How to Teach Your Child About God

I really struggled with this when I first became a mom. I wanted my daughter to learn about God and who He is. I wanted her to fall madly in love with God. But how do you really teach your child about God? I wasn’t completely sure.

I knew I needed to do more than simply bring her to church, but what? It was stressing me out!

The first thing I had to realize is…I am not in charge of my children’s salvation.

Yes, I have a responsibility to teach my children the things of God.

You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

Deuteronomy 11:18-19

However, God wants us to choose to love and follow Him. That means, I cannot choose for my children. I am to teach them about God, and then allow them to choose to serve God themselves. 

Maybe you had already realized this and didn’t need me to explain it, but it took me a long time to accept this, so I definitely wanted to put it out there first.

So, how do I teach my child about God?

Now, you want to know how to teach your child about God. The simple answer comes from the verse above: teach them about God all day, in everything you do.

As Christians, we are sometimes guilty of ignoring God outside of church or our Bible study time. We tend to take on an agnostic view that God really doesn’t participate in our lives. But that is not the truth.

The reason we do not see God working in our lives is because we are not seeking Him. We are not looking for Him and how He is at work. If we want to teach our children about God, we have to be tuned in and seeking Him.

Seek God

So, how do you seek God?

 

1. Pray that God will fill you with the Holy Spirit.
2. Allow God to fill you with the Holy Spirit.
3. Study the Bible to know God and what God expects of you.
4. Apply what you learn from the Bible in your daily life.

 

These are the four steps you must take to seek God. I go indepth about each of these steps in Discipleship for Youth, so be sure to download that (it’s free!).

Teaching our Children About God

Once we are seeking God, it will be pretty natural for us to teach our child about God. As the verse says above, we will talk about God in every step of our day.

The path our children take in seeking God is the same path that we take to seek God. Following the steps above, we should teach our children to:

1. Pray that God will fill you with the Holy Spirit.
2. Allow God to fill you with the Holy Spirit.
3. Study the Bible to know who God is and what He expects from you.
4. Apply what you learn from God in your daily life. 

Let’s Take a closer look at these steps.

Asking for, and Allowing, God to Fill You With the Holy Spirit

Prayer has the power to change things, but yet we often go to prayer last. 

My favorite song right now is “That’s the Power” by Hillsong United. A line in the song says, “…the kind of daring expectation, that every prayer I make is on an empty grave.”

I want you to think about that for a minute. 

Prayer is not wishing or begging. When we pray, we should know that we are talking to the God who created everything with a word. He is still the God who made a little boy kill a giant with a slingshot; the same God who made chains fall off of Peter’s feet.

Our God has unlimited power, and we access that power through the Holy Spirit. BUT we cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit if we have not spent time in prayer.

I think of it this way: when I study my Bible, I am learning about God and the things He has done. When I pray, I am spending time with God and seeing how He is working in my life.

Both of these are important, but I cannot expect to have a relationship with God if I have not spent time with Him.

If we want our children to have a relationship with God, it is crucial that we teach them to pray.

Studying and Applying the Bible

While prayer is the personal aspect of our relationship with God, it is still important for us to learn about God. 

If we do not know how God has acted in the past, we cannot understand or anticipate how He will act in our lives. By studying the Bible, we learn who God is, how He has interacted with the world throughout history, and how God interacts in our own lives. 

We want our children to recognize God’s hand in their life. We do not want them to be led astray by Satan (culture). 

So, we must teach them to study their Bible. We need to remind them to apply what they have learned from the Bible in their daily lives.

My children are young, so for me this often appears when dealing with behavior issues. Our culture teaches us to look out for yourself. However, God calls us to look out for others before ourselves. 

This is the problem we face when our children are arguing over a toy or whose turn it is. They are not looking out for each other; they are only looking out for themselves. 

This is not a time to teach them to take turns or share. This is an opportunity to teach them selflessness. 

“You look out for your sister. Make sure your sister is okay, and has everything she needs. She will look out for you, and make sure you have what you need.”

Conclusion

Yes, teaching our children about God takes effort. Yes, it requires us to seek God diligently. But it is so rewarding.

This afternoon, my 4 year old was eating lunch with her cousin and I heard her say, “Jesus died to rescue you. He loves you so much that He died and then rose again to save you from your sins.”

Sure, we still have our struggles. Our children are definitely not perfect. But I rest in the knowledge that I am obeying the command God has given me. I will trust Him with their little hearts.