For whatever reason...

I love obeying God.  He gives me so many incentives to obey Him.  I tried to always offer my children as many incentives to obey me as God offers me to obey Him!

I want to obey God first and foremost because I love Him and trust that He wants the best for me.  Also, I want to please God.  To top it off, He rewards me according to my righteousness in His eyesight (Psalm 18).   He also promises that what I sow I will reap.  He even tells me when I give, it comes back "in good measure, pressed down and shaken together!"  He said anything I put my hand to do will prosper, and in Deuteronomy 28 and 29 there are many many blessings for obedience and many curses for disobedience.

At an early age, I taught my children Deuteronomy 28 and 29 and told them that there would be many many blessings for obedience, and that since God said that the way of a transgressor was hard, I would not ever try to make their lives easier if they were going against God's Word.  Although love is to be unconditional, God's blessings are usually "if" "then" statements and are very conditional!

A lot of times I would go overboard in how happy I was when they obeyed, but even if they didn't seem to care whether they pleased me or not, I told them they could obey me because they loved themselves and that the good would return back to them by promise in the Word! Through this process I tried to teach them that the reason I was pleased with their obedience was because most of the time their obedience resulted in blessings for their lives!

Challenge:  Teach your children the blessings of obedience, and the curses of disobedience from Deuteronomy 28 and 29.    Try to model God's incredible parenting by not rewarding transgressions and rewarding obedience.    Read your Bible and take note of how God deals with His children and emulate that in your homes!