Weekly Devotions

April 12, 2012

Matthew 18

New King James Version (NKJV)

18 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

² Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, ³ and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. ⁴ Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ⁵ Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.

Childish Mindset

   Do you remember when you were a child? Do you remember when any and everything was possible? If you want to fly, no one could tell you that you would not fly one day. We were super heroes, sport stars, princes and princesses, and anything that we could think of. There were no such things as dreams and goals when we were children because we could be and do anything, even if it only happened in our imagination.

   Also when we were young we knew that our parents and/or guardians had complete authority over us, even though we did not always obey them. Still we knew that if we stepped out of line or done something wrong sooner or later we would have to face our repercussions, which were handed out by our parents. This is because most of our parents had instilled in us that they were trying to guide us in life and help us for making careless mistakes. Though we may have not understood it when we were younger, we are now thankful for their diligence and discipline because without them we would be lost.

   My friends, this is want Jesus is saying to us in the passage above. It is a two part passage that you have to study to gather the truth meaning. On the outside it looks like Jesus is just answering a question asked to Him by His disciples, “Who is going to be the greatest among us in the kingdom?” While He does answer them, if you look deeper and study the words you will see that He, Jesus, is giving us the keys to entering the kingdom as well.

   First, No one with an adult spiritual mindset and/or faith will enter the kingdom of God. Before you stop reading let me try and make my point. As adult’s we rationalize everything, if we can’t see it we can truly believe in it. This is why Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29) Also as adults we have limited faith, as to say that we believe that God can change our situation from bad to good but we have difficulty believing that we can uproot a mountain and toss it into the sea with our faith.

   However, the main reason that one who has an adult spiritual mindset cannot enter the kingdom of God is because as adult we feel the need to be in charge of our own lives. This is a mindset that we developed as teenagers when we have grown tiresome of being under the authority of our parents. We all can remember saying, “I can’t wait till I grow up, ain’t nobody going to tell me what to do!”, or something like that. So when we become adult we take on that train of thought, we take over the wheel and we are not willing to share driving time with no one not even Jesus.

   This is why Jesus is telling us that in order to enter the kingdom we must be childlike in our spiritual mindset and faith. How do we do this? Well just as we relinquished authority over our lives to our parents or guardians, we must do the same thing to Jesus. Jesus has to be the one calling the shots in our lives and that means that we are to live according to His will and not our own. Only when Jesus is the Head of our lives will we find true joy and happiness. Making Jesus number one is also the only way to the kingdom. (John 6:44; 14:6)

   Lastly, we must revert back to our childhood faith because the bible tells us that All things are possible through Christ Jesus. (Matthew 19:26; Philippians 4:13) The scriptures say all things not some, several, a few, select things, or particular things but All things. I heard a preacher once say that there is nothing left after all because all is everything. So we must believe and have faith like a child to please God. It does matter what this worlds thinks is illogical if God wants it to be it will be! When we do this not only will take leaps and bounds in our spiritual lives but also in our everyday lives as well.

   Until next time, God Bless

                      James Anthony Love