Shepherding a Child's Heart

Internalization of the Gospel
Internalization of the gospel is the process of your children
embracing the things of God as their own living faith. Your wish
during this period is to see your children develop autonomous
identities as persons under God.
It is obvious that internalizing the gospel requires the work of the
Holy Spirit in the child. No parent can do that work; nor can you
produce it through your labors. You labor, however, in the hope that
God honors his covenant and works through means. While you dare
not presume upon his sovereign mercy, you may labor with

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expectation that the gospel is powerful.
Your heart’s desire in every phase of childrearing is to see your
children internalize the gospel. The desire in all your training, in all
your entreaty, in all your correction and discipline, is to see your
children come to the place where they have embraced the claims of
Christian faith.
The reason for shepherding their hearts—appealing to the
conscience, focusing on character issues in correction and discipline,
addressing the heart as the spring of life, and refusing to give them a
keepable standard that would eliminate their need of Christ—is to see
them come to know God. You want them to recognize their need of
God, to embrace Christ, and to see their life in light of the Kingdom
of God.
Internalization is the fruition of all that we have considered.
Recall with me Figure 3 that illustrates Godward orientation.
Internalization is your children coming to maturity as persons who
know and worship God.
I’ve often been asked whether I thought my children would be
Christians. Parents desperately seek some promise from the Bible that
their children will have faith. I don’t believe that promise is found in
the Word of God.
I have been asked, “Don’t you think that if you raise your children
the right way, God has promised to save them?” If such a promise
existed, it wouldn’t comfort me. I haven’t raised them well enough.
Looking over their lives, I want to join the ranks of parents who
would like to do it over again. I am keenly aware of shortcomings and
limitations.
It should be clear by now that I am not talking about “getting them
saved” in terms of an evangelistic event. I rather envision leading
them along the path of a deepening understanding of and commitment
to God. Repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ will
be a part of that life of deepening understanding of and commitment

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to God.
You have reason for hope as parents who desire to see your
children have faith. The hope is the power of the gospel. The gospel is
suited to the human condition. The gospel is attractive. God has
already shown great mercy to your children. He has given them a
place of rich privilege. He has placed them in a home where they have
heard his truth. They have seen the transforming power of grace in the
lives of his people. Your prayer and expectation is that the gospel will
overcome their resistance as it has yours.
Most books written about teenagers presume rebellion, or at least
the testing of the limits of parental control. My assumption is the
opposite. My assumption is that you have carried out your parenting
task with integrity and that your children, in the words of Titus 1:9,
“are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.”
If you are disheartened, feeling that your teens are unruly and that
you are already in grave trouble in your relationship, I refer you to
what was said earlier. Turning to God in repentance with your family,
and setting new goals, will, in God’s mercy, bring you to a
reconciliation. Seek God who can make what is crooked, straight.
I have had the joy of seeing families work through times of great
pain and family travail during these teen-age years. God has given
them grace and integrity to seek him during their long night of
suffering and has brought a new day of joy and peace. They can now
labor in God’s Kingdom in solidarity with their once-rebellious
children.