4. Show Your Kids How Being Christian Benefits THEM
“What’s in it for me?” is the reason your kids will or won’t be Catholic after they leave your house, and this is the ULTIMATE reason all people choose Christianity. It’s not to “fit in” with the Church crowd, it’s not because great-grandpappy was Catholic, or anything else. You should emphasize the benefits of being Christian to your kids.
Here is a partial list I taught mine:
1. You can get an eternity of happiness in Heaven and avoid an eternity of misery in Hell. This, of course, is the most important benefit of Christianity and should never be trivialized or forgotten.
2. If you follow Christian morality, you will avoid many life-destroying problems and get plenty of Earthly benefits. For example, you will not get an STD, “need” an abortion, or be killed by the husband of the woman with whom you committed adultery. You will not kill somebody else while driving drunk or lose your license/job/reputation/peace-of-mind afterward. You will not end up in prison for stealing. You will get at least one day a week off from work. You will not end friendships when people find out you have lied about them behind their back. Decent people will be willing to associate with you. You will be able to obtain positions of trust in society, etc.
I once had to take my family to a funeral of a friend’s young kid who died after doing heroin. After the awful event was over, I made it a point to explain to my kids that practicing Christian morality saves you from that fate. If you think about it, it saves you from plenty of other bad fates as well.
3. Christians get things through prayer that they would not have ordinarily had. If you’ve ever prayed for something and had your prayer answered, you know what I am talking about. Etc.
It’s often a sacrifice to do what Jesus says we should do, but those sacrifices give us, as Christians, many serious benefits that non-Christians simply don’t have. Make sure your kids understand this.
What you mean in this topic…is catholic are not christian? Or it means christians are not Catholics?
The word “catholic” means “universal.” A Catholic is a Christian who is a member of Christ’s universal church.
Shouldnt kids willingly decide if they want to be catholics and adhere at the pŕinciples of Christianity, instead of being bribed with the promise of heaven?
That is an amusing take on things, and I’ve never thought of it as “bribery!” Everybody willingly decides what they want to be based upon the perceived reward for doing so. 🙂 I think you may need to check out the “atheist” section of our website.
I already had, thank you. Btw, I am not an atheist, I just found the need for an Heavenly reward quite peculiar. Shouldn’t a good Christian follow God’s law because it is right, and not because of the want or, since the alternative proposed is Hell, the need to be happy in the afterlife? Feel free to correct me on the doctrine if I am wrong, I am still in the process of reading the Bible front to back.
Ah, it did seem like you were either an atheist or a non-parent. In your other post you said you were too young to have kids, so that helps me understand your perspective a little better.
You are asking somewhat of a theoretical question about following God when the practical questions are far more important: An eternity of happiness or misery merits following God regardless of your other reasons for doing so, and there is a reason the Bible repeatedly says, “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.” That being said, of course it’s better to do something for somebody out of love (or a desire to do the right thing) instead of just fear of the consequences. It means more, and I would say it indicates better character.
So if I start believing that God created the world then I am immune to getting and STD getting killed by some random guy and not killing someone from driving drunk? And what does it mean by “need” an abortion? Not having an abortion is sometimes life threatening and I really don’t understand why it’s so hated against.
There’s a little bit more to it than that: If you follow God’s rules on sexuality, you are basically immune to getting an STD because you won’t be having sex with anybody but your spouse, assuming, of course, your spouse doesn’t have an STD. If you follow God’s rules on drunkenness, you won’t be driving drunk. The problem with abortion is that you are taking the life of an innocent person; i.e. you are murdering them. Nobody likes murderers.