Requiring the Habits of Holiness – A Call to Constant Prayer

As a homeschool parent, there are a handful of subjects that I teach because they are required. I know that they are important, but deep down, when I bring the crew to the fire station for another year to hear the same speech about fire safety, it can be hard to remember that it’s worth the trip outside of the state’s requirements. I tend to be a hard science person, so teaching the math and science comes a little more naturally to me, but when it is another struggle with reading comprehension or spelling, it can be hard to stay motivated with reluctant learners.

As Christians, many of us incorporate some sort of Bible training into our homeschooling endeavor, some more formally than others, but all with some intentionality to bring Christ to our children’s education. But why do we add this? Certainly, we know there is value in additional study of God’s Word to the lives of our children, but what makes it a study in spirituality and not simply another literature study?

I recently began searching my own heart’s motivation in requiring my children to read the Bible daily, incorporating Scripture memory into our group studies, and intentionally highlighting theology in our study of both history and science.

On an especially difficult school day, I felt like I had a noisy toddler or whiney preteen in my mind constantly asking “why are we doing this now? I want to be doing anything else. Can’t this wait?” In a moment of raw honesty with myself, I snapped at my own conscience and heard my own thoughts clearly: “Because if they practice these habits of godliness long enough, they will love God more.” Feeling more settled with myself, we moved on to complete a long school day.

Yet this question continued to plague me. Why do I require my children to engage with Scripture, sometimes despite their protesting? This is not to say that they are against reading the Bible or incorporating theology into our studies. But if I’m being honest, there are times when I don’t really want to do it either.

I read the Bible because it’s the right thing to do. I close my eyes in family prayer, but my mind is really on the long to-do list that awaits. Songs of praise become the background noise to my own thoughts instead of a means to continue engagement with the Lord throughout the day. Especially if we know that “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9), why do I forcibly “encourage” my children and myself to do these things? It’s not that I hate doing these things, but what value is there in disciplining our children and ourselves to continue to perform these “good works?”

As a student of theology, I needed to answer my own question, not just with what I thought, but with what the Word of God teaches. Around the time this question was forming in my heart, I participated in a course on the Puritan understanding of pastoral care and the work of counseling. The course requirements included an extensive paper, so I decided to tackle this question of the relationship between good works and love for God from a Biblical and Puritan perspective. (This would give me the benefit of both thorough study and a hard deadline to ensure its completion.)

Would “making” my children read the Bible really help them love God more? Would checking the boxes for daily family devotions do something for their soul and not just for the lesson plans? Would asking them to pray before meals change their hearts at all?

The shortest answer is “no.” I spent three months reading, researching, thinking, and writing. The simplest answer from both the Scriptures and church history is “no.” No amount of Bible reading plans, extensive church history curriculum, or required disciplines of good works will ever inspire love for God in ourselves or our children.

But wait – stick with me before you give up hope on the whole world and believe that your labors are in vain…because they are not. Disciplining your children and yourself to be diligent in studying the Word and in communing with the Lord in prayer is not useless at all. But pay close attention to the order of events outlined by David in Psalm 40:6-8:

⁶ In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering
you have not required.
⁷ Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me:
⁸ I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.”

Why does David enjoy the obligations of sacrifice and obedience? Because the Law of the Lord has been placed within his heart. In this Psalm, the actions of obedience are repulsive to the Lord apart from a heart that is awakened to its need for Him. Only after God has illuminated the Scriptures and made them come alive can anyone delight to do God’s will and appreciate the Law, not only as it is written, but also “within my heart.” In Jeremiah 31:33, God’s promise to His people is not to give them a new set of Levitical laws to follow, but that He Himself would write the law on their hearts.

God must first give us and our children these new hearts through salvation. We cannot work ourselves into loving the Lord. It is simply a gift and byproduct of what He has done for us in our redemption. When He took the punishment of our sin and forgave us, His adopting us into His family gave us a new love for Him that is totally foreign to our old sin nature. It is this love that naturally breeds actions of obedience and disciplined love.

If you think like me, that all may seem too good to be true. It seems nice in theory, but what do I do on days that I don’t FEEL like reading my Bible or I don’t WANT to pray? When my love for the Lord is not as emotionally engaged as my love for binge-watching Netflix or escaping into anything else, should I force myself to read anyway?

Yes. Do it anyway. Push yourself to engage mentally, but do it anyway. Even if you can only push for five minutes of engagement, do it anyway.

Why? Because you are walking in ways that are consistent with who you are in Christ. The format of the letters from Paul often spend the first half of the book explaining who we are as believers with the second half detailing how this applies to real life. The result of being “in Christ” in Ephesians 1-3 is demonstrated in unity in the church, family relations, and spiritual warfare in Ephesians 4-6. The result of becoming a Christian means a life that reflects Jesus, when we feel like it and when we don’t. The Lord has put this love in our hearts as a gift of His regeneration; now we must act like it.

This is no less true for our children than it is for us as adults. However, even regenerated children do not stop being children. They do not have the faculties and cognition of an adult. With this in mind, we must still steward them to love, honor, and obey the Lord even when they don’t feel like it, not because love for the Lord will be birthed, but to encourage the love that they already have been given.

We cannot will our children to love the Lord. We can’t make them read enough Scripture or repeat our prayers into the kingdom of God. That’s not our job; we aren’t that powerful. But that doesn’t leave us off the hook either. Our responsibility is three-fold:

1. Constantly Pray for your children: If it is true that the only way for our children to grow in their love for the Lord is for Him to implant that affection in them, our primary responsibility is to pray for them – not just for their health or safety (or our own sanity while raising them) – but for their very soul. Pray for the Lord to grant them salvation and that they would evidence that implanted love in actions of obedience and holy living.
2. Humbly Model for your children: Model both love for the Lord and disciplined display of holy habits. Let them see you reading your Bible. Let them hear you praying. Let them observe your determination to get to church even if you are late and a mess. Let them hear the joyful noise of your voice. Deuteronomy 6:8 reminds us that the love for the Lord should be so fresh in our own hearts that it can’t help but spill out in our daily conversation with our children. That takes discipline and intentionality to be faithful to walk with the Lord in engaged obedience.
3. Regularly Encourage your children: Encourage them to walk in obedience. Depending on their age and development, this may look different. However, consider what it means to encourage not just another lesson plan to check off, but true heart engagement with the Lord. This will take their time, effort, and attention, and it will require your input as a parent longer than you may anticipate. Until they have demonstrated competency to the motions of the activities AND love for God in the midst of godly disciplines, it is our duty to walk alongside their obedience.

Famous Puritan, John Owen, summarizes the matter like this, “There is wrought and preserved in the minds and souls of all believers, by the Spirit of God, a supernatural principle or habit of grace and holiness, whereby they are made meet for an enabled to live unto God, and perform that obedience which he requireth.”

Let us do more than require another “Bible subject” for the sake of lesson plans; let us storm the Throne of Grace for the sake of our children, begging the Lord to implant in them and us a love for Himself that is demonstrated in grateful habits of holiness.