Love Powered Parenting : Starting With A Strong Foundation

“The godly walk with integrity; blessed are their children who follow them.” –   Proverbs 20:7.

Parenting is more than merely training and disciplining your children for a productive life on earth. It’s more than taking them to baseball practice, dance recitals, and music lessons. It’s even more than taking them to church and memorizing a few Bible verses. Parenting, rightly understood, is part of God’s mission for the world. In bringing children into this world and in raising them to love and serve God, you are part of God’s mission. It all starts with a strong spiritual foundation. 

The foundation is the most important part of a building because everything else rests on the foundation.  A solid foundation means a strong sturdy building.  If you have a faulty foundation, the building will not stand near as strong or as long. Your child is the building, and the foundation is a faith in God. Several times Jesus is referred to as a cornerstone or a foundation stone. A cornerstone is the most important stone in the structure because all other stones are built around the first one. The cornerstone determines the final location of the finished building. Giving a strong foundation for your child means they build their life with Jesus as the cornerstone.

Love is the very foundation of everything. The two greatest commands of God is based on love.  In Matthew 22:34-40, it says, “Jesus replied: ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”  The moment we genuinely believe in our Lord Jesus, our lives start to change.  The Spirit of God begins to reveal God to us through His Word, and as we get to know the goodness of God in our lives, we start to love Him. And the more we love God, the more we begin to love others. 

The stronger foundation is the foundation of God’s unconditional love. If you think God loves you on your good days, but not so much on your bad days, you don’t know how powerfully God loves you. Romans 8:1, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” Families that love, families that understand God’s love is never going to be taken away from us and will have a firm foundation. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 John 15:9 tells us that “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me.” Jesus is saying that I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved Me. Make yourselves at home in My love. You want to be a great parent? A great son or daughter? A great aunt or uncle? Realize how deeply God loves you. Develop a relationship with Christ and then live in that relationship of love, of unconditional love every single day.  

Discussion Questions: 

1. Why is parenting through love so important? 
2. What can we do this week to build a better foundation?