4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
As Christ-following parents (or grandparents!) seeking to be obedient to the Scripture above we should see holidays as a great opportunity for us to seize for extra Gospel focus and conversations with our children (and fun of course!).
I'd encourage each parent and couple to look holiday traditions carefully, not just doing something because it is what you have always done with your kids or what you did growing up. But rather, do what you do with conviction.
The Apostle Paul encourages us the same way: Romans 14:5b “Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.”
In a sermon from John Piper on Romans 14:5-9 he says: “‘Each one should be fully convinced...’ of what? I think the answer is this: I am fully convinced that what I am committed to is 1) not sinful, 2) honoring to Christ, and 3) the best way I can think of for me to act in this situation.”
Matt and I are still learning what this looks like practically in our home. We are still trying to figure out what traditions we enjoy and want to cultivate in our family. But the one thing we are sure about is whatever “secular/worldly/cultural” traditions we may participate in, egg hunts or Easter baskets or whatever, we want to emphasize JESUS 100x more. We don't want to fall into the trap of just tacking Him on at the end while our kids are stuffing their faces with chocolate bunnies, “Oh and kids, don't forget, Jesus died and rose again.”
We feel like one of the best ways to cultivate this in our own hearts, and the hearts of our children is to spend a little time on it every day.
Personally, we are going to do a handful of ideas from the links provided below. By making crafts, reading specific gospel focused books, and shorter passages of Scripture over this period of time, we pray and trust, Jesus will be much bigger than a 5 minute Easter egg hunt and a pile of candy and trinkets. We pray the same for each of the families in our lives, may we each seek to be faithful to God in how we shepherd and disciple the children He has entrusted to us!
Here are just a few links of resources, ideas, crafts, bible story reading plans:
(This is a link to Amazon. You can google “resurrection eggs and find links where people made them themselves or possibly find a better deal:))
There are two great books that go along with this on the Amazon book list. One is called Benjamin’s Box. It is more geared toward preschool/elementary age, but Elli sat through it last year:) The other is called Lily's Easter Party. She has already had us read that one at least 3 times in one week!
Easter book list on Amazon:
Please share your own thoughts, ideas, crafts, & links in a comment!
