The End Or The Beginning

It seems lately I have found myself in discussions with Christian mothers and the conversation goes to the salvation of sons and daughters.  For some the end goal is to see their children accept Christ as Savior.  This is something that all Christian parents should desire for their children.  However, it seems for many this is the end goal-- that as long as their children have accepted Christ then they  have done their job.  As a Christian mother I certainly want my sons to accept Christ as Savior, but that is not the end of my job.  In fact the salvation of my children is not even my job.  It is a heart matter between them and the Lord.  It is the Holy Spirit's job convict them and bring them to one day accept Christ.  My job is to act as the Lord's agent to point them in the right direction, to shape them, and act as a shepard.  I want to make disciples not just see that my children are saved.  When I look at the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20, it says:

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Notice the passage does not say go lead as many to salvation as possible.  It says the make disciples and after mentioning baptism it goes on to command further instruction "and teaching them everything I have commanded you".  It means that our job as parents is nowhere near done when it comes to spiritual training of our children, not by a long shot.  We as parents are to make disciples-- it is our most important discipleship job.  What I mean by our most important discipleship job is that I can have spent my life and talents to reach many for Christ, but if I neglected my responsibilities to discipling my children then I am have not lived a life that would be considered successful to the Lord.  He says in Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.  So once our children make that very important step to accept Christ then we have entered the beginning of a new phase of the parenting journey.  Now we are to train them in ways to grow their faith, character training, instructed them to have quiet time (we call it special time with Jesus), read the Bible together and talk about how to apply it to life-- every aspect of life, and the list goes on.  We need to make these a regular part of parenting no matter where our children are in the journey.  I believe we need to be doing these things even before a child accepts Christ as Savior, but once that decision is made these take on a new meaning. There have been some who have disagreed with me, but I find the answer to be quite clear that salvation is not the end but instead is the beginning of a whole new journey in life that will continue until we meet our Lord in heaven.