One of the greatest blessings in life must surely be being born and raised in a Christian home. From a tender age, you would be listening to Bible stories being told, lying on your mother’s lap while the sounds of Christian hymns and choruses waft through the air. Your parents pray for you before you go to sleep. When you are a little older, your parents teach you to read the Bible stories for yourself as well as buy you your first Bible. They not only pray for you but now also pray with you.
Truly God is gracious to all who are raised by Christian parents and are brought up in a home governed by the commandments and precepts of the Bible. When you are old enough, you attend Sunday school, play with the children belonging to other God-honouring parents and experience what Christian joy and fellowship is all about. In your teens, you continue to be surrounded by other believers, hear sound preaching every Sunday and continue to fellowship with and join other teens in sound Biblical activities.
In spite of all these many blessings, why do so many children who have grown up in a Christian home end up leaving the church and the faith their parents hold so dear? Of course, these “Christian” children might never have been true believers to begin with since God has no grandchildren. Despite parents and church leaders pouring much love and prayer into these children, they have never truly embraced the gospel and decided to forge their own self-centred path of life. While this is sad, it should not surprise us. After all, in the last days, many people will still follow after Satan despite being under King Jesus’ perfect earthly rule for a thousand years.
It is certainly the hope and prayer of every Christian parent that their children have been elected to the household of God. Nevertheless it is prudent for parents to recognise the hidden perils of growing up in a Christian home. This will allow them to take steps to ameliorate these dangers that seem to pursue Christian children with particular tenacity.
According to Dr K Graustein, the most insidious danger faced by those who have grown up in a Christian home is false assurance of salvation. When most of the people around a child are believers and the child is raised going to church, hearing the gospel, and doing “Christian” things as part of everyday living, it is very easy to assume that one is a Christian. He probably cannot even remember a time when he did not know the gospel story nor believe in God. Further, he has grown up without much exposure or temptation to serious sin nor done many bad things. After all, he has never gotten drunk, had premarital sex or stolen anything. It is therefore very natural for him to assume he is a Christian because of his lifestyle. This natural tendency must be shaken to the core with Biblical passages like the words of Jesus: “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.” (Matt 15:8 ). The important thing for someone who has grown up “Christian” is to ask himself whether he has accepted Jesus as his personal Lord and Saviour. He must examine his life before Scripture, paying particular attention to his thoughts and motives.
A second peril encountered by those growing up in a Christian home is taking God’s grace for granted. Attending church becomes a regular weekly activity that must be endured. The gospel story is heard so many times that boredom begins to set in each time it is retold. Loving Christian parents are taken for granted together with church leaders and Christian friends. It is so easy for the one who grows up in a spiritually rich environment to take God’s grace to him for granted. Worse, God’s grace has manifested to him in so many ways that he begins to think he somehow deserves this grace. This mindset must be challenged with the Biblical truth of sin’s depravity. As Pastor Randy Acorn puts it, “Grace never ignores the awful truth of our depravity. In fact, it emphasises it. The worse we realise we are, the greater we realise God’s grace is.” Many Christian children do not appreciate grace because they do not comprehend the terrible nature of their own sins. They should therefore be taught to “work out (their) own salvation with fear and trembling.”(Phil 2:12 )
The third danger faced by those raised in a Christian home is the temptation to pursue worldliness. Often Christian children are somewhat sheltered from the world and the things in the world. Some of them, for instance, have never even visited a movie theatre nor do they know how to buy a movie ticket. The temptation to pursue after these things is particularly strong once they have left the safety of the home and discover and experience even a little bit of the world. This is particularly precarious for those Christian children who have never truly been satisfied with God. For them, even a little bite of what the world has to offer is so good that it leaves them hungry for more. These children must be shown that God can and will completely satisfy: “thy lovingkindness is better than life.” (Ps 63:3 ) They must be shown that God provides more satisfaction than can ever be obtained from this world.
There are of course still other perils that confront those growing up “Christian”. It is therefore prudent for parents to realise that such dangers exist and help your children to face and overcome them. The first thing to do is to make sure of your own salvation for spiritual parenting can only take place when you have been spiritually reformed. Next make your home a powerful place to demonstrate the life-transforming grace of God. Constantly remind your children that all of us are sinners and that we can only be saved by grace in Christ alone by embracing Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Saviour. Lovingly expose and teach them from young of Christ’s great salvation work from the Scriptures each day. Pray daily with your children by your side that the Lord would be gracious and call them to repentance and faith in Christ soon.
In building a godly home, one can do no better than to heed Solomon’s advice. He says, “Through wisdom is an house builded: and by understanding it is established: And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” (Prov 24:3-4 ) Just like a house, a Christian family has to be built. The material to be used in the construction is the wisdom revealed in the Word of God. Like a house, a family has to be established. To do this well requires each family member to understand one another, how the other member differs from us and to accept all members for what they are. For though this may not be what we want, it is what God wants.
Like a house, a family needs to be filled. Each member needs to know what are the gifts, talents and abilities of the other family members so that the home might be filled with the riches of shared love and service. Like a house nicely decorated, a family should show forth its precious and pleasant riches. It is not only the ladies who should adorn themselves “with good works”(1 Tim 2:10 ) and “a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.”(1 Pet 3:4 ) All members of a Christian family must play their part and behave in a God-honouring way, particularly in their personal relationships, that they “may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.”(Tit 2:10 )
Growing up in a Christian home is a gift of grace beyond measure, but it comes with its own unique challengers and dangers that must be addressed. Bishop JC Ryle says,“ It is the highest privilege to be the child of a godly father and mother, and to be brought up in the midst of many prayers…But, oh, take heed that you do not remain barren and unfruitful in the sunshine of all these privileges: beware lest your heart remains hard, impenitent, and worldly, notwithstanding the many advantages you enjoy.”
May God therefore grant us Christian homes: “where Christ is Head and Counselor and Guide; with godly fathers, mothers, who always place their hope and trust in Him; where every child is taught His love and favour, and gives his heart to Christ, the crucified; where Christ is Lord and Master, the Bible read, the precious hymns still sung; where prayer comes first in peace or in disaster, and Christ is sufficient for old and young.” (from the hymn ‘A Christian Home’ by Barbara B Hart)