Pass It on!

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 8
 
“Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” Psalm 34:11
“This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord.” Psalm 102:18
“One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.” Psalm 145:4
“I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.” 2 Timothy 1:5
One very important reason that God sets us in families (Psa. 68:6) is so that we may teach our children. We should not content ourselves with merely telling them the way of salvation. We should also tell them about the beauties of Christ, give them the wisdom of the Word, and seek to guide their footprints through this world into the life that should characterize the family of God. Psalm 78:1-8 tells us that we need to share what “we have heard and known, and our fathers [ancestors] have told us” with our children. We are to show “to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength, and His wonderful works that He hath done” (vs. 4). Here God’s Word passes from our fathers to ourselves to our children. Then God wants the word passed on to our grandchildren as well, “that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children.” So the truth and the glories and the wonderful works of the Lord are to be shared from generation to generation—at least four generations are mentioned in these few verses—by the lips of parents and grandparents. There is a goal in this: “That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments.” No doubt there are also failures in our lives that we can help them avoid. God does not want them to be “as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God” (vs. 8). We can also encourage them by relating His wonderful works in our lives, God’s never-failing goodness to us. Through faithfulness and failure we can—and should—always share “the praises of the Lord” (vs. 5).