Teaching Children to Bless Others

Teaching Children to Bless Others

 

 As a mother, my heart is that my children will love others and be a blessing.  I don't think this comes naturally, as we often as humans think of self before others.  However, God wants us to love Him with our whole hearts and to love others, self coming way down the list of priorities.  

From Jesus use of the word blessed in the Sermon on the Mount it was the Greek word makarios, mean happy or blissful.  It is also is understood as a self-contained kind of happiness.

Whatever our age, our life situation, we can choose to not be directed by the external around us, but to live out of the internal happiness we have as a beloved child of God.  When we live our lives applying His truths, we find joy, bliss and happiness!

How do we teach this to our children?

Let's decide to purposefully talk to our children about how Jesus came to show us the way to live.  Jesus told us that He is the way, the truth and the life.  If we ask Jesus into our hearts, then the Holy Spirit resides inside us.  

We don't have to be moved by circumstances in our day to make us blessed (happy), but by reminding ourselves that God has given us the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit goes with each of His children all day- we can live out of that truth! It is so much easier to be a blessing if we get that we are blessed ourselves.

Jesus lived to show us how we should live a life that reaches out and blesses others.  It is something He actively did while He lived here on earth.  We need to actively live to do the same.  How can we do that today?  How do we then take this and begin applying it to our children's hearts?

We can show them first off by doing it ourselves.  You know what they say, more is caught than taught.  We need to be in the Word of God each day, and teaching our children to do the same.  We need to be asking Him for opportunities to live as Jesus did in blessing others.  We need to train our ears to hear His voice and allow our children to tune the ears of their hearts as well.  Practice in this makes perfect! 

Challenge our children to count the ways that we can do this in the hours we have been given today.  As you sit together around the dinner table, or head out somewhere in the car, talk about ways God has opened your eyes to see opportunities to be a blessing to people.

The Holy Spirit will be so excited to join us in this blessing adventure.  And how great it is when we activate our children's hearts to live a life that aligns themselves in following after their Father's heart!

Jesus began and ended His ministry in blessing people.