Sunday 22 Sep 2013

Sunday Reading: Matthew 21:14-16

Key Verse: Matthew 21:16
16  And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?

Devotion:
One of the best things I see in life is a child turning to embrace Christ and the joy that they get out of what Christ brings into their lives. I know there are many who ascribe to not allowing young children to make decisions like asking Christ into their lives, but this should be the passage that they are ushered toward to show that this is what has been ordained for a long time already. Christ was quoting the scriptures once again to point out to the Scribes and Pharisees that they were ignoring the parts of the bible they wanted to once again!

We cannot ignore the parts we think should not be there just because we think so! This is God’s Word and it is all His Word. God has given us His Word from the beginning and told us that we should read it and accept it as the truth because it is the truth. Once we accept it as the truth and apply it in our lives we begin to see how special God is and how much He wants every one of us to know Him. My heart is set on getting young people to know Christ because I can see a very big gap left in society where Christ has been left out. The young people have been given all manner of things to keep them out of church just as we were, but there is a generation of people who are giving in to those things rather than fighting to keep our children in Church!

We owe it to our children to give them God’s Word at the earliest opportunity and to give it to them as the truth and not as something they can choose to believe or not. If we do that then we encourage them to think of it as a story instead of the truth. I know I was guilty of that as a young parent and I am not going there again.

Jesus reminds us here that children and young people have every right to know Him just as adults do. They have every right to stand up and praise Him like adults do. They have every right to pray to Him and ask things of Him just as we do. Bring them in and allow them to experience what we had when we first got to know Christ! Don’t fight children. Don’t put them down. Lift them up!

Points to Ponder:
Do you blame children?

Or do you lift them up to Christ?