Relentless: showing or promising no abatement of severity, intensity, strength, or pace; oppressively constant; incessant; inflexible (Merriam-Webster).

The New Testament testifies over and over again of the disciples being relentless in spreading the Gospel and love of Christ, to the extent of losing of their own lives. Children were always present when Jesus taught…they weren’t dismissed to children’s church and given snacks, games, over-simplified object lessons, cell phones, or iPads that entertained them during His message. The children were very present in the worship, as the Pharisees were quick to criticize (Matthew 21:16; Psalm 8:2). The key to peace, abundant life, and blessing is clearly connected to our children being taught to love the Lord with their whole heart, soul, mind and strength, which in turn results in loving others with His love.

Relentless is what satan has been with regard to the destruction of this present generation, impacting families, individuals, and freedoms designed to protect through misguided legislation politics, education, media, arts/entertainment, as well as the church. Satan has been relentless in the murder of 60 million aborted babies, in the name of “protecting woman’s rights” over the rights of the unborn. The enemy has been relentless in redefining the family through gay marriage legislation. Satan has been relentless in the abuse of children and youth through pornography, sex trafficking, and abuse. The kingdom of darkness is now being relentless in redefining gender itself, and perverting the innocence of children’s minds through licentious and perverse sex education and media on multiple levels. “The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.”Deitrich Bonhoeffer

Why are professing and practicing Christians not being as relentless in training up the next generation to walk wholeheartedly toward the ways of the Lord as the enemy is in deceiving and luring us to train them to walk away from Him and His ways? Relentless means equipping our children to worship Him, love Him, know Him, obey Him, and walk in His ways from the womb to the tomb. Why are we not teaching our children to think about, talk about, talk to, listen to, focus on, spend time with, and desire to please, obey, and honor Him 24/7 instead of hours and hours spent focusing on school, sports, friends, fun, entertainment, media, etc.? His ways would include everything from modest dress (preferring others and dignity as opposed to ‘sexy’ and stylish (in direct opposition to mimicking the hypocrisy of Hollywood, music and entertainment, where embracing violence and sex are the standard of entertainment generating billions, yet portraying themselves to be the voice of justice). His ways would include courtship (rather than advocating dating and sex way too young with way too many partners), purity vows, purity with regard to what’s allowed through the ears, the eyes, and the heart, etc.. His ways involve loving those in sin without condoning their sinful lifestyles. If we truly love someone why would we condone choices that lead someone to a life of destruction?

Why can we not see as Christian parents spending relentless hours on a sports field or in a gymnasium or on a musical instrument that requires endless commitment, dedication, and diligence in order to become more than average, fails in comparison to applying the same intensity and commitment to walking in the ways of our Lord and King, impacting us eternally now? Why are we content to compromise in so many areas? Far too often we are content to sit on the fence with one foot in the world and one foot in the church, not remotely noticing that Satan owns that fence and continues to move it further and further away from Father’s ways, i.e. His plumbline, with every passing day? We live in an anti-Christ society and age. We must come to understand that being relentless in this commission with regard to our children is the only hope for this generation and for our nation. We cannot be satisfied with worldly and culturally defined “entertainment” any longer. The deceptions, so frequently addressed in NT Scriptures, are blatant and aggressive in our day and age. “Wake up, oh sleepers!” Children do not receive Junior Holy Spirits. They can walk right from childlike innocence to being Kingdom Holy Spirited filled. We must become relentless in our own relationships with the Lord in order to model to and instruct our children; relentless in pursuit of His Kingdom, His righteousness, His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, His wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and the awe of the Lord, not by power or might, but by His Spirit. Will the coming generations be prepared for what’s on the horizon if we relegate this number one calling on our lives (stewarding our children) to others: day cares, schools, peers, sports, arts, entertainment, etc.? The absolute number one key in these times in which we have been given lies in being relentless with equipping this next generation to love the Lord wholeheartedly and to walk in His ways 24/7. It’s not a choice…it’s a command with eternal significance NOW.

Deuteronomy 11:1-3, 5, 7, 13, 16, 18-21, 26-28, “Love the Lord your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always. Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the Lord your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm; the signs he performed and the things he did… It was not your children who saw what he did for you in the wilderness until you arrived at this place…But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the Lord has done…So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul…Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them…Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth…See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse— the blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.”

Matthew 5:17-19 (AMP), “Do not think that I came to do away with or undo the Law [of Moses] or the [writings of the] Prophets; I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For I assure you and most solemnly say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke [of the pen] will pass from the Law until all things [which it foreshadows] are accomplished. So whoever breaks one of the least [important] of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least [important] in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever practices and teaches them, he will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 22:36-40 (AMP), “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” And Jesus replied to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself [that is, unselfishly seek the best or higher good for others].’ The whole Law and the [writings of the] Prophets depend on these two commandments.”