Raising Great Teenagers

Effective training of our children from infancy through young adulthood does not just happen without genuine faith, proper planning and deliberate efforts. A parent must have faith in the God of children. It is God who forms children in the womb and endows them with peculiar potentialities. The word of god which came to Jeremiah said “before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained” thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5).

Living and active faith, as opposed to passive profession, in God and His word crucial to effective parenting, guidance and training of children. Faith will convince you that everything – time, money, talent- that is invested in any young mind, whether your own child or another’s will definitely yield immense fruit. Faith will make you see children through Gods eye. “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child…” (Hebrew 11:23).

Faith will move you with compassion on them. It will encourage you to pay the high price of raising them up in God’s way. Active faith in the God of children will create in you love for child that can defy even the threat of the spirit of delinquency, and inject into you heavenly wisdom to rescue and raise them as great people for god and society.

Teenagers today, according to population experts, make up about 55 percent of the words population. In Christendom. They make up to as much as 60 percent of some congregations. The youths are vital forces, in that they, to a large extent, determine the prospect of any congregation, community or nation. Presently the focus of the world is for nations to empower their youths so as to ensure continuity and progress. The church cannot do otherwise neither can families ignore this clarion call great to raise teenagers. From the scriptures, we see how so many youths stood out as pillars in the history of nations and the church.

·         From Egypt to Canaan land, Moses was like a colossus. He delivered Israel from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage.

·        Joseph was prime minister in Egypt.

·        Daniel and his three friends – Shedrack, Meshach and Abednego – were influential in Babylon.

·        Timothy was a well-known character to the New Testament churches. From the time he appeared on the pages of the New Testament, we see him as a youngster. And he did not stop following the lord. He was progressive in his commitment to the Lords service. We have indications that he already had received an early godly training before his acquaintance with Apostle Paul

The bible says: “assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that     from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been. 2 Timothy 3:14, 15

He became a pastor, a powerful preacher of the word at a young age. Paul was admonishing him in 1Timothy 1:3 thus: “As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightiest charge some that they teach no other doctrine.” Paul was confident to leave the church at Ephesus in the care of timothy. He was not an adult by then because later in chapter 4:12 of the same first timothy, Paul said to him, “Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” Although Timothy might not have become a pastor in his teens, the bible said he was still a youth. Where kings fear to go, great teenagers can go there. Where adults have failed, great teenagers have succeeded and even gone further.

Prayer for children

1.     You the life of my children, arise by fire, and move forward into signs and wonders, in the name of Jesus.

2.     You the destiny of my children, receive the touch of God, arise, and enter into your breakthrough, In the name of Jesus.

3.     Every power calling the name and the head of my children for evil in order to them evil, thunder fire of God, answer them and destroy them, in the name of Jesus.

4.     Every stubborn household enemy delegated to bury the destiny of my children, ground open and swallow them in the name of Jesus.

5.     Every arrow of wickedness and destruction targeted against the destiny of my children, you will not locate them, locate your owner and destroy your owner, in the name of Jesus.

6.     Every spirit of Antichrist pursuing the lives of my children to hell fire, die by fire, in the name of Jesus.

7.     Every seed of failure planted in the lives of my children to disgrace and destroy their future, catch fire and burn to ashes, in the name of Jesus.

8.     The ministry of Satan to kill, to steal and destroy will not prosper in the lives of my children in the name of Jesus.