And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 18:2-4

Unless you are converted and become like children… as I am preparing to speak at a ladies retreat and working on my power point and searching confirming Scriptures the Lord led me into a word search on the word “unless” while there I read the above Scripture… and I thought what exactly does it mean to “become like children“?

To become like children we must first be born…

Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3

As I continued to ponder what it means to “become like children” I read this article about babies being carried. In this article it shared the importance of a child being carried close to its parents and not always being put away in a “container” to be laid down horizontally. The article shared the importance of the baby being held vertically in close contact with its parents.

Lying horizontally is not only a poor option for your baby’s spine, hips, and cranium, it can also be a major contributing factor inner ear infections in infants.

When infants are held upright, however, they are allowed to practice compensatory movements, enhancing muscular strength and allowing for more control over their fine motor skills. When the mother walks, stops, or turns an infant’s body naturally works against the pull of gravity to maintain his position.

This baby is moving with his mother like a perfect dance partner.

The more time that babies spend vertical, the more time that they are alert and calm. Even newborns that spend most of their time sleeping, stop crying and perk up when picked up and placed on our shoulder. Interestingly, how alert a newborn is relates to where he is. Upright in an infant seat, he is less alert than when upright in arms… Vertical positioning as optimal in infants makes perfect sense. Think of how much time our infants spend horizontal- flat on their back in a crib or a buggy. Might this affect their alertness? There’s a good chance… Researchers found that infants too young to sit independently learn more when placed in a vertical position.”

As I thought on this horizontal verse vertical and Jesus’s word to us  “unless you are converted and become like children” I thought of the cross… the cross is a symbol that is both vertical and horizontal… the vertical representing our relationship with God and the horizontal representing our relation with mankind, however the greatest height of it is in its vertical.

If we like the babies talked about the article above live our lives in the horizontal, focused only on what we can see from their, we too will find ourselves suffering from a weak spine, weak hips, weak cranium, and messed up inner ears… but when we, born into the family of God, are picked up and held vertically up close and tight in Him, and as we turn our face towards His face…

When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You,
“Your face, O Lord, I shall seek.”

Psalm 27:8

We lean into our Father God and look Him in the face of His Word, and we begin to walk when He walks, stop when He stops, move when He moves. We grow as we are in the process of learning what it means to live in this world as a born again child of God, as we become conformed into the image of Christ Himself…

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18

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For those whom He foreknew, He alsopredestined to become conformed to the image of His Son

Romans 8:29

How glad I am that God does keep me put away in a “container” out of his way as He takes care of His own business… for he wants me all up in His business.

As I pondered this further… what it means when Jesus says “unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” I wonder how many in our current culture have no clue what He means… because they have no desire to be any where around children.

How can you know what He means as an adult if you keep yourself away from children? If Jesus said “unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” wouldn’t you think that as an adult one of the most important things you could do would be to spend some time with children so that you might have a clue what He is talking about?

Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven… 

How many adults are not willing to humble themselves as a child even far enough to care for a child or invest in the life of a child even for one hour, a week,  or even a couple of times a year.

Even before I was a children’s ministry director I was puzzled by this. Why in every church in America is the hardest postions to fill that in the children’s wing. Why do people decide that serving children is really not an important commitment and they only have to show up if they feel like it.Why is it that in our culture, even in those churches with thousands of members, many can’t get enough volunteers for more than a one day VBS? Why is it that a person can say that if they don’t have kids in the ministry they shouldn’t have to serve in it…

The last time I checked every single one of us was once a child.

At some point and time every single one of us had to have someone else feed us, clothe us, change our diapers, teach us, hold us, clean up after us… and guess what as grown adults who does all this for us still?

Yes, that’s right… GOD.

God provided us with our food, our clothing, and yes he cleans up our crap and goes behind our mess and picks up after us… if He didn’t forgive us and cleanse us, we would all be in a world of hurt.

He teaches us and guides us and He holds us when we are scared.

He kisses our boo-boos and tells us that everything will be all right.

He monitors our fights with others and teaches us to say “sorry”

He answers our thousands of questions, our millions of “are we there yet”, “how much longer”, “can I have’s”

How would we feel if God felt about and acted toward us the way many feel and act toward children today…

Its easy to forget isn’t it?

It’s easy to forget how dependent we are upon Him… as you remember this… the next time you walk down the children’s hall of your church try and remember how dependent these children are upon you… even the one’s that are not “yours”.

Maybe it just might be that we get caught up spending too much time in our containers, in that horizontal position, focused only on our own little world, and maybe, just maybe, we need to sit up and get vertical and get face to face with our Father… and maybe just maybe the best way to do that is by getting face to face with a child.

And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 18:2-4

I read an article today. It was written by a grieving mother. A grieving mother who professes to be a Christian. This grieving mother shared the story of her son… her son who struggled with homosexuality.

A son who has now passed from this life into eternity.

I struggle with her response to his death. She shares her story and says “so we pray that God can somehow use our story to help other parents learn to truly love their children. Just because they breathe.”

Although I understand her grief… and her guilt… I struggle with her response and her cry to the Christian community because I believe her perspective is wrong. All wrong.

I read her heart wrenching words here that read “Basically, we told our son that he had to choose between Jesus and his sexuality. We forced him to make a choice between God and being a sexual person. Choosing God, practically, meant living a lifetime condemned to being alone.”

And what I want to say to her is… If your son indeed had Christ, and it appeared that he did, then He was never alone. Choosing God never leaves a person condemned to be alone. It leaves a person forever not alone, never forsaken, never forgotten, never left, never abandoned. 

Struggling with homosexuality is indeed a struggle and it is made worse today by the immorality of our nation and culture. We have empowered the spiritual forces of darkness by our choosing the pleasures of sin and choosing to believe the lies of hell as opposed to the truth of the Word.

I would cry out to this woman to not demean or dismiss the fight that her son fought to try and choose to honor God and His Word over the desires of his flesh. He struggled, but he was fighting the good fight of faith. He faltered, but he appeared that he was still crawling toward grace. Don’t destroy that in his death. I don’t know what demons he fought, but from what she shared about him, he did indeed appear to fight.

She then writes, Now, when I think back on the fear that governed all my reactions during those first six years after Ryan told us he was gay, I cringe as I realize how foolish I was. I was afraid of all the wrong things. And I grieve, not only for my oldest son, whom I will miss every day for the rest of my life, but for the mistakes I made. I grieve for what could have been, had we been walking by faith instead of by fear. Now, whenever Rob and I join our gay friends for an evening, I think about how much I would love to be visiting with Ryan and his partner over dinner. But instead, we visit Ryan’s gravestone.

I would make my plea here again… to live is Christ, to die is gain. Why would we choose to have our child with us for a few earthly years and yet be separated from them for all eternity? Is it not selfish of us to desire their earthly bodies present even though it would mean their soul would burn in hell?

Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (NLT)

Did you notice that the Scripture says, those who practice homosexuality. It doesn’t say those who struggle with homosexual desires, it says those who practice it.

Yes, I agree that she needed not fear and instead walk by faith. She herself needed to trust that God held her son and loved him even more than she did. After all He gave His Son’s life for him.

Would we not better now rejoice that he has shed this wretched flesh and no longer has to suffer under the struggles of the sin it craved? Could it possibly be that he fought the good fight… and his Father said he had finished the race. Could it possibly be that in the mercy and grace of his God, he chose to bring him home, to give him rest for his weary soul.

Could it be that he is free. Completely free of his chains.

I would cry out to this mother and say… Please trust God. Trust His Word.

Perspective matters… oh how it matters.

Even in grief, let us trust the Word and stand on the Word. I too believe that God can remove desires if He so wills, but He does not always will. If He does not it is indeed for greater glory. His greater glory.

Yes, let us love our children, let us love them just because they breathe. Let us love them even before they take a breath and after they have breathed their last. Let us love them through their struggles and uphold them, but let us not forget that we are to put their relationship with Christ before their relationship with us.

I have said this before and I will say it again. I do not know what the future holds for my children, but I would rather spend an eternity with them in heaven than a breath with them here on earth.

To live is Christ, to die is gain. I believe this with all that is within me.

Sin is what leads to death… always.

Christ is life and death for those in Him is life. Sin might attempt to take its wage, but its grave will not be able to hold us for our debt has already been paid. Therefore, we are redeemed. We will be receiving our life refund in full!

Every believer will struggle with sin. Every single one of us. Yet we fight the good fight. We may be crawling on our face through the muck and mire… but we keep crawling to Christ. Then when we can finally cast off this shell of flesh we will never crawl again.