What is the most important truth to teach your children? What is the one reality that separates Christianity from all the other religions of the world? The most important truth is this: Jesus rose from the dead. If there is one truth that demonstrates the reality of everything Christianity claims, it is the resurrection.
Consider what Paul says about Jesus’s resurrection:
If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. . . . If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
~ 1 Corinthians 15:14, 17–19
Christ bore God’s judgment for our sin, and in raising him from the dead, the Father vindicates the Son, declaring death defeated and Christ victorious.
Jesus is alive! is the greatest reality of our faith. But how can we convince our children that he is alive?
The Challenge
After Jesus rose, he appeared to the disciples, but Thomas was not with them. When the disciples later told Thomas that Jesus was alive, he said, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe” (John 20:25). When Jesus appeared again, Thomas the doubter saw him and touched him and believed.
Our children face the same challenge Thomas faced. We have the witness of the apostles, written so that they might believe (John 20:30–31). We tell them that Jesus is alive. But the question is the same: How can they believe that Jesus is alive when they cannot see and touch him?
We want our children to be among those Jesus described as “blessed” because they “have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). If the resurrection is the most important truth to teach our children, but they—like Thomas—experience doubt, what do we have to show them? What can help convince them that Jesus is alive, when he has gone back to heaven?
This is where the Holy Spirit takes center stage.
If we only teach our children the historical accounts of God and do not share with them the reality of the presence of the Christ’s Spirit within us, we are giving them history without God’s present reality. Just like Thomas, our children want to see Jesus alive. And while they cannot see Jesus, they can know and feel his presence in as real a way as they can feel the breeze blow their hair, though it remains invisible to their eyes.
Our children will not receive the evidence Thomas received. Jesus will not walk into our living rooms and show them his wounds. Instead, they have something Jesus himself promised: the testimony of his apostles preserved in Scripture and the Holy Spirit bearing witness to Christ through that Word. The Spirit opens blind eyes so that those who have not seen Christ nevertheless know him, trust him, and love him.
Moses’s prayer
After Israel rejects God by making the golden calf, God tells Moses to take the people to the promised land—“but I will not go up among you” (Exodus 33:3). In response Moses prays, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct . . . from every other people on the face of the earth?” (Exodus 33:15–16)
Moses knows that God’s presence is what makes Israel distinct from every other people. Israel’s God is not a lifeless idol. He is the living God who dwells among his people.
The Psalmist writes,
The idols of the nations are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
they have eyes, but do not see;
they have ears, but do not hear,
nor is there any breath in their mouths.
~ Psalm 135:15–17
What makes the God of Moses different? Very simple—the same thing that moved Thomas to believe and the very same thing that will help our children believe: Our God is alive!
Jesus’s Promise
Before Jesus went to the cross, he promised to send the Holy Spirit. Jesus tells the disciples that the Spirit of God will
- Dwell with them and in them (John 14:16-17)
- Be the means of Jesus’s presence with them (John 14:18)
- Teach them all things (John 14:26)
- Bear witness to him (John 15:26)
Jesus knows our children need the present reality of God in their lives. Even though the risen Jesus is no longer present in body to come into your living room, by his Spirit he bears witness to the truth of the resurrection for our children. It is by the Spirit of God that our children encounter Jesus, know Jesus, and come to believe that he is alive.
Teach Your Children About the Holy Spirit
The Spirit’s presence is not merely something Christians believe as a doctrine. He is God’s present reality within us. Paul says that “the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:16). He calls the Spirit “the first fruits” and “the guarantee” of what we will one day possess in fullness (Romans 8:23; Ephesians 1:14). Through the Spirit, our children can experience a foretaste of the life Christ’s resurrection has secured for them.
If our children can only come to genuine faith in the risen Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit, then we should teach them not only what the Spirit has done, but what he is doing today. How do we do this?
Review the Scriptures regarding the Holy Spirit with your children so they are familiar with his work. Then testify to the reality of the Holy Spirit living inside of you as a believer. Teach them what it means to walk in step with the Spirit and be led by the Spirit and be filled by the Spirit.
It is through the Holy Spirit that our children come to know the reality of their living Emmanuel—God with us. It is through the Holy Spirit that they, like Moses, come to know what makes Christianity distinct from every other religion: Our God is alive. Our God goes with us.
And it is through the Holy Spirit that our children believe in the most important truth and are “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). Peter sums up this remarkable reality with these words: “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8–9).
The Spirit-Led Family
The Spirit-Led Family is a thoughtful guide for Christian parents seeking to nurture their family’s spiritual growth by growing in their understanding of the third person of the Trinity. Marty Machowski helps parents become more deeply acquainted with the work of the Spirit so they can lead their children to understand his role in salvation, spiritual growth, and daily guidance.
