I'd like to share on the subject of children and their importance in my blog post today. Children are so important, there is no future for humanity without them.   

A scripture verse in the book of Proverbs says;
Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it. 

The NIV version says;
Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. (Proverbs 22:6) 

I spent 7 years of my life working with children acting as their chaperone, leader, pastor and dad on awareness/fundraising world tours across the USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Beijing China, the UK and South Africa. Those children are no longer children today because that was 15 years ago I did this.  

As I do not yet have biological children (I do hope to have some one of these fine days), my closet parental experience with children was with the 18 we had on the choir each time we traveled.  

The Bible says to train up a child. Training here means to coach, instruct, guide, nurture. This then means that as long as the children are still young, the goal as a guardian, parent is not to make friends with them but to guide, coach and instruct them.  

Children have some of the wildest imaginations. In their minds, anything is possible. You can be an astronaut one day, a doctor the next, a teacher the other and a mechanic another. Anything is possible. It is no wonder Jesus says to become like children if we want to inherit the Kingdom. To have a possibility mindset and believe beyond question. (Matthew 18:3)

As a coach, your job is to guide, correct and nurture the children God has entrusted to you.
With the way our world is today especially here in America, there are a lot of promotions, suggestions, ideas and agendas that seek to arrest the young minds of children. I call this the upside-down movement.  

They advocate that your children may want to be another sex and as a parent, the most loving thing is to enable them grow up as they feel. I mentioned earlier that children have the wildest imagination. Your job as a coach is to nurture that imagination, to guide them in the truth, not to enable them. You are to remind them that play acting is not real. That it takes years of study and hardwork to become an astronaut or doctor, and that God created you as you are perfectly. You do not need anything else to feel more special, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalms 139: 14) 

When Jesus says we must become like children, He is not advocating losing all reasoning and pursuing your wildest imaginations without caution. Jesus uses the analogy of children to paint a picture of faith. The Bible says without faith it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6) 

So, be like children in regards to your faith, but do not be reckless. No responsible parent would give their 7 year old the keys to their car and say go to Walmart even if they cried their eyes out demanding for it. And no parent would hand their 3 year old a beer or invite them to drink at the bar however badly they asked for it.  These things sound like commonsense right?

Now here's what the upside-down movement is on about; They say the most loving thing you can do for your children is let them become who they feel like inside. In other words, if your son feels like a girl, enable them. And if your daughter feels like a boy, enable them. Do not stand in their way as coach or guide, just be an enabler, it is the loving thing to do. This is a lie from hell.  

The upside-down movement preaches the gospel according to fallen shadow government under Satan's leadership. Satan knows God is love and so in order to enable his agenda, he uses love but it is a perverted form of love whose intent is to lure and destroy.  

While the Bible says to coach your children, the upside-down movement says to enable your children. In other words, forget the coaching bit, just be an enabler for your children. This is NOT parental responsibility according to the Bible. This is a relegation of parental responsibility. The devil loves parental irresponsibility because like a squatter he gains turf that is unclaimed by the rightful owner. When you do not exercise your authority, you relinquish your right as coach and guide to your children and reduce yourself to an enabler, a participant, a squatter on your rightfully owned turf.  

Now if one is a non believer and they do not know what the Bible says, then they do not know any better. But for believers, followers of Jesus, training up a child is not enabling them. It is correcting, guiding, coaching and nurturing in biblical truth. Parents are God’s representatives in the lives of their children. Your children come through you. We are vessels to perpetuate and nurture human existence until God closes the curtain saying, this is where it ends.  

One of the things that confirm that Trump is the man for this moment is what he said about children in his state of the union speech. I'll paraphrase; "Children should not be told they are stuck in the wrong body, but should be told they are fearfully and wonderfully made by God." This is a reference straight from the Bible, from Psalms 139.

When children have wild ideas on their sexuality, as is promoted by the upside-down movement, it is a parents job as a coach to correct, and nurture them in the truth. To remind them that they are perfect as they are, and that God never made a mistake with them, because God doesn't make mistakes.  

I will finish with these verses from the book of Psalms;
Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; They shall not be ashamed, But shall speak with their enemies in the gate. (Psalms 127:3-5)