I have to admit, lately it seems like my thinker is broken.
I am not talking about writer's block nor am I talking about a few moments of absent-mindedness. I am talking about being on my paper route in shorts and a tee-shirt, sweating buckets, and thinking to myself, "boy it sure is hot for January. I wish we would get some snow already." Just in case anyone is reading this out of context, it is currently August and I am in the northern hemisphere. It is pretty much the worst part of summer.
I had also been feeling very depressed and unmotivated lately. It seems to be a problem that runs in the men in my family. Usually it happens in the winter when there is less sunlight and less vitamin D, so it was quite unusual for me to be dealing with this in the middle of the summer. There are a number of reasons that I can think of, such as still working on starting work in my "new" position at my day job and being uncomfortable there. But there is a much more significant reason that took me a little time to grasp.
Within my church recently I can think of at least three elementary school-age or younger children who had the Holy Spirit move in them and who accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord. I cannot think of anything that would make Lucifer and the fallen angels angrier, and so we are about due for an attack. Our church should be coming under attack and I, being accountable for the well-being of one of the recently sealed, should be expecting it too.
It was an empowering realization. Once I knew what was really keeping me down I knew just what scripture I would dwell on to overcome it. Matthew 16:18, which reads in part, "...on this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (NKJV).
It was an interesting verse to use in such a defensive manner since the verse clearly implies that we are the ones on the offense. It is the gates of hell. Gates are not used for offense. They are used for holing up and protecting yourself. Han Solo would probably like this verse as it seems that the best defense really is a good offense.
Now let's hope my thinker gets back up to par in the very near future. I do not prefer the confusion that I have been feeling recently.
In other, very much related news while we were taking the offensive and reciting the ten commandments with my daughter recently we just happened to be in McDonalds. A McDonalds employee stopped and listened to her name them. She named all ten except when it came to number five she said, "There is no more number five I broke it." I explained to her that when she breaks number five by not listening to her mommy then Jesus puts it back together and that is called forgiveness. The McDonalds employee disappeared and came back a couple minutes later with ice cream for both of our children. How very nice.
Discernment
The last few days I have been lost in thought about ages of discernment. It is a very important topic to those of us who have children and want to raise them up in a Christian household. For me in particular it was on the forefront of my thoughts because my three year old (more than half way to four) asked a little over a week ago how she could get Jesus to live in her heart. Fortunately we had just had a Sunday School lesson about Jesus rebuking his disciples when they tried to stop the children from approaching him so I gave her the completely serious, not dumbed down answer. And then she did it.
It took me a little while to wrap my head around it. Could a three year old really have the discernment to know what she was doing? Did she know enough about the world and about Jesus to make that choice? Does she need exposure to other lifestyles to even realize she was making a choice? And if she could make that choice at that age what does that mean for everyone else who...? God revealed three very important truths to me. One should have been obvious to me, another maybe a little less so, and the third one is a very painful, inconvenient truth.
First of all, yes, a young child can receive Jesus. He said so right in the passages we studied in the Sunday School lesson. In fact, Jesus said that heaven belongs to those little children. Let's not forget that when Jesus walked the Earth as God-Man a teenage person was a married adult so the people the disciples were shooing away were not the "enlightened" high school students we might think of today. They may well have been quite close to my daughter's age. Also the Holy Spirit leads a man to the Son who leads him to the Father so why couldn't the Holy Spirit act in my child's life when He chooses to act. Was I trying to claim to be able to limit God?
Second, a three year old surely can know enough about Jesus to make the decision to follow Him, and the rest of the world doesn't matter. The Word doesn't say teach your child apologetics and let her decide for herself. Nor does it say exposure your child to all the junk the world has to offer and tell her which way you think she should take. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." That's it. Teach them about Jesus (the Way). Nothing more. The rest of that, the part about needing to know more about the world, that is my liberal arts education shining through. Besides, who, upon praying for their own salvation, knows everything there is to know about God or about the world? Who knows all of these things at death even? No one. Am I qualified to say that a certain quantity of knowledge is required then you can be saved but not before? No, definitely not. My child has been raised with Jesus and has accepted her seal. She is raised this way and when she was older she will still follow this path.
Finally, who goes to heaven? Heaven is for all people who have accepted Jesus as there Lord and Savior. These are precisely the requirements, no more and no less. Jesus is the only way to heaven. But what happened to the age of discernment that is frequently discussed? I have been told, by a catholic, that the age of discernment is at 12(ish) when you are able to go through the catechism. I have been told by a Methodist that the age of discernment happens when you reach a certain level of intillectual capacity so that a toddler can go to heaven. An adult with a severe disability might never reach this age of discernment and also be sealed for heaven. The Lord revealed a problem with this. We are trying to create more than one way to Heaven. We are all born in sin. Handicapped adults who have not received Jesus do not go to heaven. Even more tragicaly in my mind, young children who have not accepted Jesus do not go to heaven. These groups may not be able to verbally say they receive Him, but we still need to witness to them. They are still capable of praying even if they cannot speak, and even if their thoughts are truly muddled the Holy Spirit can still move in them and guide them to Jesus. I guess the important point here is start witnessing to your children the moment they are born. This isn't just "preach the gospel always; when necessary use words." In fact the more I learn the more I realize that is a horrible man-made proverb. Use words.
Now the next question I have to wrestle with even though I know the answer: Should we actually be telling children about Jesus *before* they are born? I believe abortion is unconditionally murder. I also believe what makes a human human is the soul, so is there a soul that needs saved in an unborn baby? And here we get to some of the depths that I prefer not to think about so here I stop.
It took me a little while to wrap my head around it. Could a three year old really have the discernment to know what she was doing? Did she know enough about the world and about Jesus to make that choice? Does she need exposure to other lifestyles to even realize she was making a choice? And if she could make that choice at that age what does that mean for everyone else who...? God revealed three very important truths to me. One should have been obvious to me, another maybe a little less so, and the third one is a very painful, inconvenient truth.
First of all, yes, a young child can receive Jesus. He said so right in the passages we studied in the Sunday School lesson. In fact, Jesus said that heaven belongs to those little children. Let's not forget that when Jesus walked the Earth as God-Man a teenage person was a married adult so the people the disciples were shooing away were not the "enlightened" high school students we might think of today. They may well have been quite close to my daughter's age. Also the Holy Spirit leads a man to the Son who leads him to the Father so why couldn't the Holy Spirit act in my child's life when He chooses to act. Was I trying to claim to be able to limit God?
Second, a three year old surely can know enough about Jesus to make the decision to follow Him, and the rest of the world doesn't matter. The Word doesn't say teach your child apologetics and let her decide for herself. Nor does it say exposure your child to all the junk the world has to offer and tell her which way you think she should take. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." That's it. Teach them about Jesus (the Way). Nothing more. The rest of that, the part about needing to know more about the world, that is my liberal arts education shining through. Besides, who, upon praying for their own salvation, knows everything there is to know about God or about the world? Who knows all of these things at death even? No one. Am I qualified to say that a certain quantity of knowledge is required then you can be saved but not before? No, definitely not. My child has been raised with Jesus and has accepted her seal. She is raised this way and when she was older she will still follow this path.
Finally, who goes to heaven? Heaven is for all people who have accepted Jesus as there Lord and Savior. These are precisely the requirements, no more and no less. Jesus is the only way to heaven. But what happened to the age of discernment that is frequently discussed? I have been told, by a catholic, that the age of discernment is at 12(ish) when you are able to go through the catechism. I have been told by a Methodist that the age of discernment happens when you reach a certain level of intillectual capacity so that a toddler can go to heaven. An adult with a severe disability might never reach this age of discernment and also be sealed for heaven. The Lord revealed a problem with this. We are trying to create more than one way to Heaven. We are all born in sin. Handicapped adults who have not received Jesus do not go to heaven. Even more tragicaly in my mind, young children who have not accepted Jesus do not go to heaven. These groups may not be able to verbally say they receive Him, but we still need to witness to them. They are still capable of praying even if they cannot speak, and even if their thoughts are truly muddled the Holy Spirit can still move in them and guide them to Jesus. I guess the important point here is start witnessing to your children the moment they are born. This isn't just "preach the gospel always; when necessary use words." In fact the more I learn the more I realize that is a horrible man-made proverb. Use words.
Now the next question I have to wrestle with even though I know the answer: Should we actually be telling children about Jesus *before* they are born? I believe abortion is unconditionally murder. I also believe what makes a human human is the soul, so is there a soul that needs saved in an unborn baby? And here we get to some of the depths that I prefer not to think about so here I stop.
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