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Lessons In Memorabilia Part 3a |
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Once again I find myself looking around my office at the goodies I have collected to use as décor. As I said last time, one of the items in my office is a picture of Jesus and a little girl. Two things make this picture special to me. First the scripture inscribed on it:
“Whoever humbles himself like this child is the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven” —Matthew 18:4
Several years ago while I was preparing to minister at a church in the Tulsa area on the subject of "Developing the Vision for Children's Ministry", God gave me a revelation of "The Kingdom of God". This revelation was one that would forever change my life. I had preached this message a number of times in the past, yet never had seen what the Holy Spirit brought to light that evening. This revelation led me into a study of the Kingdom of God that lasted nearly two years. The method I have used to conduct this study of "the kingdom" is as follows: I read only the words of Jesus in the Gospels, particularly those when He mentions the "Kingdom of God", or "Kingdom of Heaven". Everywhere I see "The Kingdom of God” or “The Kingdom of Heaven" I look at that verse in the light of the model God showed me that evening.
Essentially, Jesus said in order to enter "The Kingdom of Heaven" you must become like little children. When I read that statement it was as if my heart was suddenly saturated with light. I felt as though I had begun to understand Father God's original plan for the human race in a way that I had never understood before.
Loosely paraphrased, our heavenly Father desired someone with a free will with whom He could have fellowship. He made man in His image and in His likeness, with the intent that He would be our Father and we would be His children. He gave man the command to replenish the earth so that man could enjoy the parent/child relationship as He did with us. More simply stated, the parent/child relationship was designed by our Heavenly Father to be an exact mirror image of the relationship He intended us to have with Him when He created us.
I think one reason this revelation affected me so deeply is due to the fact that I am blessed to have a wonderful relationship with my earthly parents. I recall that one of my parents was at every baseball and basketball game I ever played from eight years old all the way through High School. In High School my whole team knew that if nobody else came to the game(s) my parent(s) would be in attendance. My parents always included my brother and I in most major family decisions. They treated me with trust (whether I deserved it or not), something many children today have never known. I knew if I was disciplined it was out of love, not out of anger. (Even if in fact they were angry.)
Having served as a "Children's Minister" for 7 of the last 9 years, I have hurt for the children who don't have that same blessing I experienced as a child. I suppose I will never forget the last night of a "city wide" children's crusade our church had been conducting in 1998. I was attempting to describe God as a good loving father (Matthew 7:11). I remember asking the children if they understood what it meant to have a good father. To my utter dismay one of the girls from my children's church who was in attendance that night howled out, “NO!” I was speechless. As I stood there on that platform in the middle of a public park in West Tulsa I literally wanted to cry for this girl. There was a strong urge to stop everything and step off the platform and go hug that girl.
Another similar story I will always remember was when my good friend was ministering to the youth at our church. He asked how many of the 125 kids in attendance came from broken families. I stood there amazed as roughly half of them raised their hands. I stood in the back of the room about to cry because I realized many of these kids likely had a tainted view of what a father should be. Therefore, they may also have a difficult time understanding God as Father. What a sad thing. Then to top that whole story off, my friend proceeded to tell those kids that both of his parents had been married and divorced three times each. This friend was a very good baseball player. He proceeded to tell them that during his entire baseball career (which included playing in "The College World Series") his mother never saw one of his games. That just broke my heart. It was so totally the opposite of my life, that I could hardly comprehend it.
I am so glad that Jesus said, "I and the Father are one…" He also said, "I will never leave you or forsake you". God even went to the extreme of saying He would be the "Father to the fatherless". Don't you know that is why the enemy has so attacked marriages in our society? Because in doing that, the understanding of God as Father is limited.
God is the Ultimate "Good Father".
He is as hungry to know you intimately as He was at the beginning of time. So much so that He allowed His own Son to come to this earth and pay the price to free us from the hand of the enemy. He had planned for us to be able to spend our life in face-to-face fellowship with Him. He intended to teach us everything we would ever need to know. Jesus took everything the enemy had to offer so that we wouldn't have to. That is a statement that we just can't totally grasp the magnitude of.
This devo is an excerpt from Bob’s un-published book “He’s So In Love With You”. Since this devo has gotten a little long this message will be continued in our next two e-devos. |
