Hi blog friends. Did you miss me last week? Ok most of you probably didn't notice but I was on vacation with my family for part of the week! We went camping for a couple days. It was great fun. I find that it is less fun to sleep on an air mattress as I'm getting older..... but everything about Camping is awesome. Especially since your family is right their with you all the time!
Vacations are great times with the family so I put my blog aside for a week. But now I'm back.
Actually last weeks vacation relates to my blog for the day. Joshua in his old age had accomplished what God had asked of him as a leader. So as a beloved leader he gathered the people around him and charged them to decide whom they would serve now and in the future!
We will look at this passage this week but today I want to point out that Joshua spoke for his entire house saying,"As for me and my house we will serve the Lord!" Many times we find the idea in Scripture that a parent would come to faith and the entire family would come to faith as well. We see this a couple of times in the book of Acts. Acts 18 speaks of Crispus and his family which came to faith in response to Paul teachings of the gospel message of Christ. In Acts 18:8 it says, "Crispus, the synagogue leader, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul believed and were baptized."
In many villages and tribes around the world we can be thankful that whole households continue to come to proclaim their faith in Christ in response to the gospel message.
But today it is not a given by any stretch of the imagination that every child in a family will automatically follow in the foot steps of their parents when it comes to faith in Christ. But Joshua's remark about his family following the Lord is an important statement for us to consider. No we can't just stand and say that because I believe my children will follow my lead!
However, as parents one of our utmost responsibilities is to do everything that we can to direct our children toward the Lord. It is their choice to believe but we must do whatever we can to live such a life before our children that coming to faith in Christ might be a natural response.
One of the best ways we can do this is to love our children by spending time with them. Just think about it... Why should they follow or believe that God loves them if we, as God's hands and feet, don't demonstrate love?
So last week was my week to spend time and to love my kids! Vacations can be great times to display the love of Christ! I hope you have special times this summer!
As a parent I am so blessed that all my kids have a love for God and are interested in following Christ as their Lord and Savior!
To Ponder: Remember what we do speaks much louder than what we say. So how have you proclaimed the message of Jesus to your family through your actions today?
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