Disciplining Our Children with the Bible

Hebrews 4:12

” For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

God’s word is as alive today as it was 2000 years ago. We can use the bible for every part of our life.  We can get an answer to every question. We can live a full life with this book, when we seek its context.

If you are a mom like me you have tried everything in the book to discipline your children, before running to the Lord, and come up short every time, right? When the key to disciplining our children is through Gods living word, the bible.

After many failed attempts of taking things into my own hands, ready to pull my hair out, crying thinking I could not do this anymore, God showed me that His word can be used in every step of parenting my children, all I had to was run to His words for the answers.

All I could see in the whole thing was how God is SO patient with us as parents. We will run to a friend, a book, a website before we will run to Him, why? I know for me I have gotten entangled in the lie of thinking God has enough things to take care of without having to stop and get me back on track.  I then find myself spinning my wheels going nowhere. It’s not till I get to this point that I run to God on what to do next.

This is where the Duggars came into my life, through a book & TV show none the less, however would help in seeking the Lord first before going through all the other methods that did not work. The Duggars created a  Character Chart that I use for building up my children biblically.

Here is how we use the Duggars chart in our home.

The Character Chart is printed and on the frige for quick references. When a character is pointing to “self” and not “Christ” I will point out what character is in question and have them go to the frige to find that character. Here is an example of what one would look like:

Obedience vs Willfulness

2 Corinthians 10:5 “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,”

They would then take the scripture and write sentences for their offense. We talk about what the scripture means, how are character is to reflect Christ, and to glorify God. Depending on the age and the offense depends on how many sentence would be wrote. If there are multiple offenses they would also write all scriptures related to each offense.

We have chosen to do this method for a few reasons:

1. Because God’s word is living and sharper then any two edge sword
2. It helps write God’s words on their hearts
3. It helps them get to know God His ways and how we are to live out this life glorifing Him

We started using this method at the beginning of the year and seeing the Lord write on my children’s heart is truly breath taking. They don’t always see how all of this is about God, however one day they will look back and see just how God was revealing Himself to them all along.

Isaiah 40:8 “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever”

 I would love to hear how you use the Bible to Discipline your children in the comments below!