Monday, January 23, 2012

"The kingdom of heaven is like a child."


Yesterday I was reminded of one of my favorite stories in the Bible. We have a new family attending our church. This family is made up of a mother and two small girls. While I was standing at the altar last night (our church has altar prayer before each service) one of these little girls walked up next to me. When everyone got down to pray she got down on her knees and prayed along with everyone else. It was so sweet to see this young child praying.

As I was standing there the Lord reminded me of the story in Luke 18. In this passage Jesus is preaching and teaching the scriptures to a group of people. In the midst of his sermon they bring a group of children to Jesus. When the disciples see this they get angry because in their opinion Jesus did not have time to spend with these children.


Seeing this, Jesus immediately corrects the disciples and tells them that He always has time for little children. In fact Jesus teaches them a lesson saying, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.”

“Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.” What does that mean? Why is it so important that we come to God as a little child? Why does Jesus say that heaven is like a little child?

I hope that those of you reading this have had the privilege of spending some time with a child. I think Jesus wants us to learn something from them. Give me a second to tell you the things that God showed me last night. Maybe you will be able to see more than these few things.

Children are innocent. I understand that we are all sinners from birth, and kids do some things wrong, but for the most part children are innocent. Have you ever noticed that children tell the truth, even when you wish they wouldn’t? It’s funny some of the things that children tell. They don’t know to lie or tell a part-truth.

Children are trusting. Children will usually believe what they are told. They trust their mom and dad, and whatever their parents tell them they believe. When we grow up we become cynical, hard and untrusting. I wonder what God would be able to do in our lives if we would just believe what He says without question.

They also trust in their parents to take care of them. You don’t see a child worrying how the bills are going to be paid, or where their next meal will come from. Children just trust that their needs will be taken care of. This is the way that we should be with God. He has promised that He will take care of us, and we should believe that.

Children are not prejudice. Have you ever noticed the way kids play with each other? They don’t care if the other kids are fat or skinny. They don’t care if the other children have the same skin color. They don’t even care if the other children are ugly. Children are not prejudice against one another. I wish this could be said for us adults. We determine who someone is by the clothes they wear, the color of their skin and by how attractive they are. God made each of us, and God makes no mistakes. Don’t judge someone because you don’t like the way God made them.

Children like to have fun. Do you realize that God wants you to be happy? The scriptures teach us that a merry heart is like a medicine, it’s good for you. It seems like the older we get the less fun we have. God doesn’t want us going around with our lip on the ground. God created for us a beautiful world and He wants us to enjoy it.

I think we could learn a lot from a child. In fact there is so much to be learned from a child that Jesus used them as a description of what heaven will be like.

Leave me a comment and let me know what lessons you have learned from a child.

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