Speaker 1: Most of us eat every day, some of us too
much because yesterday's food is not enough to supply energy
for today's needs. Why then, do some of us expect
yesterday's portion of heavenly manna the word of God to
keep us through today's challenges. On this program, we are
going to change all of that. Let's experience God's words
today and receive the power we need to live healthy,
vibrant lives. Welcome to your Daily Portion with your host,
author speaker, Elle David Harris.
Speaker 2: Good morning, Good morning, Good morning. It is Monday, March sixteen,
twenty twenty six. Hello, my name is Elle David Harris.
I am your host, and this is your Daily Portion
where we give you God's Word every single day and
today is no exception. We are continuing in our Lesson
study series uniting Heaven and Earth, christ in Philippians and Colossians,
and our caption for today is parents and Children, Parent
and Children. Before we get into that, I'd like to
just say welcome to everyone joining us, especially those joining
us for the very first time. I'm asking you to
please go over to your Daily Portion dot com. Please
join our online community pick up your Daily Portion Life
application guide. If you've not done so already. I know
that half of the people who are watching right now
have never been here before, so please do that, and
also also please click the contribute button. We are a
listener and viewer supported ministry and I'm grateful for those
who have sacrificed and shared your hard earned resources with
this ministry. So please continue to do so. So many
things that we are looking to accomplish and we need
your assistance to do that. And also please let us
know where you are in the world at your daily
Portion dot com. This is one of the ways that
we continue to build faith and fellowship. Let's go ahead
and pray and get under way. Father, we thank you
for this day. Teach us if we are parents, to
be better parents. Please. If we are children, there are
a few young people who do watch on this program,
Please make them holy children who love their parents and
honor them in Jesus name. I pray, Amen and a
man again. Parents and children, may I just begin here. Parents,
it's a privilege to see our children as a heritage.
This is what the Bible says in the King James version,
heritage from the Lord. That means inheritance. When you think
of inheritance. You think of a treasure, you think of, oh,
my goodness, I hit the jackpot. And I know some
people won't like my illusion. That seems like gambling, but
that's not the only way you can hit the jackpot.
There are times that we have blessings lavished upon us
to the degree that it is like I started out
with zero dollars in my bank account and now I
am wealthy chuching like that is how we should see
our children. Where God gives us the best possible gift
outside of salvation and has entrusted it to our care,
to the degree it's like a treasure. It's like a treasure.
And so that's how I see Josiah, and I'm sure
that that is how Simone sees Josiah as well, our son.
Now I'm going to begin with one of the least
understood passages regarding our children, next to the one that says,
and the little child shall lead them. Can I just
pause right here on my soapbox and say, stop using
that as a leadership text that literally has to do
with children in our next life in eternity, leading action,
leading actual animals, Like you know how you put like
a little rope on around the you know, like a
leash or something, and you're guiding the animal like to
wherever you want the animal to go. Like, that's a
literal text for our new experience in God, after Jesus
comes to take us to heaven and then gives us
the earth made new. That is not a leadership text.
So that's for me the number one miss appropriated text
where children are concerned. A little child shall lead some
animals that normally would have chewed their faces off because
they in this life were predators, and now they're not
in the next life. Okay, so that's number one. But
the second one is this in Proverbs. Somebody's like, what
that text doesn't have to do with leadership, No, has
nothing to do with that. Let me go now to
the second misunderstood text, which is Proverbs, chapter twenty two
and verse six, and the Bible reads, train up a
child in the way he should go, and when he's old,
he will not depart from it. Let me just jump
in and say what this really actually means. I want
you to see this, like in an agrarian situation, or
in an agricultural situation, you have a plant that's growing,
or a small tree that is growing outside your house,
and you bend it just a little bit, just a
little bit, not too much. You're not breaking the branch.
You're just training it. That's what to train. Look that
up to train. You're bending it just a little bit
so that it will go in a particular direction, in
a way that it would normally go. But you're just
guiding it a little bit, and I promise you that
it will continue to do that. You have some plants
that are called runners, and when you attach it to
maybe a stalk or a stick or something or another tree,
then it'll just run and run and run and run
and run. And you're like, oh my goodness, this thing
took on to the pathway that I was guiding it into,
and it will not depart. It's not going to stop
running that direction because you have done it according to
its bent. You've done it according to its nature. You
did not break it, You did not form it in
a way that it was not already forming. You have
trained it in the way it should go. So what
does that mean for our children? If you read it
literally like how it should read in the original, it
would be more like train your child, discover your child's
bent and then guide it in that direction. And if
we think about it like spiritually, whatever way God created
the child, you are to ask God what that is,
discover that have that kind of holy interest in your child,
and then guide that in the holy way that they
should go and they won't depart. So Josiah loves music
to the extreme, just like his mommy and daddy. But
he loves to play music like his daddy used to
and his grandma, my late mother did. He plays, plays
and plays for hours. He just keeps going, keeps going,
keeps going. So I should see that and say, oh God,
you made this little boy who's now his voice is
deeper than mine, hands likely stronger than mine, feet bigger
than mine. You've made him a musical child. How do
I train him in the way he should go? Well,
I shouldn't tell him you can't play music anymore. I
need you to be a doctor, I need you to
be a lawyer. You will not be a musician. That
is not training him in the way he should go.
I'm discovering with Simone his bent, his bent is toward creativity,
His bent is toward music. Okay, Well, what does that mean?
That means that I now need to say as a
Christian parent, Oh, let me make sure that I'm guiding
him on the righteous side of this thing, where he's
not going to to focus on things in music that
are displeasing to God. So I'm guiding him. I'm guiding him.
I'm guiding him. There's literally nothing I can do to
break music out of him, because I've discovered with Simone
his bent or his propensity toward his inclination and love
to ward music. And now we're saying, Okay, this is
how you honor God in music. That is how you
train your child. It does not mean, now that I've
invested the time, it does not mean that if you
guide your child to the Christian lifestyle that they are
not going to be lost. That doesn't even make sense. Lucifer,
the one who was previously called the Sun of the Morning,
had the best father in the universe, That's God, the Creator.
He gave Lucifer everything Lucifer could possibly have needed in
order to continue to be holy. Just a quick quiz question, y'all,
is Lucifer the former Lucifer who is now called the
devil and Satan and the Dragon and the Father of Lies,
is he going to be saved in the end. The
answer is no. Was there a problem with God's parenting?
Absolutely not, And so what we do need to do
is to discover what God has placed in our children,
dedicate that to God and encourage our children and growth,
and they will not depart from it. Peace.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us listening.
Speaker 2: Friends.
Speaker 1: Always remember we cannot live by bread alone, but by
every word that comes from the mouth of God. This
has been your daily portion with el David Harris. Make
it a great day. Yeah,