Be Famous In Your Home

For parents, when it comes to investing in our families, the Bible gives us a clear priority structure. God is first, our spouse second, kids third, and everything else after that. Whenever we mess up this structure, life goes off the rails.  

Yes, your family dynamic might look very different from the 1960s nuclear family American dream. Everyone’s journey is unique. But the point is to be intentional in the way you invest. Cast nothing, and that is what you can expect to receive in return. As a dad, one of my favorite passages of scripture is Deuteronomy 6:4-9, which states:

⁴ “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ⁶ And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

The simple application of this passage is that the primary people responsible for the spiritual well-being of children are their parents.

This means I can’t just send my kids to a Christian church and hope they will turn out right. Instead, I am to step up and proactively help my children encounter Jesus in the little things of life. It’s conversations around the dinner table, driving to a sports event, or while reading a book.

One of my favorite conversations of 2022 was with Sarah Cowan Johnson. In Teach Your Children Well, Sarah Cowan Johnson writes, “Our life is full of opportunities to disciple our children. And, whether or not we disciple them, they will be discipled—by billboards, by kids in the back of the school bus, and by a world that does not know Jesus and his love.”^[1]