Ephesians 4:6 “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”   One of the most difficult, but the most important, responsibility today for parents is to lead and raise our children from birth to adulthood.  I once read that raising children is like being “pecked to death by a chicken.”  That cannot be what Christian parents experience and allow to happen.  We have the instruction manual on how to do it and we find a rather simple and short exhortation in our Scripture today to follow.  Don’t let the simplicity of this verse fool you.  It applies to the very heart of what we need to do as parents and is the master guideline for raising our children.  There are no substitutes for discipline and instruction of the Lord.  Parenting is not easy and we must grow with our children through the experience as it is a road down which both they and we have never gone down before.

There are two great pressures parents face.  The first is the external pressure of the culture which is growing more anti-Christian every day.  When I was a young boy, life was centered in the home and church as families spent most of their time together.  We learned life by experiencing it with our parents.  The external culture had minimal impact on children.  We worked together to make a living, we played together, we had family gatherings to share life experiences, we had meals together, we prayed together and we spent time loving each other.  But all of that has changed in our busy lives today where outside work, play, sports, television, video games, and entertainment have replaced the important interactions and relationships found only when parents and children spend valuable time together.  What does this mean for us today?  It means that parents must draw some lines and set priorites to protect family time together.

The second great pressure is the internal pressure of our fallen human nature.  We must recognize that our children are born with a sinful nature and it is our responsibility to bring them to Christ.  We must show them by example that Christ is the only way to live and that there is nothing in life comparable to being a Christian.  Our verse this week calls us to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.  That is how we do it, how God wants to help us do it and to bring them up toward spiritual maturity.  So, be patient and persevere as it takes time, trials and error for maturity and success to be experienced.