowing what authority is and why it is important to operate under authority. Because you can never be completely successful as one who operates in authority until you learn how to successfully operate under authority. True authority do not need external weapons strapped to ones side in order to get others to comply, but the activity of love is the only weapon that is needed, and they will want to comply without any force How to posess his or her vessel or body in holiness About foundational thoughts and how and what part they play Living a hundred fold life as a result of being a good hearer, These are the things that they need to grow up in. Now there are those who will still say all of that is not necessary, but it is necessary. At lease God thinks so, Deuteronomy 6:6-9 King James Version (KJV) 6And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. 8And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. 9And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. Now, don't you think that is a bit fanatical? Deuteronomy 4:9 King James Version (KJV) 9Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons; With Godly training these things will never depart from your children, but they shall be in their heart all the days of the their life. Deuteronomy 11:18-20 King James Version (KJV) 18Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. 19And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. 20And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates: The success of your children is in your diligence to keep the things of God before them, you must talk about them in the way, and speak of them when you are in the house, Boot camp is the military's camp to give basic training to their solders, and the home must be the boot camp for our children, the place where the foundation of life is laid. This foundation will always keep them in place and protect them from the pit falls in this world. Started his ministry as a pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal church and later became an associate pastor in the Missionary Baptist Church. James graduated from the Word of Faith Bible School in 1983. He is a certificate holder with Rhema Bible School. James founded and pastured the Shinning L Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |