29 YOU BECOME AN EXAMPLE WHEN YOUR WORD AND
WAY LINE UP WITH GOD’S WORD AND WAY.

“Are you Jesus?” the child asked me.

I was teaching a Sunday school class when a four-year-old asked me this revealing question. Authority figures are all in the same concrete, mental category for a child. All are good or all are bad. Since I was in authority, then I must be good just like Jesus.

It’s difficult for a child to imagine the invisible or to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Children are concrete thinkers. So, I must represent all that Jesus is or does. A parent is the first picture of God a child sees.

The character transfers from my personality to God’s are almost automatic for the young child. If I yell, God must yell. If I am critical, God must be critical. If I love, God must love.

As a child matures, he begins to distinguish between God and a parent. If a parent’s actions conform to God’s character, then a child isn’t confused when a parent teaches and trains him in right or wrong. But if glaring inconsistencies exist or if the parent never admits to being wrong, then a child faces a moral dilemma. Who am I to trust? God? My parent? Neither?

Paul writes, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). That’s bold. That’s real. That’s the way parents must live out life before their children.

Be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity (1 Tim. 4:12).