The hardest commandment for parents to follow

Whether it’s enforcing discipline or training our children up in the gospel, being a godly parent is incredibly difficult.

But there’s one commandment that most moms and dads would agree is harder than them all: keeping God above our children.

We love our kids so much that we desperately want to have strong relationships with them. And this is a good thing. But it quickly becomes sinful when our desire to be close with our children becomes more important than obeying God.

“The ideal, of course, is to maintain forever a loving and a close relationship with your kids and obey the Lord. … That’s every Christian parent’s hope,” says Allie Beth Stuckey.

But “if one has to give — either it’s obey the Lord or get my child to like me … then you’ve got to go with obeying the Lord. That’s the call for the Christian. That’s part of the dying to self.”

Allie admits that one of the most challenging verses in scripture is Jesus’ words in Luke 14:26, where he says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”

Jesus isn’t mincing words here: True discipleship requires prioritizing devotion to Him above even the closest family relationships — not literally hating our family but elevating our commitment to following Him above all.

“I do believe in trying to maintain those relationships [with our children] as much as possible, but if something has to give … it has to be obeying the Lord, who is kinder and better and wiser than we are,” Allie reiterates.

She criticizes Georgia Pastor Andy Stanley and other progressive-leaning church leaders for encouraging parents to be LGBTQ+-affirming when it comes to their children. She condemns his decision to invite a gay married couple to speak at his church on several occasions, misleading his congregation to disagree with God on what is sinful.

This is equivalent to telling parents to “reject God’s authority when it comes to sex, marriage, [and] gender,” Allie explains.

She points to the powerful testimony of Laura Perry, whom God redeemed from transgenderism, as an example of how godly parents should behave when their children stray. Laura’s parents “never compromised,” she says.

“And because of that, because they continued to tell her God’s word … while also being kind to her … she was brought back to a place of repentance.”

She brings up Rosaria Butterfield as another powerful example. “She’s the former queer theory professor, former lesbian, who tried every way she could 20-plus years ago to unite her homosexuality with her Christianity. But the Holy Spirit, because this is what he does, he wouldn’t let her do it,” she says.

Parents need to be reminded that Jesus, once he enters a person’s heart, “kills sin,” which He alone gets to define.

“He is a king taking dominion over your heart and your mind and your soul and, yes, your sexuality,” says Allie, “and this is just as true in all of us as it is true with people who wrestle with same-sex attraction or gender confusion” — even if those people are your own children.

To hear more of Allie’s commentary, watch the episode above.

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