How do I encourage my family to choose God?

Deuteronomy 6:4-9“Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

Joshua 24:15-17“But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. . . . But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”

Proverbs 22:6Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.

Other family members, including your children, are motivated to choose God when they see you already choosing God—for a lifetime commitment and in everyday life choices. Having set a role model, you then encourage verbally through loving conversation and precept. If you make God and his teachings a priority in your family, you will see God becoming a priority in the generations to follow.

1 Peter 3:1-5In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. Then, even if some refuse to obey the Good News, your godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over by observing your pure and reverent lives.

The most effective way to help a family member choose God is to be obedient to God yourself, which means being a truly loving, kind, caring, serving kind of person. Nothing turns others off so fast as loving precepts overshadowed by unloving practices.