Modeling a Servant’s Heart for Your Children

Excerpt from

Love INC of Mecklenberg County Winter 2009 newsletter

There is a poem entitled “Children Learn What They Live” by Dorothy Law Nolte, Ph.D. The poem reminds is whatever a child lives with (sees, hears and experiences) is what they learn. In other words, it’s one thing to tell a child we are serving the Lord, it’s quite another for them to see us serving and joining us in that service! Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and don’t forbid them for the Kingdom of Heaven is made up of ones like these!” (Luke 18:16 NLT) How are they to learn about their importance in the kingdom of God if they don’t see for themselves your importance in the Kingdom?

Whenever you give “a cup of cold water” in the Name of Christ they should be involved in some small way and see you ministering. By your example, you are teaching them that everyone has worth to God and can serve Him. You are modeling Christ’s directive to care for the widows, the poor, the elderly, the disabled and the little children. You are following His command to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. You are “diligently teaching your children when you talk to them, when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up.” (Deut. 6:7 NKJV) You are letting them learn to do and not only as you say. You are helping them to find their place in God’s work. You are modeling a servant’s heart in the Name of Christ!

Mo Leverett, founder of Desire Street Ministries in New Orleans, LA, writes on this subject: “A lot of people use their children as an excuse for not entering into the work of mercy and justice, thinking that your primary objective is to protect your children. But your primary objective as a parent is not to protect your children. Your primary objective is to raise your children in the nurture and admonition of Christ. And what is the best context for that? It is where you are obeying Christ. Our children learn from our example and when we wall ourselves away from the problems of poverty, they learn. They think that Christianity is about sheltering yourself from these problems.”

Be merciful, just as your

Father is merciful.

Luke 6:36 (NIV)