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Rewards for Parenting

Children are a gift from God.  In fact in Genesis 1:28, God tells Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and to fill the earth.    So it is gods plan, Gods will, even Gods commandment for us to have children.  But anything that is from God is despised by the Devil.   He does not want us to do Gods will and enjoy the gifts from God.  He will do anything to stop us and if he cannot stop us from having children, he is going to try every other trick in his book to destroy our children.   John 10:10 says - The thief comes to steal, kill and to destroy.  

So what is the devil afraid of ? The devil is afraid of Christian parents who have decided to raise their children in a godly manner. He will do everything he can to stunt (impede, slow down, hold back) and stop the growth of God's people. He will afflict you and hit you with every kind of burden that you can think of.   But we cannot allow him to defeat us, we need to infact allow these affliction and burdens to produce growth and godly character in us. We need to be aware of where these affictions are coming from.   Also we need to know and understand that if the devil can't stop our growth one way then he will try to destroy us another way.

That is why we need to be always alert and we cannot afford to be careless in the matter of raising our children.  

We as parents are his prime target.  His threat to the Christian home is, “If you have children I will destroy them. Some parents think that if their boy or girl is cute, then the devil will not dream of hurting them.  But they living in an illusion.  He is out to get them.   

Ignorance of this fact has resulted in many parents have been taken for a ride by the devil and they end up with having problem kids who are high on drugs, who are alcoholics, rebellious, disrespectful to the elderly, lazy and what not.  So we find sadly that in a majority of families, the devil has the upper hand. 

Let us put this in perspective with the word of God.  Read from the book of Exodus : Chapter 1, verses 6 - 22. 

Here we see that because of the growth of God's people, fear griped the heart of pharaoh. He was afraid that God's people would grow into a mighty army and overthrow his rule. Therefore he implemented a plan to stunt (slow down, hold back) the growth of God's people. He assigned taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. However the bible goes on to tell us that the more they afflicted God's people the more they multiplied and grew. He got so frustrated when his plans  didn't work he came up with another shocking plan to destroy their growth.  That was to kill all the baby boys that were born.   

This passage proves how desperate the devil is to stop the growth of God’s people.  Lets read Chapter 2 verses 1-2.  Here we read about the birth of Moses.  When  his mother saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him for 3 months.  When Moses was born, his mother saw that there was something different and unique about Moses.     All of us here need to realise that our children are special, they are different and unique from all the other children in the world.   Also our own kids are different from one another.  Therefore by faith we need to teach and train our children to use their gifts and abilities for the glory of God.    This does not apply only to parents, you might have grand children or nephews and nieces.  We can also train them to use their gifts and abilities for the glory of God.  (Proverbs 22:6 says – Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it).    

God has placed on us parents the responsibility of teaching our children.   As a parent we have to take the initiative, we can’t just wait for something to happen. We have to give our children a moral base on which to stand. We have to teach them how to deal with temptation, how to control their anger and how to embrace a godly life. God desires that we lead our children just as He leads us.  

But because of the so called pressures of raising up children, many couples don’t want any children. Many ask if it is really worthwhile.  

Someone once quoted that - The trouble with children is that they are not returnable. !

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