I disagree.
Hear me out.
We live in a "feel good" society, an instant-coffee society, a society in which our children lack for nothing and usually don't have to wait for anything either. Christmas has become a "who paid more" holiday featuring the most expensive toys marketing can offer. And you'll make sure YOUR kid has the latest. If you're a "good" parent, that is.
There's something wrong with this picture.
If you asked a Christian child what it means to be a Christian, he'd probably say it's believing that Jesus died for our sins and that you need to ask him into your heart.
If that's what you think it means to be a Christian, you have a very naive view of what following Christ is all about.
Most of the first century Christians were martyred. Had you asked any of the parents in the first century, they would have described Christianity far differently from anything you've heard in our "modern" day.
Christianity then was picking up your cross and following Jesus. Unto death if need be. The Jesus who said, "in the world you will have tribulation." I often hear people talking about "the promises of God." Well that's one of his promises.
In fact, most of what Jesus had to say to believers was about reckoning yourself NOT of this world. "Come out from among them," the Scriptures say.
Come out from among them?
What does that mean?
The most well-known passage in the Bible dealing with the occult is the passage in Deuteronomy 18:9-14. It starts with:
"When you come into the land which the Lord your God is
giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations
of those nations."
You shall not, as in THOU SHALT NOT ....follow the abominations of the nations you live in.
In the New Testament, it says something similar:
Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the Temple of God with idols? For you are the Temple of the living God. ...Therefore "Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.'' 2nd Corinthians 6:14-18
Come out from among them and be SEPARATE, says the Lord.
Be separate?
That's hardly what we tell our young people! Rather, we foster the attitude that they have to be "like the other kids."
You can't have it both ways. You can't stroke them and help them to wear "the right thing" and do as the others do so that they'll be popular, and then tell them to pick up their cross and follow Jesus. The two are mutually antagonistic.
Christian father, Christian mother, are you teaching your young person to "come out and be separate," or are you teaching them to CONFORM to the world?
Are you buying them all the things that "everybody else" has? Taking them to places "everybody else" goes? Competing to do whatever it takes to be popular? Have you taught your child to bow down before America's god of "popularity?" Has it never occurred to you that being popular is the very OPPOSITE of what Christ taught?
How will they ever embrace the concept of coming out and being separate, if you're coaching them in their efforts to be popular? With the notion that being popular is a "good" thing, how will they ever be able to accept, yes, ACCEPT it when they are hated by "the world"?
If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, `A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you... John 15:19-20
A lost generation. Children taught to look at Christianity as an alternative to only the most blatant evil, while telling them the rest isn't evil, the other practices of the nations are ok. Tolerable. Just this one we need to avoid, you know, Halloween is the worst, let's do something else that's fun on that night so you won't miss out on anything.
How will the kids of this generation ever be able to accept being persecuted if all they've learned from parents and teachers is what they must do to be acceptable?
How has Satan been able to so confuse the minds of Christians that they think it's right and good to foster in their children the attitudes which are the very opposite of what Jesus taught, without batting an eye and then patting themselves on the back for being "good" parents?
The time may be coming when America may go through real judgment. Some see it coming and are prepared. Most are oblivious. If your child ever has to accept something other than popularity, if your child has to confess Jesus before the "popular" kids and be shunned and laughed at (persecuted) for it, how can you think your spoiled (but popular) child will ever make it?
Most of them won't.Those who do are those who have been taught to dare to be different.