As any parent knows, raising children is a demanding task.
Not only must you provide for their physical needs, but you also have the responsibility of shaping their character and values.
It is up to you to teach them about Christ and help lead them towards a life of faith. Fortunately, you are not alone in this endeavor.
God is with you, and He will help teach you how to raise godly children when you ask for His guidance. Here are 30 biblical ways to raise godly children based on the Bible!
30 Biblical Ways To Raise Godly Children
It’s not always easy to determine exactly how to raise godly children, but it’s definitely worth it so they will grow to experience God’s glory and please Him. Here are 30 critical steps you can follow to learn how to raise godly children up to be strong, faithful Christians…
1. Pray for your children daily
Make it a habit to pray for your kids daily. If you’re not sure what to pray, here’s 30 days of prayer to get you started! Sometimes life can get so busy that we tend to forget to do things like praying for our kids. One way that’s really helped me remember to pray for certain things is to keep a prayer journal. I teach about it here in my post, How to Instantly Transform Your Prayer Life. Prayer is absolutely VITAL to your relationship with God and these posts will help steer you along the way!
2. Teach them about God from an early age
I remember starting with my kids VERY, VERY early. My son was 3 years old when he had a very CLEAR understanding of salvation and God and gave his life to God. I was absolutely stunned. He was just a “baby”. How could HE understand such lofty things that even some adults can’t grasp?! I know *I* didn’t understand for a long time.
But he did.
He’d go into his bedroom at night, and come out asking a lot of questions about God. Questions about election, questions about salvation, questions about baptism and God for a period of a week straight. I asked him what he was doing in his room every night and he said, “Talking to God”.
It was shortly after that (that week) that he gave his life to God and started wanting to become a Pastor. Still to this day, as a now 14-year-old, he has a huge desire to become a Pastor and reads Christian books and the Bible all the time. His goal is to go to seminary.
Just in case you think it’s my prompting him or forcing him to believe something, I assure you, it’s not. At school one day when he was in Kindergarten (a couple years later), they asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. THIS was what he wrote.
That was at school, where I was no where near. His response (although spelled wrong ) Pastor!
Think that was it? Nope. A few weeks later (on October 22, 2013), they had the kids dress up as whatever they wanted to be when they grew up. Matt chose a suit and tie. He wanted to go as a Pastor.
Can you believe that?! Just insane how God can work in the life of a small child.
If you think kids aren’t listening, you’re wrong. If you think God can’t work in the heart of a 3 year old, you’re wrong! God is God and He can do ANYTHING. It’s never too early!!
Start teaching them about God as early as possible. Read Bible stories together, pray together, and attend church regularly. Get God in their minds and hearts as early as humanly possible.
3. Set a Christ-like example
Your children will learn much more from what you do than what you say. Be sure to set a Christ-like example when raising godly children in your own life so that they can see what it means to follow Jesus. Do things like letting them see you read the Bible. Let them see you pray. Let them see YOUR faith displayed so that they know it’s important to you and that you take it seriously.
4. Encourage them in their faith
As your children grow, encourage them to get involved in their church youth group, VBS, and other activities. Your church is super vital to not only your spiritual health, but theirs as well. Help them find ways to serve God and share their faith with others. Cultivate in them that love of Jesus Christ.
5. Raising godly children means disciplining them regularly
Disciplining your children is an important part of raising them to be godly. When they make mistakes, help them to see the error of their ways and encourage them to make things right…on their own. Instead of saying, “This is your punishment”, or “This is how I want you to fix it”, why not rather ask them instead?
Ask them what THEY feel is a fair punishment. What do THEY think is fair to do when they broke Susie’s toy. Getting them to think about what’s fair and decide on their own will help them understand that God is fair and help them cultivate making better decisions as they grow.
6. Teach them about God’s Word
Make it a priority to read the Bible with your children and help them to understand what it says. As they learn more about God’s Word, they will be better equipped to make wise choices in their own lives.
My son LOVES to read, so after I saw that he was really serious about becoming a Pastor (when he put he wanted to be a Pastor on his sign), I got him his first Bible. It was just a cheapy hardback Bible I got at the Christian bookstore. But over time, I saw how he was really taking care of it and a few years later, I got him a really NICE leather STUDY Bible.
The study Bible has biblical notes so that if he is reading and doesn’t understand something, he can look at the notes and better understand it. Giving him a study Bible has been one of the best things I’ve done! Don’t think they are too young. They are not!
7. Help them develop a personal relationship with Christ
When raising godly kids, encourage them to spend time talking with God in prayer. Help them to see that prayer is not just a list of requests, but a time of fellowship with the Lord and to build a special relationship with Him. Cultivate it as much as you can.
8. Encourage them to be obedient
Teach your children that obedience is important to God. Help them to understand that when they obey His commands, they are showing Him that they love and respect Him.
Likewise, we must ALSO be obedient to the Lord and not rebellious. If we are displaying an attitude of rebellion to God, so will our kids! But if we are reverent to Him, willingly obeying Him, they will wonder what it is about God that makes us WANT to obey! It will pique their curiosity about Him and make them want to know Him more. It’s an amazing (subtle) witness to your kids!
9. Teach them to make wise choices
As your children grow older, they will face many choices in life. Help them to understand that not all choices are good ones. Teach them to seek God’s guidance when making decisions so that they can choose wisely. Seeking God in all we do is so important!
10. When raising godly children, help them to deal with peer pressure
As your kids enter their teen years, they will face increasing pressure to conform to the world around them. Help them to stand firm in their faith and resist peer pressure. If it becomes a problem and you feel it is in THEIR best interest, pull them out of school and homeschool them, if you are able. I noticed that with both my kids.
I started out homeschooling them when they were toddlers, but then had to put them in public school because I was a single mom (my ex-husband abandoned us) and they went to school for many years. They had a lot of issues come up over the years and their behavior started getting worse and worse as time went on.
My son is very impressionable and so he was fighting, clowning around, not doing his school work, and barely passing. Right before COVID hit, he got into a fight where the boys were chasing each other through the school and then the other boy shoved my son’s head into the metal locker and he fell down immediately in a daze. Another child called a teacher for help. The school called me, the police on staff were called and it was a big deal. His head was bleeding, he was completely out of it. Very groggy-like. I was SOOOO worried!
It was right then and there that I decided to pull him out of school. “No more!” I said to myself. Then COVID hit and I knew it was the right decision to homeschool them again.
My daughter was incredibly worldly, had a very worldly attitude and it just wasn’t the right decision for OUR family to have them in public school. They have been homeschooled now for a few years and it’s really been the best decision for them. They are MUCH better! Their attitudes have improved. They are happier and more well-adjusted.
Getting them to do school work is a little tough, I admit, but they are able to learn a lot of other things they would not have been able to if still in school because it’s school in the morning, gone all day, get home, do homework, eat dinner, take showers, get ready for tomorrow and go to bed. There was just never enough time.
Now I’m teaching my daughter to cook, a real world skill she will need and she’s enjoying it. She’s getting pretty good at it too!! She’s making dinners some nights each week (with my help/guidance). I’m teaching my son the things of God, preparing him to be a Pastor and just, for us, it’s been the best decision.
EVERY child, every FAMILY is different. What’s right for one, may not be right for another family. It’s a very personal decision and neither is sinful at all. God does not say we MUST homeschool or we MUST send our kids to school. It is our decision!
11. Teach them about the dangers of drugs and alcohol
As you’re raising godly children and they get into elementary school and middle school, it is important to talk with them about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Help them to understand that these substances can destroy their lives and keep them from reaching their goals in life. Talk to them about how they are addicting substances and how we should avoid them.
For alcohol, God does not forbid us drinking wine or alcohol, but we are not to be addicted to it (idolatry), nor are we to drink too much that it inhibits our control over ourselves. The Bible says do not be DRUNK with wine (Ephesians 5:18). It doesn’t say you can’t have any.
Again, this is an issue that is personal and up to you. For us, we do not drink at all. I’ve never drank or done drugs in my life and I do feel like it’s very important when teaching my kids, to be an example of the behaviors I want them to display. If I don’t want them to do drugs, I don’t do drugs myself, etc.
For my daughter, we’ve already talked about it, and she thinks she will have wine every now and then after she is 21. It’s her own decision what she does after she is out on her own, however, the fact that we’ve discussed it in depth is the important part! It is also just as important that we do not judge other people. If my daughter wants to drink a glass of wine every now and then when she’s of age, I cannot judge her for that because it’s not sin. We must be sure we are not judging others for something that is not sin, otherwise, we become legalistic.
The point is to TALK about all these things with your kids. Make sure they understand and know what is right and what is wrong, according to the Bible and that we ourselves are also living up to that standard.
12. Help them develop healthy relationships
As your children grow, encourage them to develop strong, healthy relationships with others. Teach them how to resolve conflicts in a godly way and to avoid unhealthy relationships. If a relationship is toxic or abusive, we should not continue in that relationship and that goes for us too.
Again, we must model the behavior we want to see in our children. If someone is treating you incredibly cruel for example, you don’t always have to be around them. If it’s your husband, you can walk away, go to another room, do not engage in the cruelness.
If it’s your parent, we are called to honor our parents (even as adult children) so we can’t just ignore them, but we can, like our spouses, walk away, go to another room, or end the visit shorter.
This will send very loud and clear messages that abuse is not okay and that you don’t wish to be disrespected or engage in foolishness. It will show your kids you respect yourself as well as still honoring family members.
A piece of advice that will help you through a lot of situations: Remember this…it takes TWO to fight. It’s really hard to fight with someone who is happy, smiley, and refuses to fight back.
13. Encourage them to stay sexually pure
Sexual purity is VERY important to God. As your children reach their teenage years, talk with them about the importance of remaining sexually pure. Help them to understand how sex outside of marriage can ruin their lives and is not holy or what we should do. If you’d like to read more about it, I have an entire article dealing with this issue called, How to Keep It Pure When Dating, that is perfect for your children and friend’s kids!
14. Raising godly children means teaching them about money
It is important for your children to learn how to handle money wisely. Teach them about budgeting, saving, and giving so that they can use their resources in a way that pleases God.
15. Help them find their gifts and talents
Encourage your children to use their gifts and talents for God’s glory. Help them to find ways to serve in the church, community, or online so that they can use their abilities to bless others. Raising godly children means tapping into their God-given spiritual gifts and talents, which we all have as Christians, so inspire them to find theirs.
16. Teach them about work
Work is part of the curse for man. It was originally intended for man, not women. We must make sure that we understand that working to support ourselves IS the man’s job. The woman’s job is to be a helpmeet to her husband and take care of the home and kids. Her PRIORITY is the home and children, THEN if she is able to and has time (she must be diligent to spend her time wisely as it is ultimately the Lord’s clock in which she is on), she can work. In that context, it can be a good thing, so long as the priorities are followed.
- God
- Husband
- Kids
- Home
- THEN working
Like the Proverbs 31 woman, she plants a vineyard, she sells sashes. She is NOT responsible for the money the family makes, but she, WANTS TO, out of the goodness of her heart, to help him in HIS punishment and judgement, because she loves him.
It’s important to understand this. There are and will always be exceptions. I’m a single mom. I can’t just expect my husband to pay the bills, I do not have a husband. I must work because of my ex-husband’s sin (he abandoned us). I am not punished for this spiritually, but it is a reality that I have to deal with.
Maybe your husband is injured or sick and cannot work right now. That’s okay too, but the point is the original intention. Man is to work to provide for the family. The woman SHOULD WANT TO help her husband, relieve a little of that burden off of him and work hard as well in order to help in ways that God has gifted her.
But it also depends in what stage she’s at in life as well. For example, let’s say she has a newborn at home. There’s no way she should be trying to work and carry everything also. Newborns take a lot of time. She would want to focus on sleeping, resting, and caring for a newborn over trying to work and help her husband with his work. Because God cares for her and has not asked her to work.
However, if her kids are older (like teens, for example, or even out of the house), she has more free time because the kids are more self-sufficient, then she can work more to help her husband, so long as she is meeting her own needs (health, spirituality, etc.)
Work can teach self-control. It can teach patience and goal-setting. It can teach a lot of things and so it can be a tool used to teach many good things. Help your children to understand the importance of laboring for their future family’s and using their talents to serve others. Laboring for God is THE most enjoyable thing on the planet.
17. Encourage them to enjoy life
God wants us to enjoy the life He has given us. While we are to WANT to work hard to help relieve some of the financial burden from our husbands or to help our family and our children have better futures, we are also to enjoy life. That doesn’t mean it gives us liberty to be reckless and enjoy worldly pursuits. It means we can enjoy the gifts God has given us, whatever they may be.
He has given us the Sabbath as a day to rest. To focus on Him, to honor Him. If we work hard 5 or 6 days a week, one day of the week should be to rest and to enjoy life, to honor God, and to take time off. We are not COMMANDED to take a Sabbath day (Romans 14:5-12). Let me be clear, but God has given this to us, as a gift to show us to stop and enjoy life. Don’t go so fast we are not enjoying the beauty of His creation.
I believe He wants us to choose taking the Sabbath day (not under compulsion) but because it is a day to honor Him. If we honor Him a day out of our week because we are forced to, what kind of offering to Him is that? No, He wants us to WANT to give Him that day, not out of compulsion, but out of love to Him.
I have to admit, I’ve never been a person to take the Sabbath day off. I always think to myself, “I’ll get ahead on this day in my work.” And I do. But we cannot speed up God’s timetable, nor can we slow it down. HIS timing is perfect (Psalm 31:15). With or without rest, we will be exactly where He wants us to be, so why NOT rest????
Lately, He’s been convicting me to take the Sabbath day off. And since I am just starting to do this (about a month or two into it), it’s kinda difficult. I forget. I’ll start working a little bit and my kids will say, “Hey mom, this is Sunday”. I need that accountability because it’s harder for me personally to rest. But I need it and I do want to obey God in what He asks me to do.
Again, taking the Sabbath day off is not a command, but I do feel He wants you to want to and I do feel in our society in this day and age, that we NEED it. In some ways, it is your “way of escape” (1 Corinthians 10:13 in context) from the beating, grueling busyness that is prevalent in so many women’s lives. Take the day off. Make Sunday a family day. Make it about God. Not the busyness of church functions, but about Jesus Christ. Take a RELAXED day off. For one can trade one type of busy (work) with another type of busy (functions and activities on Sunday) and call it “rest”. Let it not be so. Rest. Help your children to find balance in THEIR lives also so that they can enjoy all that God has to offer.
18. Raising godly children means teaching them about eternity and everlasting life
As your children grow, help them to understand that this life is not all there is. There is an eternity ahead, and where they spend it will be determined by the choices they make now.
19. Encourage them to be witnesses for Christ
As your children enter adulthood, encourage them to share their faith with others. Help them to understand that they have the opportunity to impact eternity by leading others to Christ.
20. Raising godly children means praying for your children’s future regularly
Prayer is one of the most important things you can do for your children. Pray for their future spiritual growth, their future relationships, their studies, their life. Pray for their future spouses, pray for THEIR future kids. Pray for their future jobs. Pray for their future.
21. Teach them to love and respect authority
Help your children to understand that God has placed authority figures in our lives for our protection and guidance. Teach them to show respect to their parents, teachers, and other authority figures in their lives. Does this mean they should obey sin if an authority figure tells them to? No, but teach them that too!
22. Help raise godly kids by making Jesus the Lord of their lives
As your children come to know Christ, encourage them to make Him the Lord of their lives.
Saying a prayer or walking an aisle doesn’t make you saved. I got baptized TWICE in my life before I ACTUALLY became a Christian! It’s ALL ABOUT making Him LORD. We must submit our entire life to Him.
Sound hard? It is. But we CAN do it through Jesus Christ and if you or your kids are struggling to make Him LORD of your life, ask God to help you!
It is only in His power, we can come to Him!!!
Help them to understand that this means submitting to His authority and following His will for their precious lives.
23. Teach them about Bible study and meditation
One of the best things you can do for your kids is to teach them how to study and meditate on God’s Word. Help them to understand the importance of spending time in the Bible each day and why it’s so important. The more we know about God, the more we can please Him and the more we make good decisions that overall affect our lives and others.
24. Encourage them to spend time with other Christians
As your children grow, encourage them to spend time with other Christians. Help them to find a Bible-believing church where they can worship, serve, and be a part of.
25. Help them to understand the importance of service
Service is an important part of the Christian life. Help your children to understand that we are called to serve others. Encourage them to find ways to serve in their homes, churches, and communities. Show them that we should be praying, every single day, that the Lord USE US for His kingdom. After all, that is why we are here on earth!!! Do they realize that God made them for Himself? We are a gift that He created for Himself.
Think about it.
If you gave yourself a gift, it’d be something REALLY good, right?! If you’re gonna give yourself something, you would choose something that really was so amazing. Not something that someone else would buy you. Not something you wouldn’t use. Not something you’d throw away or ignore, not something small, but something really, REALLY good. Something important to you.
WE are God’s REALLY good gift He gave to HIMSELF. Think about that for a while!!!
26. Raising godly children means teaching them about stewardship
Stewardship is the responsible use of the resources that God has given us. This can be time, money, resources, material goods, even people. We are stewards of our children, are we not? I am a steward of this blog. I am a steward of you. How you grow, what I teach and share with you. We are stewards of His creation. Help your children to understand that they are responsible for taking care of the things that God has entrusted to them, whether big or small and we want to be found faithful (Matthew 25:14-30).
27. Encourage them to be thankful
Teach your children to be thankful for all that God has given them. Help them to understand that an attitude of thankfulness pleases God and is a source of joy in our lives. You can have them create a prayer journal. I have a kids prayer journal here (it’s free to download) and it has a section on thankfulness!
28. Teach them about forgiveness
Forgiveness is an important part of the Christian life. Help your children to understand that we are all sinners in need of forgiveness. One of the biggest hurdles I’ve had to get my son over was that he errantly thought Christians were perfect.
So, he’d see me and my life, know I’m not perfect, yet I’m a Christian and he was struggling with it. But Christians are sinners too. We all are, all the time (Romans 3:23). Although we do our absolute best not to sin, we still sin and won’t be perfect till we get to Heaven.
Being a Christian doesn’t mean we’re perfect and sometimes kids can think that we ARE perfect or they see a sibling give their life to the Lord and are not suddenly perfect. We need to teach them about sanctification and to forgive when we mess up. Teach them to forgive others as God has forgiven them.
29. Help them to grow in their relationship with God
As your children grow, help them to deepen their relationship with God. Encourage them to spend time in prayer and Bible study so that they can know God better. This is one of the most important things we can do as Christians so we want to be modeling this for our children as well!
Having a personal, incredibly intimate relationship with God is so vital in our human lives. As they grow, that relationship naturally becomes deeper and it becomes helpful in so many ways from spreading the gospel, to serving in ministry, to choosing the right life partner as a spouse and everything in between!!!
30. Pray for wisdom and guidance
Pray for wisdom and guidance as you raise your children. Ask God to help you to lead them in His ways and in the way that He wants you to lead them in. You are a steward of them, and it’s not a responsibility to take lightly.
You can learn how to raise godly children in this crazy mixed-up world, and these 30 tips are just some ways to cultivate godliness in your children.
It’s incredibly important as a parent to raise children in a way that pleases the Lord. Every parent will have their own unique approach, and that’s perfectly fine as long you continue praying that what you’re doing is what Christ wants you to do in the way He wants you to do it.
