The Best Place To Start: Set Your Children Up For Success

By Gary Keesee

Every good thing comes out of the family. As a man, God has put you in charge of your family and you will answer to Him as to how you have led them. I thought it would only be fitting to have my husband, Gary, write today’s blog as he can speak to what it means to be the head of the family much better than I could ever do.

God has always had a divine purpose for family. He didn’t just want you to have a few people to go get ice cream with. The Bible says to “be fruitful, fill the earth and subdue it.” To subdue means to conquer and to bring under subjection. His desire was that His administration and righteousness would fill the earth. He literally designed family so that the knowledge of His Kingdom would be passed on to future generations.

Now, the devil has figured this out. He’s caught on to what God wants to do with families and he does everything he can to prevent that. He brings pain, sorrow, and confusion into our families. He does whatever he has to do to…

…erode righteousness and bring rebellion, because he knows, as God does, that how your family goes is how you’re going to go. This applies to children being raised in a family, as well as the adults trying to run a family. Paul talks about this in I Timothy 3:1-12. He tells us that a man who can’t manage his own family can’t manage the church. Really, if a man can’t manage his own family, he can’t manage much of anything.Managing your family properly starts with order. Paul tells us that God established a divine order for the family: Christ is the head of the man, man is the head of the wife, and children are under the parents. Ephesians 6:1-2 (NIV) says, “Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do. ‘Honor your father and mother.’ This is the first commandment with a promise: If you honor your father and mother, ‘things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth.” If a child learns obedience and respect in his parent’s house, he’ll be able to respect authorities in the world, and he’ll live a long life. This divine order God established is for our protection and blessing.When you don’t train a child to respect authority, or you let him go his own way or choose when he’s going to obey, when he begins to try to come to God in faith, he’s going to filter that through his own perception of how he would obey a directive. Many adults have nullified their faith because they can’t see themselves under God. They have authority issues. And, unless you’re submitted under God’s authority, you don’t have any authority in your own life.Training starts in the family. Until your child becomes a born-again believer, it’s the law of God, the covenants, and the commandments that teach, instruct, and give them boundaries. Their ability to learn respect in the home will carry right out of the house, into the world, and into their relationship with God. If they can’t respect their parents, they won’t respect God. If you can’t respect, you can’t receive.

There is no better place to start change than in your family. So, take the time to love, instruct, and discipline. Model righteousness. Don’t just live in the same house. Talk to each other. Spend time together. Protect what they see, do and hear. Deal with conflict quickly. Establish order and authority. Posture your family to walk in the promise.

For additional mentoring in how to lead your family God’s way, I encourage you to request your copy of Fixing the Family Thing Package (Fixing the Family Thing 5-CD set and She Gets It! Book by Drenda Keesee). Being a parent supersedes any other role or responsibility you will ever have. As a parent, you set the standard for what your children will become. Discover how to follow God’s plan for your family and set your children up for success!

Listen in Now to Faith Life Church!

Drenda Keesee’s contagious zeal and humorous personal experiences help make her ministry of spiritual, emotional and relational wholeness one that will bless your life and spark a new fire in your spirit.

A wife of over 30 years and a mother of five children, Drenda has ministered at churches, seminars, and conferences, and through the mediums of television and radio, for more than 20 years.

Her books, The New Vintage Family, Better Than You Think, and She Gets It are available wherever books are sold. In these heartfelt books, Drenda shares her personal journey and the life lessons that have brought her to where she is today, as well as practical answers that all people need to live a joyful life.

Drenda and her husband Gary founded Faith Life Now, a ministry designed to spread the message of freedom in the areas of finances, faith, marriage and family. Faith Life Now hosts conferences worldwide, and sponsors both Fixing the Money Thing, which Drenda co-hosts with her husband Gary, and Drenda.

Through their own life experiences, the Keesees have found the principles from God’s Word to be powerful and effective. At one point, Drenda was a young, suicidal feminist with no hope of ever being “good enough” for her own standards of perfection. She never wanted the “inconvenience” of a husband or children, and she was on her own path to success. But the stress of trying to achieve perfection and perform for love left her broken and used. She had success, but it was nothing compared to the pain and loneliness it had also brought.

That’s when God got a hold of her heart. It was there—at her lowest point—that she found the One who accepted and loved her, faults and all. Since that transformation, Drenda has had a passion to reach women who find themselves where she once was.

She married Gary after attending college, and there she found herself in a personal boot camp of sorts. She says, “I cried and told God, ‘I can do anything but be a wife and mother.’” She committed to learning how to do it God’s way. Through the many years of raising their children and struggling to make ends meet, Drenda learned from their mistakes. “I didn’t know how to be a wife and mother, but God saved our marriage, taught us how to parent our children for success, showed us how to have financial success, and then irony of all ironies, He called us to ministry.” It’s truly because of these life experiences that Drenda can now share so many insightful principles for people who are now going through the same struggles.

Gary and Drenda pastor Faith Life Church at The Now Center in New Albany, Ohio and also are the CEOs of Forward Financial Group.