Luke 18:15-17: Who we should be like, and who we shouldn’t emulate.(please click here for todays passage)

Let’s be like the people who brought the babies to Jesus. Pray for your children and grand-children, and your great-grandchildren (and any advances on that if you have any!!). Whatever else you do for them, bring them to God in prayer. It is the greatest gift you can give them. It’s the most priceless thing you can do for anyone. I knew a mother, and I was told that her grown up sons were really lovely boys. Somebody commented on this to her, and she replied that a lot of prayer had gone into those lads. If they were beautiful and special, as people thought, she gave the glory to God. She knew that He had felt her heart and heard a mother’s earnest cry. Let’s all pray fervently for the children who come to our churches, and for the many who don’t.

Let’s be like Jesus who loved to have the children around Him. He didn’t look down on them or consider them inferior to the grown ups. He wanted to speak to them, and listen to them, and have them in His Kingdom. He knew how very open they were to receive this gift.

Let’s be like the children – simple, uncomplicated and receptive to receive Jesus’ gifts. Children are very keen to have a gift. At times it may make them vulnerable to predators of course. So children in my generation were repeatedly told by grown ups, ‘Don’t take sweets from a stranger.’ Within that warning and command there lies embedded an implicit understanding of the psychological make-up of children. They are quick to receive a good thing offered. In that sense we should be like them in relation to the  things of God. ‘Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.’ The Message.

‘How does a little child receive something? He holds out his hands.He asks. A little child is helpless. He cannot earn anything. He cannot pay money for what he wants. He cannot say, ”I have worked hard; I deserve to receive a reward.” The child just trusts that what he needs will be given to him. Whatever he asks for he asks in faith; he doesn’t doubt. This is how we must enter the kingdom of God.’ Tom Hale: ‘The applied New Testament commentary’, p.252.

Let’s not be like the disciples who chased the children away: ‘When the disciples saw it, they shooed them off.’ The Message. You learn a lot about people from their attitudes towards children. ‘Let us take care never to despise or mistreat children. Rather, let us remember how much Jesus loves them.’ Tom Hale: ‘The applied New Testament Commentary’, p.252.