JESUS

PRAYER: I encourage you to take the time to pray for someone else this morning.  I know someone just came to your mind.  So just pray on their behalf.  Intercede for them in what they're going through right now.  In Jesus' name.

Scripture: Psalm 122:6-9  & John 17:20-26 

MATTHEW 19:13-15 

THE LITTLE CHILDREN AND JESUS:

Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them.  

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.

Do you remember Matthew 18:1-9 at the end of March, beginning of April?   What Jesus said about little children?  Well, the disciples must have forgotten what Jesus had said about children (verses 4-6).  Jesus wanted little children to come to Him because He loves them and because they have a guileless trust in God.  I can attest to this.  I will never forget the day I accepted Jesus Christ into my life.  I had to be 7/8 and I was at a retreat like function and I desired it.  I believed in that moment that there was a God.  I was forced to know this Jesus.  I desired to know Him, and accepted Him all on my own.  He has been apart of my life ever since.  Through the good and the bad- and I know I'm in a better place with Him. I look at my little cousin who is quick to pray and not ashamed to pray.  Not because she has to, but because she wants to.  On Sunday, I got to observe 2 little girls sitting in front of me, they had to be the age of 7 or 8 and they were not afraid to praise God.  One girl wasn't even sitting with an adult (because the church was so packed), and on her own she had her hands raised and praised God without a care of what anyone thought of her.  It was really priceless to see.  Then you look around at adults, who have so much baggage and criticisms and judgments that they can't even accept that Jesus is real and more than just a man.  

Jesus didn't mean that heaven is only for children but that all people need childlike faith in God.  The receptiveness of little children was a great contrast to the stubbornness of the religious leaders, who let their education, sophistication, fear and pride stand in the way of the simple faith needed to believe in Jesus.

WHAT IS STANDING IN THE WAY OF YOU BELIEVING IN JESUS?