The education we give our
children at home, church, and
school must prepare them for
the spiritual war God expects
them to fight as an adult.
They must be fit for battle!
Before we can expect our children to be lights in this
world, it is imperative that we shine so bright that they know
what it really means to be the light of the world. When I was
a child, I wish someone would have explained what those
simple words in that song really meant, “This little light of
mine, I’m going to let it shine.”
We Better Get This Right!
We have been looking at Christ’s admonition for His disciples
to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. There
are several important points we need to remember when we
attempt to have our children act as salt and light:
• Jesus taught Matthew 5:12-16 to His disciples. He never
told children and youth they were to be salt and light.
• Salt has many uses, but all of them require it to come into
direct contact with whatever it is trying to influence.
• Light has full command over darkness, and if darkness
exists, it means that light has disappeared.
• For a Christian to be salt and light, it requires him to have
a very strong grasp of God’s Word, and he must have the
maturity to refute error with biblical truth.
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I think you will agree that it is an
extremely challenging assignment
for a Christian to be the salt of the
earth and the light of the world. In
fact, I believe one must be willing
and able to enter into spiritual
warfare if he/she truly wants to be
salt and light. I encourage you to
read passages like 2 Corinthians
10:3-5 and Ephesians 6 to under-
stand the severity of entering into
spiritual warfare.
With this in mind, we need to real-
ize that our children and youth should
not be sent out into spiritual warfare
without being fully prepared for the battle
they will definitely face. When I have shared
this with parents and pastors, I frequently hear the
person justify why they are sending their children to secu-
lar educational programs with these words: “I don’t want to
shelter my children from the real world.”
I find it interesting that we don’t want to “shelter” our
children when it comes to education, but we are unwilling
to be consistent with this kind of thinking in other areas of
life. For example, would we be willing to send our children
to a church that uses the Book of Mormon or the Quran as
its source of truth? What about allowing your child to live
with an ungodly family in your neighborhood for a couple
of weeks? Of course, the parents I’ve posed this question to
quickly say they would never do such a thing. Parents know
their children need to be protected from bad influences in
some areas of life but are not willing to be consistent in their
theology—especially when it comes to where they send their
children to school.
Jesus always taught the importance of protecting one’s
children from ungodly influences. We find several New
Testament writers warning Christians about the importance
of avoiding false teachers. So, should we try to “shelter” our
kids from the real world? First of all, it is impossible to
“shelter” our children from the real world. However, we must
still protect our children from the false philosophies and