Receiving Children

Luke 9:46-48
46 An argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest. 47 But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child and put him by his side 48 and said to them, “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For he who is least among you all is the one who is great.”

If you have children or work with children, you may have an understanding of what it takes to “receive” a child. I’m a stay-at-home dad, so I know all about the Fall Back-to-school “Happy Dance.” Children can drive you crazy. Yeah, they may be cute, but they how to push every button to make you go crazy.

So, why did I bring that up? It’s so you understand that God wants you to realize that all that you do may not be as important as you think. Have you humbled yourself enough to have patience with a child who doesn’t stop talking from 6am to 10pm? How about two of them? Have you listened to a child, I mean really listened to them as they tell you a story? Okay, you may be doing pretty well with your own children; what about other children?

Why are children able to frustrate us so? Are we just taking ourselves too seriously? What’s God trying to tell us? Stop, listen, and love. How many times has God put that in His word? We find it in Exodus 14 (see Friday, Feb 8), we see it in Psalm 46, and we even see it in Luke 9 during the transfiguration.

How you treat children probably reveals the softness of your heart. It’s the soft heart that is able to truly receive Christ. It’s the hard heart that pushes a person's own selfish agenda.