We can raise either an Ahaziah or a Joash. The choice is between a person who is used by others to further their evil ways or a person who has been trained by godly people to be influenced by God for the good of others. There really aren't any choices in between. The ungodly and the godly.

In our pursuits in life, we get so concerned with the unimportant that the most critical decisions are left behind. We are thinking about which college our children will go to before they are out of kindergarten! Lots of decisions preoccupy our minds, but actually they also reveal what is most important on our hearts. Jesus said a powerful sentence that seems to grab and pull that deadly mindset that sentences our children to hell.

"For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?" (Mark 8:36, NASB).

The key is training. We of course cannot convert our children. But if we think eternal life is of such importance, then we better be more insistent in making it a part of our daily lives so that it is hard not to love the Lord and others.

After discussing what happened, to Ahaziah and Joash, we will take a look at specific practical guidelines to take to make your child one that would find it hard not to love the Lord.

Then the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah, his youngest son, king in his place, for the band of men who came with the Arabs to the camp had slain all the older sons. So Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah began to reign. Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Athaliah, the granddaughter of Omri. He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother was his counselor to do wickedly. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD like the house of Ahab, for they were his counselors after the death of his father, to his destruction. (2 Chronicles 22:1-4, NASB).

Joash was seven years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem; and his mother' s name was Zibiah from Beersheba. And Joash did what was right in the sight of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest. And Jehoiada took two wives for him, and he became the father of sons and daughters. Now it came about after this that Joash decided to restore the house of the LORD. (2 Chronicles 24:1-4, NASB).

Paul J. Bucknell