PART 6: 5-POINT AGENDA TO TRAIN YOUR POSTERITY (2)

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3. Let God, the ultimate owner of your child, be the alpha and omega of all your training strategies and schemes. I remembered when our son was in pregnancy, I went on a three-day marathon fasting and prayer retreat to have some time with God over the coming child. He revealed some things to me and I too told him some things about the boy. Now, that the boy has come, at every point of his development, we thank God for things that make us happy and tell him about the changes we want about things that make us unhappy about him..

We often project into his future to get it covered in prayer. The power of a praying parent. Every parent needs this because we are not wrestling against flesh and blood over the destiny of these children. Powers and principalities are involved. So, I can boldly say, The fervent effectual prayer of a righteous mother or father avails much.

4. Make love, and not fear, the driver of your discipline. The child must not see it that if he breaks the rule he will be incurring your wrath. Rather, he should see it that he is breaking your heart and hurting God's feelings. That is the true fear of God. It is not the fear that God will punish him if he does it but that he will be hurting God's feelings. If it is all about not incurring your wrath or rebuke, the child will see himself free once he is no longer under your roof. Look at Joseph! His parents were not there, yet he kept the godly virtue they have implanted in him. Listen to him: How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God. Let your child keep the law because he loves you and God and not because he fears your beating or God's hell fire.

5.  Finally, teach your children the word of God 'diligently'. Every effort must be made or engaged to see to it that we successfully and effectively pass the baton of spirituality, not religiosity, to our children. And at the centre of spiritual training of a child is reading, studying, memorising and meditating on the word of God - Deuteronomy 6: 6 and 7 is our guide at this point. I make sure that personal private reading and meditation on God's word features daily in our roughly 1-hour family devotion. How do I ensure that? There is a feedback mechanism - everybody shares with us after the meditative moment of 10 - 20 minutes. Apart from vibrant family devotion, every medium must be engaged to get the word into them - talk of them [the word] when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest - [electronic, technological, dramatic and musical media and means must definitely be included to help the child internalise the word in this our time and age]. The best medium of Biblical instruction of course is still impacting it through our conduct and comportment.

PART 5: 5-POINT AGENDA TO TRAIN YOUR POSTERITY (1)

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I cannot be exhaustive within the scope of this discourse. But I will quickly roll out some five points to help us out on this matter:

1. First make the fountain of the good and godly virtues you want to pass across deep in you yourself. If you want to provide water for your immediate family you only need a drum, if for your immediate community you will need a well, but if for a town, you need a dam. So, the more influential you want to be, the deeper your fountain should be. Look at Abraham! He was all over the place with altars. Every new place he got to, he built an altar to God and called on God there. No wonder, Isaac easily called on God at his trying time - when his wife was barren. And the grandson, Jacob, quickly raised an altar of pillar to God, with a solemn vow, when he saw a heavenly vision while sleeping on a pillow of stone. The rule is: fake it, and you will fail in foisting it. You have to first own it before you can bequeath it. Superficial and shallow virtues don't often get transmitted to the next generation.

2. First initiate them into the virtues and over time grow in them the capacity to take the initiative themselves. Every child looks towards his or her parent for direction, don't miss the opportunity. Remember what the scripture says again: train up a child in the way he should go. You must first command the child to do what is right and then come around to explain to him why it is right and you keep encouraging him to do it through your own life's deep fountain of examples and firm correction from time to time.

3. Let God, the ultimate owner of your child, be the alpha and omega of all your training strategies and schemes. I remembered when our son was in pregnancy, I went on a three-day marathon fasting and prayer retreat to have some time with God over the coming child. He revealed some things to me and I too told him some things about the boy. Now, that the boy has come, at every point of his development, we thank God for things that make us happy and tell him about the changes we want about things that make us unhappy about him...

Part 6, the final part, comes up tomorrow

PART 4: ELI'S UNLUCKY POSTERITY VS ABRAHAM'S STRATEGY

 

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And Eli's later descendants were honourable priests:

Ahimelech the high priest (1Sam21:1) who was Eli's great grandson (son of Ahitub, son of Phinehas, son of Eli), Abiathar, David's priest and personal friend, (1Sam.23:9; 1Sam30:7) who was Eli's great great grandson (son of Ahimelech), and another Ahimelech, a high position-holding priest that shared with David and Zadok the responsibility of apportioning the priests into their order (1Chron.24:3), who was Eli's great, great, great grandson (son of Abiathar). 

It is noteworthy that although Eli was grossly negligent in building his posterity - two times he was warned to call his children to order, and two times he was nonchalant (1Sam.2:27; 1Sam.3:11-18) - but God was still merciful. Although the consequences still rubbed on the ending of some of these bright spots in his lineage; senior Ahimelech was gruesomely murdered, while Abiathar his son was unceremoniously removed from office. May the mercy of God perfectly speak through us on behalf of many of our parents that have failed in building their posterity through us in Jesus' name.

Now, time will fail us to cover everything under this study, but we can maximise the allotted time to see how one can build enduring godliness in one's children that will keep replicating itself in every succeeding generation in one's lineage.

Listen to what God said concerning Abraham,

For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him - Gen.18:19

That is where I am going! There is a way Abraham brought up his children that God is so sure that even after Abraham might have long left the scene, his children, and I add, children's children... will still continue in it. Prov. 22:6 becomes clearer in this light,

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it - Prov.22:6

So, how do you engrave goodly and godly values in your children so much that it becomes indelible in them and compelling for those they too will be raising. This is our preoccupation...

Part 5 comes up tomorrow

PART 3: WHERE ARE MOSES' & SAMUEL'S DESCENDANTS?

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Although we often asked where were the children of Moses and why were the children of Eli and that of Samuel, Eli's replacement, bad, a further and deeper study showed they all still had some positive salvaging points in their posterity. 

Here are the sons of Moses:

Now [concerning] Moses the man of God, his sons were named of the tribe of Levi...(1Chron.23:14-17). 

The greatest achievement for Moses was that his children continued to be numbered among the Levites. Fulfilment about posterity is not about forcefully finding positions and openings that God does not give to your children for them, in the name of securing their future. Moses knew God has given the priesthood to Aaron and Aaron's children, and the civil government to Joshua, and he was contented; he worked towards his posterity being godly lineage doing their menial work for the house of God joyfully among the other non-priestly Levites.

Behold these later descendants of Samuel:

And these [are] they that waited with their children. Of the sons of the Kohathites: Heman a singer, the son of Joel, the son of Shemuel [Samuel] - 1Chron.6:33

This Heman is the head of the three chief singers for the house of the Lord (Heman, from the Kohath arm of the levites, at the centre; Asaph, from the Gershom arm of the levites, by his right; and Asaph from the Merari arm of the levites by his left) and he is the grandson of Samuel. It does not stop there. His posterity is to keep ministering in that order. What a great relief and a crown on Samuel's effort. Indeed, children's children are the crown of the old men. So, even if it seems you have done all and your children seem to be toeing Samuel's son's line, don't despair, don't give up, keep building, a Heman is in the offing to salvage your lineage.

Part 4 comes up tomorrow

PART 2: GOD'S EXPECTATION FROM CHILDREN IN EVERY HOME

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Our concern in this study should therefore be how can we do it that our posterity will constantly and consistently be known for goodly and godly virtues and values; how can we be fulfilled "posterity-wise"? 

This is very necessary because the ultimate desire of God for any marital union producing children has been expressly stated in the scripture. Let's see that divine desire from the Amplified Bible,

And did not God make [you and your wife] one [flesh]? ... And why [did God make you two] one? Because He sought a godly offspring [from your union]... Mal2v15

Whaoh! It doesn't matter what you are doing or not doing in your marriage, if you don't produce godly offspring, that marriage has not fulfilled divine intention. Let your children become doctors, lawyers, engineers, medical lab scientists, and what have you, but if they are godless, you have failed, by God's rating. So, getting your children godly should not be a secondary assignment. It should be your primary assignment. It should even come before their academics or cultural and social integrations. When we leave it to our pastors and the Sunday School teachers, we are shifting our responsibility and we are telling God who has given us the assignment that we are irresponsible.

Often times, we turn the searchlight on minister's children. But this expectation of God is not from ministers' home only. God expects godly seeds from every home, including your home and my home. Leave the minister's home alone and face your own assignment at making your posterity godly posterity. May God help us.

Jehoiada, a recognised high priest of Israel and the first priest to be buried in the tomb of the kings (2Chron.24:15-16) did it. He raised a son with enduring and undeterred godliness like himself. After his death, the king he laboured so much to guide on the path of godliness (2Chron.24:2) derailed, but Jehoiada's son, Zechariah, stood his righteous ground and was put to death for the faith of his father. This his godly seed continued to have a place in the Biblical history to the point that even Jesus himself in the New Testament referred to him as the last Old Testament martyr (2Chron.24:20-22, Luk11:51). May God who helped Jehoiada help us to do it too...

Part 3 comes up tomorrow

PART 1: SIMPLIFYING THE TERM "POSTERITY"

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The word POSTERITY should not sound big or strange. Let's quickly demystify it by consulting the renowned American educationist, Noah Webster, who believed the Bible should be the foundation for learning. In his 1828's dictionary, the first ever American English Dictionary to be published, he wrote,

POSTER'ITY, n. [L. posteritas, from posterus, from post, after.]

 1. Descendants; children, children's children, etc. indefinitely; the race that proceeds from a progenitor. The whole human race are the posterity of Adam.

So, posterity does not only include your children but your children's children, on and on. I can safely say the sense of posterity picks it up where the direct definition of children stops. No wonder the Bible's definition of a good father has more of posterity in view:

A good [man] leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: Prov.13:22

That is, you are not yet a good man, according to heaven's rating, if the good and godly inheritance you leave ends with or is exhausted by your first generation children. I love another Proverb's comparison between children and children's children:

Children's children [are] the crown of old men; and the glory of children [are] their fathers. Prov.17:6

Let me take some liberty to do a paraphrase: your children celebrating you is good, but it should not get into your head until you can see that they are "crowning" your efforts by transmitting the same virtues and values you put in them into their own children. That makes you a man with posterity in view.

And even when you have succeeded over your children's children, posterity has just begun. Don't forget Webster's definition, "indefinitely." 

Our concern in this study should therefore be how can we do it that our posterity will constantly and consistently be known for goodly and godly virtues and values; how can we be fulfilled "posterity-wise"? This is very necessary because the ultimate desire of God for any marital union producing children has been expressly stated in the scripture. Let's see that divine desire from the Amplified Bible...

Part 2 comes up tomorrow

ABRACADABRA!

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The world is full of abracadabra men

The more you look at them

The less you understand of them

 

They preach, teach and counsel

And the whole picture of things looks 

Practicable and down to earth

But don’t be surprised

They’ll be the first defaulter

Of the outlaid principle

They preach but practice not 

Abracadabra!

During the day, stupendously good 

But in the night, horrendously wicked 

Mr. Pius in the open

Workers of iniquity in the secret 

Why, at the end of the ages 

You will not understand

When though you hope the Righteous Judge

Would bid them, ‘Welcome, good servant’

He says to them, ‘Depart from me,

'I know you not'

Abracadabra still in eternity!

Indeed you are

What you are

When no eyes pry

BE FRUITFUL: GET YOUR SKILLS DEVELOPED ENOUGH TO ADD VALUE TO YOUR LIFE

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God made man to have dominion. Yet, the first instruction He gave him is "Be Fruitful!"

You won't have dominion until first of all the seed in you comes to fruition. That seed in you must first bear fruits. Then we can start thinking of dominion. And there is no one in life without seed of potentials. 

We are so loaded with abilities and skills, both inborn and learned ones. A man of God said that each of us has at least 500 abilities. The pity is that majority of them we so overlook till they became wasted and unproductive seeds. I have often said that the cooking skill you overlook is what is making someone to be an employer of labour controlling and influencing lives all around her. 

The first instruction towards man's dominion is "be fruitful". What seed of ability is in you up to a commercial value, what ability in you do you know that if you can develop it and deploy it, it will key you into your path to ascending your throne of dominion? It is time to arise and work on it.

And when I say work on it, you and I know that no sowing comes easy. Even the Bible says that they that bear precious seed weepeth as they go to sow it - Psa. 126:6. You must sow in sweat and tears to reap in refreshment and joy. It will cost you your resources. You will have to spend your money and time to get proficient enough in that ability because if you don't develop it, you will not be able to drink from it. 

You may have to let go of fun and moment of pleasure. You may have to reduce your gisting time, your facebook and whatsApp browsing time, your sleeping time, your eating expenses. All for the sake of making this your seed of talent, gift, ability or anointing to come up to the level of being able to bear fruit towards ascending your throne of dominion.

Why are you so complacent? Why sit down there till you die. Apostle John says in John 12:24 that except that seed falls to the ground, it will abide alone. You must get that seed to the good ground where stones of laziness and carefreeness have been removed, where thorns of cares of life have been burnt, and where a fence against roadside steps of negative public opinions has been errected. You must arise and get that your skill and ability developed enough to add value to your life.

A youth leader said recently that with N6000 as his salary, being an NCE holder, he saw himself through a 5-year degree programme in which he was paying sixty-something thousand naira per session. This made his salary to increase to N12,000. He did not stop there. With that he got married and got himself through a masters programme in which he paid N150,000 as school fees. He moved forward because he was determined to make his teaching skill get developed to the point it can add value towards his fulfilling destiny.

Oh, brother, your excuse is too much. Don't allow excusitis, inflammation and proliferation of excuses, to excuse you from taking your place in destiny. Rouse yourself as a man, roll up your sleeves and get your hands to work on making your abilities fruitful. 

God has made you loaded, you will not die wretched in Jesus' name. Your potential will speak for you in high places in Jesus' name.