CAN PARENTS MAKE IT EASY FOR THEIR CHILDREN TO LOVE THEM?

God has, in the Ten Commandments, commanded children to love and respect their parents. A specific and unique promise is made in terms of the quality of life that will be enjoyed by those who obey: “That thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God hath given thee” (Ex. 20:12).

The New Testament says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right,” and “Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord” (Eph. 6:1; Col.. 3:20). A lot is at stake in terms of how children respond to God’s Word as it relates to how they think about and treat their parents, and parents ought to want to help their children in this area as much as they possibly can.

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The Fifth Commandment is reiterated in Ephesians 6:1-3: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.” Because pressures brought to bear by the world, the flesh and the devil will make it as hard as possible for children to obey this Commandment, it is incumbent on parents to do everything they can to make it easy for their children to love and obey them.

Children are like plants that need protection and cultivation (Ps. 128:3). They are, in terms of potential, like arrows that need to be polished, and kept straight and sharp so they follow the course and reach the mark God has for their lives( (Ps. 127:4; Isa. 49:2; Phil. 3:14). This is all part of the responsibility involved with the parenting process.

Parents can emphasize with their children. They can all say, “Once I was young …” (Ps. 37:25). They can and should relate to the immaturity and vulnerability that is part of growing up; especially in terms of the spiritual challenges children face relative to their obedience to the Fifth Commandment.

Ephesians 6:4 underscores the fact that parents can make their children’s’ obedience to the fifth commandment hard. “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children unto wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” The primary responsibility of fathers, as heads of their home, is asserted here. The responsibility of mothers to help their husbands in parenting is assumed here. Good child rearing requires both parents to make it easy for their children to love and honor them.

Parents provoke their children to anger and make them antagonistic in homes where injustice, intemperance, impatience and inconsistency is the order (or disorder) of the day. Children are provoked to anger by the impossible-to-ignore incompetence and/or indifference of “Christian” parents to “bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). Parents can make it hard for their children to love, honor and obey them as they should.

Or, parents can make it easy and natural for their children to love and honor them. Those who do so are parents who do two things. They visibly demonstrate and verbally declare their love for their children, and they make clear to their children the deliberateness of their intention to raise them to be spiritually-minded, respectful and respected and happy young people and adults.

Parents who make it easy for their children to love and honor them know the importance of getting and maintaining, a powerful and permanent grip on their hearts; a grip that will make it easy for their children to honor them; a grip that will be felt by their children as long as they live

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