Childlike Faith

“Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.”
Luke 18:17 NKJV

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Children generally believe whatever their parents tell them. Their parents are their heroes and they put their trust in them. Usually, the younger the child is, the more trusting they are. When my son was barely two years, he would bring his broken toys to me and expect that I would always be able to fix them.

God says that in order to enter the kingdom of God, we have to receive the message of the Kingdom as a little child. I teach Sunday School children. Last week I taught the children in my class a lesson on how Jesus ascended into heaven after his resurrection from the grave. To get the five and six-year-old children in my class to appreciate this, I backtracked on how Jesus was born, how he grew up as a little boy, how he started full-time ministry at age 30 till he was 33 years when he was crucified. I then recounted the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection from the grave. I finally ended by saying that Jesus, after showing himself to several people ascended into heaven. He was going to come back for His children, which are all who have believed in him. As I narrated this story my belief in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus was born anew and strengthened.

“The Gospel message is simple, maybe even simplistic. “That the Messiah died for our sins, exactly as Scripture tells it; that he was buried; that he was raised from the dead on the third day” 1 Corinthians 15: 3 -4 The Message

International evangelist Billy Graham (1918 – 2018), narrated in an interview a struggle he had with accepting the authority of the Bible in the early years of his ministry. He recounted that what settled the doubts in his mind was simple yet absolute trust in the Bible as the Word of God. Once while on a field staring into the sky he took a decision that no matter what people thought, for him, the Bible was the Word of God and he was going to accept it as such and place his trust in the Bible. From that day, his ministry grew from strength to strength.

I need no other argument
I need no other plea
It is enough that Jesus died
And that He died for me

– Eliza Edmunds Hewitt

Shalom