Sunday best:Bless Your Children

We want our kids to be blessed

As parents, we can profoundly influence the direction of our children’s lives by the words we say to them. Yet many parents fail to do so. “Oh, my kids know that I love them,” a lot of parents say. “They know that I pray for them.” Maybe so, but your children need to hear those words of blessing in their lives. And the good news is that it is not difficult to change the tone around your home. You can begin speaking positive truth into your children’s lives any time you want. Joel and I try to speak God’s Word into the lives of children in our natural, ordinary, “everyday” circumstances of life. For instance, when I drop our kids off at school, before they even get out of the car, I remind them, “You are blessed today. You have the favor of God.”

Parents, you can do something similar. Speak God’s Word over your children every day before they go to school or go out to play. You don’t need to preach a sermon; just say something like, “God’s Word says that He loves you, and He has something special in store for you today!”

Or pray, “You promised me in Psalm 91 that You will give Your angels charge over us and that no evil would come near our household. So I thank You that my children are supernaturally protected, and You are guiding them and watching after them. Father, You said that we’re the head and not the tail, and You will surround us with favor. So I thank You that my children are blessed, and they will excel at whatever they put their hands to do.”Whether we realize it or not, our words affect our children’s future for either good or evil. We need to speak loving words of approval and acceptance, words that encourage, inspire, and motivate our children to reach for new heights. When we do that, we are speaking blessings into their lives. We are speaking abundance and increase. We’re declaring God’s favor in their lives

All too often, parents slip into being harsh and critical with their children, nitpicking, and easily finding fault in whatever the kids are doing. “Why can’t you make better grades? Go clean your room — it looks like a pigpen! You can’t do anything right, can you?”

Such negative words will cause our children to lose the sense of value God has placed within them. Certainly, as parents, we have a responsibility before God and society to train our children, to discipline them when they disobey, to lovingly correct them when they make wrong choices. But we should not constantly harp on our kids. If you continually speak words that discourage and dishearten, before long you will destroy your child’s self-image. And with your negative words, you will open a door, allowing the enemy to bring all sorts of insecurity and inferiority into your child’s life. Victoria Osteen