Category: Motivation Monday

Administer the rules of the home in wisdom and love, not with a rod of iron. Children will respond with willing obedience to the rule of love. Commend your children whenever you can. Make their lives as happy as possible…. Keep the soil of the heart mellow by the manifestation of love and affection, thus preparing it for the seed of truth. Remember that the Lord gives the earth not only clouds and rain, but the beautiful, smiling sunshine, causing the seed to germinate and the blossom to appear. Remember that children need not only reproof and correction, but encouragement and commendation, the pleasant sunshine of kind words.”

Counsels to Teachers, Parents and Students  p 114

The youth may receive grace from Christ daily, and find their light growing brighter and brighter as they follow in the path of holiness. The psalmist says, “The path of the just is as a shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”

Growth in grace will not lead you to be proud, self-confident, and boastful, but will make you more conscious of your own nothingness, of your entire dependence upon the Lord. He who is growing in grace will be ever reaching heavenward, obtaining clearer views of the fullness of the provisions of the gospel.

The youth may be free in Christ; they may be the children of light, and not of darkness. God calls upon every young man and young woman to renounce every evil habit, to be diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Jesus will help you, so that you need not remain in indolence, making no effort to correct your wrongs or improve your conduct. The sincerity of your prayers will be proved by the vigor of the effort you make to obey all of God’s commandments. You may move intelligently, and at every step renounce evil habits and associations, believing that the Lord will renovate your heart by the power of his Spirit.

excerpt from The Youth’s Instructor,  Aug. 11, 1892

In His wisdom the Lord has decreed that the family shall be the greatest of all educational agencies. The education of the child is to be begun in the home. In the home the child is to learn the lessons that are to guide it through life. From infancy lessons of honor and obedience to parents are to be taught. Never should their children be allowed to show them disrespect. Self-will and hasty words should not be allowed to go unrebuked.

Parents should realize the sacredness of family discipline. They have been entrusted with a most important stewardship, a sacred charge. They are to make their family a symbol of the family in heaven, of which they hope to become members when their day of test and trial here below shall have ended. The children are to be taught to respect themselves, because they are the Lord’s property, bought with an infinite price.

Pacific Union Recorder – August 18, 1910

God demands of parents a faithful study of His word, and a determined effort to make a success of the church in the home. The parents with their converted children—the result of their obedience to God—can carry into the church their self-denial and sacrifice and their spiritual strength.

Pacific Union Recorder – August 18, 1910

Parents, remember that your home is a training school, in which your children are to be prepared for the home above. Deny them anything rather than the education that they should receive in their earliest years. Allow no word of pettishness. Teach your children to be kind and patient. Teach them to be thoughtful of others. Thus, you are preparing them for higher ministry in religious things.

The history of every one is written in the books of heaven, that all may know that their reward or punishment is according to their works,—their service in this life. Let parents remember that every day makes part of their history, and that no neglect must be permitted in the home, because they can not know how soon sickness and death may come to them or to their children.

Pacific Union Recorder – August 18, 1910