Mark 10:13-16
The Little Children and Jesus
13People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
I hear this passage every time we have baby dedication at church. The emphasis of this passage is twofold; the importance of children to Jesus, and the importance of childlike faith in our lives. Parents were bringing their children to Jesus to receive his blessing. The disciples thought they were doing Jesus a favor by trying to keep the kids from bothering Jesus. These parents could have been just people in the area where he was staying, but I can’t help but believe that they were believers in Jesus. Why else would they bring their children to him to be blessed? And Jesus wanted to receive these children and bless them. This same principle has held true through the centuries to today. We must bring our children to Jesus, not just by bringing them to church with us, but also by praying for them, and by providing a strong Christian environment for them to grow up in. I was blessed to grow up in such a home, and I believe that’s the only reason I’m a Christian today.
The importance of bringing children to Jesus extends to churches as well. No church that doesn’t place a major emphasis on children’s ministry will grow. Show me a church that has a vital children’s ministry, and I’ll show you a church that’s growing and reaching people for Christ. Show me a church for whom children are an afterthought, and I’ll show you an aging, dying church. I have a somewhat unusual perspective on this in that my wife and I have no children, and do not do well in large groups of children. So you will not find us working in the nursery or in Children’s Church. But a large part of my work and ministry is related to children, because of my work for One Way Street. Most of the CD’s you’ll find on my website are aimed at kids. Even though I don’t have kids, I would not attend a church that did not have a strong children’s ministry. If we don’t reach our kids for Christ, the church will die. Simple as that.
15I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.
Note how Jesus emphasizes receiving the kingdom of God like a child. Children don’t always do what their parents tell them to do, but children believe and receive. They pretty much believe what their parents tell them, even if their parents say a fat man in a red suit leaves gifts in the homes of every child in the world in one night! They simply trust that what their parents say is true. That’s the kind of faith we need to have in God. And children constantly receive from their parents. If you’re a parent, you know how true that is! They are totally dependent on their parents. They can’t work for themselves and earn their own money. They can’t protect themselves. They rely on their parents for provision, protection, security, and love. We must depend on God in the same way, and recognize that we can’t earn our own way to him, we must simply receive from him, and accept that he wants us to come to him. He wants to bless us and to provide for us the way we provide for our children.
Because I don’t have kids myself, I know that I will never understand unconditional love the way a parent does. The best representation of God’s love for us is a parent’s love for their child. If you ever doubt that God loves you, if you have kids, think about how you feel about them, how you would do anything for them, would lay down your life for them. That’s exactly how God feels about us, and it’s exactly what he did for us.