“Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” Luke 18:15-17
The kingdom of God is not something that we can muscle our way into. It can only be accessed by complete surrender and trust, two things that the world despises. Transitioning from childhood to adulthood usually means a gradual extraction of surrender and trust. Maturing in the world is a process of indoctrination by constant voices teaching self-reliance. But the kingdom of God is not the kingdom of the world. They are ruled by two different kings.
The weeds and the wheat will mature together until the day of harvest. We are given the choice of what kingdom to mature in. Will you water the seeds of the tares, and grow up to choke the golden grain beside you? Or will you lean back into the nonsensical, invisible, backwards and upside down kingdom of God, bearing a harvest to feed the multitudes?
I’m watching the sparrows as I write. They bounce and flit around the brick patio of this coffee shop. They seem to be drawing closer to me, as if they know I’m writing about them.
Because to be a child is to trust your Papa for everything. And I mean everything. The sparrows can’t feed themselves, and just like them, we’re not supposed to think twice about whether our Papa will feed us. He provides for our every need, and even for our desires, because he’s a good Father who loves to give good gifts.
Kids trust with abandon. If given the safe love they are designed to receive, they don’t waste a thought on how to protect or provide for themselves. The disciples were bringing infants to Jesus and he called them the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. They had nothing to offer except for love, which was actually unadulterated obedience to the Great Commandment.
Kids run to their parents for everything, even when there’s not a dire need. Last week I was sitting with a mom, and her two-year-old ran up to her and interrupted our conversation with “I love you, Mommy.” Then she flew back off to her play.
Kids - and I mean real, messy children, not just the “concept” of childlikeness - but real children minister to me. My friends’ children minister to me. I observe and study them. I make a practice of learning to be like them. They haven’t been taught to be embarrassed or afraid yet. One of the most profound prophecies I ever received was from a five-year-old. Children only know how to relate to God as a safe, trustworthy person like their mama and papa. Lies introduce themselves later down the line, and you and I are in the process of unlearning those lies.
Kids have the faith we want to return to. They have innocence, which is a lack of the world’s influence. Yes, the world lies to us when we get older, but we are called to believe the truth even if the opposite is right before our eyes. Oh, our eyes deceive us. Trusting our eyes is trusting ourselves. No, we live by faith, and not by sight. Faith and sight are at war with each other.
So let’s learn from the kids, who don’t know better than to trust. As an adult, I can choose to be like a child. I can choose to be born again. I can choose, when I’m looking at a near-empty bank account, to purchase a meal for a stranger because I know my Papa provides. Faith shows me a full bank account every time. I can choose, when I see a friend in a hospital bed, to speak healing because I know my Papa heals. Faith shows me a healed body every time. And if I have even the faith of a mustard seed, I can literally, literally move mountains with a word.
Faith is relationship, calling myself a child and calling him my perfect Papa. I surrender the mirage that my eyes see, I choose to trust him instead of my own understanding, and suddenly the world explodes with the color and life that he sees.
The disciple John got this revelation. He called himself the beloved one; he set aside worldly notions of propriety and rested his head on Jesus’ chest like a child. This was a non-negotiable for John, not simply an optional expression of Christianity. He writes the book of 1 John to adult believers, but he’s audacious enough to call them “little children.” John said that when we become children again, we can love the way he loves, and this is no small matter. He actually goes so far as to say that God’s love is not perfected until it is seen in us. The same way Paul claimed that Jesus’ sufferings were incomplete until we carried them in our own bodies, John says here that God’s love is incomplete until we carry it in our hearts.
“No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” 1 John 4:12
We have an irreplaceable role in the completion of God’s love. And we cannot do it unless we become like children. John continues with the well-known, hard-to-swallow verse:
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:18-19
There is no fear in love because our Papa doesn’t punish us. Maybe you had a dad who did. Becoming the greatest in the kingdom of heaven requires you to put that earthly dad aside. “Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.” (Matthew 23:9) Choose not to trust what your eyes have seen. It’s a mirage. Your true Papa isn’t like that.
And when we are perfected in love through faith, we overcome. “For everyone who is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world - our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
“Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.
“I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in him.
“And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.” 1 John 5, 2