A little girl in a green coat reaching for a bubble

 

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Childlike faith

15 July 2019
‘Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’

Matthew writes: ‘At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”’ (vv.1-3 NIV). To do great things for God, we must approach Him with a childlike attitude. We can learn a lot from watching little children. Wherever they are, they find a way to enjoy whatever they’re doing. They’re quick to forgive. One moment they’re fighting over something, the next moment they’re playing happily together. And trusting comes easily to them. Children don’t worry about bills, meals, or making ends meet because they implicitly trust that those who care for them will provide them with what they need. So by saying that we need to become more like children, Jesus was teaching us a number of things: 1) To have simple faith. 2) To pray simple prayers. 3) To be quick to repent and forgive. 4) To ask for God’s help and trust that He’ll answer. 5) To believe that our heavenly Father is good and that ‘the Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right’ (Psalm 84:11 NLT). When children are forgiven, they don’t often run around feeling guilty and condemned. They live like they’re free. And that’s how we should live too. He’s forgiven us, so we don’t need to walk in guilt and shame any longer. With this kind of simplicity in our relationship with God, we’ll find ourselves growing spiritually and enjoying Him more than ever.

 

What Now?

Draw a graph where the horizontal axis is the time of the day, and the vertical axis is level of childlike faith. Throughout the day, mark where you think you are and then evaluate your results at the end of the day.

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