It’s Easy to Become Puffed Up

Our responsibility as parents is to teach our children that love and obedience go hand in hand. My Mom used to tell us, ‘DELAYED obedience is disobedience.’ When love is at its best—honor, respect and submission comes naturally … never resisted.

Children that grow up without honor, respect and submission to God will become adults that think nothing they do is wrong. Our children may not have known or seen the many kind acts of the LORD … but we know that if it had not been for the LORD intervening and disrupting the evil plans of the enemy our troubles would have increased.

The Word of God cautions us not to allow our hearts to deceive us into believing that everything we have in life was all our doings lest we turn aside and begin to serve other gods (material possessions, careers, family) and worship them. It’s very easy to fall into a ‘State of Pride’ where we take pleasure in our achievements and successes.

Pride is hard to detect when all is well, and we are ruling our kingdom.

The person who understands the kindness of the Savior stays humble because they could have had far less than they have now. After we have eaten and our children are full we must not forget the LORD who bought us out of difficult times. When God can trust us, He blesses us more.

The LORD’s anger can be provoked if we miss the opportunity to honor Him in the presence of our children … and the heavens can be shut up. It’s easy to become puffed up with pride over our wins … and our children if we are not careful, they will forget that it’s called GOD.

1 Corinthians 4:7 says, “What are you so puffed up about? What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if all you have is from God, why act as though you are so great, and as though you have accomplished something on your own?”

God has given us the sole responsibility to teach our children when we sit in our homes, when we walk, when we lie down, and when we are awake what the LORD has done for us. Deuteronomy 6:7 … We are to teach them that there is a blessing and a curse set before them.

Blessings that makes us rich and adds no sorrow if we obey the commandments of the LORD our God — to love the LORD our God, to walk in all His ways, and to obey His laws. A curse if we do not obey the laws of the LORD and turn aside and go after other gods (prosperity, destructive behavior, greed ) which we have not known.

Even one parent or grandparent can have a great influence on the family. We read in 1 Timothy 1:5 — Timothy had a sincere faith, a faith that was first in his grandmother Lois, and his mother Eunice, and that faith lived on in him. The greatest legacy we can pass on is a legacy of character and faith. It’s not money and material things we leave in our will after we die… but the stories that are edged in our children’s minds of a faithful God while we are alive.

It’s our Godly faith that levels the playing field for the rich, poor, educated, and the voiceless. We can have nothing or everything … but without Jesus our life will be the most miserable of them all.