You Can't Force Them to Love the Lord

1 Samuel 8:1-3
When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. 2 The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beersheba. 3 Yet his sons did not walk in his ways but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice.

It seems like someone like Samuel would have sons that followed after the Lord, and whose ways would be pleasing to the Lord. Samuel became a priest because Eli's sons did the same thing (1 Sam 2) - they extorted people instead of serving the Lord.

So what does that mean to the Christian parent? Is it hopeless? What do you do when your child desires the world more than the Lord? This is a two-edged sword; though you cannot force your child to love the Lord... Because only God draws people to Him. (John 14:6; Romans 1:6; Col 3:15; Jude 1:1). We need to be established in the fact that this task is the Lord's. But we have our task, this child needs to know about the Lord (Pr 22:6; Rom 10:13-14).

How do you train your child? Are you one way at church, then another way at home? Do you talk about people's "shortcomings" around your child? Is your life and your attitude enough to be desired by your child? Remember, training the child the Bible without you living it is pointless - your child needs to see Jesus in you before he/she will see the Lord as real. Okay, it is possible for you to be a horrible parent and your child can come to the Lord, but as we said before you need to do your task.