How to Raise Godly Children....

First and foremost, to have a child from the Lord is a blessing.  It says that sons are a heritage from the Lord (psalm 127:3).  Raising children is hard work, but doing it Gods way requires a different way, then what the worlds standard is.  As being parents it is our duty and responsibility to train up a child the way the of the Lord and when he gets older he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6) There are so many young children in our world today that are so lost and have many issues.  Some parents don't take the time to sit down and actually raise their children.  Some parents let TV raise our kids, or even others people raise their kids (friends, teachers, other parents, etc).  Then when something happens, everyone wonders what happened and what went wrong.  It all starts with us, being parents.  God has equipped us with enough tools to raise our child.  God has blessed us with a child that nobody else could raise or parent to.  God has a divine purpose and will for our children and it is our duty to help mold our children into Gods Ambassador.  Our Children need to be "lights" in a dark world that we live in.  I am going to put things that my husband and I do as being parents to our children.  I am going to put things that we learned from church in here, and things that we have agreed on starting from the very beginning.  In our house we have agreed that our children will never hear us shouting or arguing.  If we have a disagreement we agree to hold off and wait to talk things out until our children go to bed.  This way our kids will learn behavior from us on how to act composed and godly and not let our tongues get the best of us.(proverbs 21:23) We also have agreed to always pray before meals and hold hands.  We want our children to learn to always thank God for what we have, especially our necessities (food, clothes, shelter)  We then agree on disciplining our children.  (proverbs 29:17) We know that disciplining our children comes from love, and they will learn how to understand what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.  One of the most important things on raising godly children is to get them plugged into a good church to where they can grow with other kids like them.  We have  a church that we truly love and consider family.  We go 2 times a week and our children are used to this, they have had it ever since they have been born and know that twice a week we go to church and they look forward to it.  We know that they are around people that are pouring into them with Gods Word and also around other children developing friendly relationships. Children need to be involved in a church, they need the fellowship.  Something that I would consider the MOST important is to pray for our children.  I am talking about being a REAL prayer warrior for our children.  Each night I take our son into his room and tell him to get his bible and he runs and gets it with a big smile on his face.  We read his bible and he points things out and then when I am done, we go get a treat before bedtime and he eats it.  After he is finished I tell him to lay down because it is now time to pray.  I pray out loud over him so he can hear me praying for him,  I pray for Gods blessing on him, his health, future godly friendships, his future spouse, teachers, mentors, I build hedges of protection around him, I put on his shield of armor to quench the fiery darts from the evil one, I pray Gods Will to be done in his life, and other things.  I want my son to always remember that I prayed to God over him and i wanted him to hear me.  When I am done we both fold our hands and do the "Our Father" together.  We want our children to know who is the most important to us, (God) and I want them to have God as their number one.  These are just a few things we do as a family and we will stick with them because it is our duty to raise Godly children and we have promised God that we will do the best to our ability.  So to all the parents out there, start doing it Gods Way, let's raise a godly generation in a sinful world.  Pick up your armor, and let's move forward for Christ.