Little Children

https://odb.org/MY/2022/09/18/learning-and-loving

The value of children is indisputable and it is at all levels. They represent and are the future. No doubt it is end times now and the second coming of Christ is imminent. Yet we don’t know whether we will really see the end in our generation or the generations that come. That is why it is important to invest in children. We need to invest in children whether at the church level or at the family. We need to mould and start cultivating the next generation of leaders to guide and bring the congregation to greater heights like Moses passing on the baton to Joshua and Caleb or Elijah to Elisha or David to Solomon or Abraham to Isaac to Jacob.

At the family, we pass on our legacy to our children that they may carry on God’s work in our lives and continue that work in their lives, their children’s lives and their children’s children. As a country, an ageing population is a worry as there will be less people in the future if people do not reproduce to a minimum of two to replace themselves. It is worrying policy makers if people don’t marry and have children. That is why same sex marriages and relationships are wrong as same genders cannot naturally reproduce and the primary purpose of sexual relations is reproduction. The preservation of species is thus inbuilt in the DNA of every living being with mothers naturally and by instinct bringing up their young – and we know that larger mammals including humans have their offsprings sticking with them until past adolescent ages.

Yet when Jesus welcomed children in His midst when He was teaching, He went deeper than the symbolism of the next generation being the future. The disciples thought the children will be a bother as they will not understand Jesus’s teachings and yet Jesus was happy to have them with Him. Jesus went a step further and praised the innocence of children. He emphasised that the Kingdom of God belongs to children. Anyone who will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will not enter it. The simplicity of faith and innocence of a child are prerequisites for entry into the Kingdom of God.

It is true because we need to be born again to enter the Kingdom of God and yet how can a man having been born be born again? Can he re-enter his mother’s womb? These were questions asked and answered even in the day of Jesus. Believing in things unseen in fact placing our hope and life upon the eternal requires simple faith that is only possible if we approach such things like a child. If we ask for proof like an adult, then we will forever be on the fringes of the glory of God. Our life will then be clouded and hindered by unbelief and a hardened heart. That is why Jesus already said that if we are not like a child, we cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.

The message to us today is that in the matter of our faith, we need to have faith and we can only have faith if we are like a child no matter how advance in age are we. Christ will always challenge us to step out. He promises to catch us if we were to fall or stumble. Will we trust Him enough to step out in faith? Will we be like little children or will we always be counting, calculating and weighing the risks and odds adult? Will we suspend unbelief and trust God? David was confident that God will rescue him because he knew God was delighted with him. Can we say the same thing? That the Lord is delighted with us like He is with little children?