FEEDING ON THE WORD OF GOD – PART I

Posted by Pastor Brown on May 14, 2011

To live a healthy and well balanced life, we must take care of ourselves in mind, body, and spirit. Great care, time, and expense go into caring for our mental health through the years of formal education we attend in grade school, middle school, high school, and for some, college and graduate school too. Many of us spend huge amounts of money and expend great effort to care for ourselves physically. And although our spiritual lives are the most important of the three, people in general spend far too little time nurturing and building their faith. God freely and generously gives us His Word for our spirits to be fed. What does it say when we aren’t in Sunday school on a regular basis to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity?
Parents, you are responsible for your children’s spiritual growth. You are responsible to provide for your child’s spiritual wellbeing. Some parents of slightly older children might claim that they don’t send their kids to Sunday School because the young ones or teens don’t want to go. My answer to that… send them anyway! I was recently asked if parents should force their kids to attend church, even if the children don’t want to attend. My answer was undoubtedly and a resounding, “yes!” Would parents allow their kids to skip junior high school because the kids found it more desirable to sleep in each day? Obviously, parents do force their children to go to school because they know it is best and it is what they need. Would parents allow their kids to eat nothing but candy bars for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Obviously, parents do force their kids to eat vegetables and engage in other activities that are best for their physical health. Why would it be any different for our spiritual lives? Proverbs 22:6 reads, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” Parents, bring your children to Sunday School! At Praise we also have youth groups for 3rd to 12th graders which meet on Wednesdays. Youth should be coming to Sunday School too. This is not up to the children to decide.
At Praise we place a high value on the spiritual growth of our members, and especially our children. There are many other “religious” groups that treat church as merely a wonderful place to go for terrific social values. While that may be a bonus, and certainly God wants us to develop strong relationships with each other, our primary purpose for attending church, Sunday School, and youth group is for our spiritual growth and to be fed with the Word of God and His sacraments. Some other churches don’t have Sunday School for their youth and don’t even encourage their youth to attend regular worship services. This may seem attractive at first, but we all know neglecting our spiritual growth can have long-lasting consequences.
Until children are grown and living out of your house and removed from your direct care, they are not the ones to be making decisions for their own health. They need to be given the correct RDA (recommended daily allowance) of all the things necessary to help them grow in mind, body, and spirit. Parents, please feed your children!