“You are the children of your Lord your God…”
(Deuteronomy 14: 1)
When I was young, I would often hear grown ups around me say, of course he/she is just 
a child. I often wondered what they meant by that, was it some excuse for behaviour? Or was it some sort of dismissal of their worth? Was it a reason to ignore their contribution to life and to keep them in the background? The other familiar saying was, children should be seen and not heard. On Sunday morning we were singing one of my favourite songs and the end of every verse was this phrase
I am a child of God
Suddenly just a child, takes on a whole different meaning when we realise that God has bestowed the most incredible relationship upon us, he has allowed us to call him Father with all the privileges of Royal children.
We were singing that we were each a child of God with confidence in the incredible love of the Father, so surely the Lord views that word quite differently when he lovingly calls us his children.
Jesus himself makes it quite clear his value of children and rebukes the disciples for turning away children coming to see him;
“When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” (Mark 10: 14)
Next, he warns us to humbly accept this beautiful relationship of being children so we never lose that sense of dependence on him and don’t slip into thinking we can now 
control our own lives without consulting him as the much wiser parent.
“I tell you the truth anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Mark 10: 15)
The other encouraging verse in the gospel of John tells us that when we accept and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have the right to call ourselves children of God a right that cannot be snatched away from us;
“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” (John 1: 12)
Even though we long to become adults when we are young, adulthood can be scary as we realise, we must make decisions on our own and when we are at the cross roads of a life changing choice, it can be overwhelming to know it is up to us to choose. That is when it is so wonderful to remember that in God’s eyes, we are just children and he will welcome us into his presence so we can talk it over with him and seek his guidance through prayer.
I am quite happy to be called, just a child of God when I know he will remember my frailty and hold out his hand when I need it the most;
“If the Lord delights in a man’s way, he makes his steps firm, though he stumbles, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand” (Psalm 37: 23 – 24)
When my children were young, we were given a beautiful children’s book entitled, Love You Forever. It became a favourite (even though we all cried every time we read it), but eventually over the years we lost track of it until my daughter had children of her own and bought me a brand new copy to read to my grandchildren.
portrayed of God as a parent calming us down with his love and singing to us. I love this image and in some of my worst moments I go back and read this verse and it comforts me.
I grew up in Australia, but our culture was very much shaped by our British inheritance and one characteristic of Britain, “The stiff upper lip” prevailed in my family. Emotions displayed in public was frowned upon and if you were going through a difficult situation one did not share it in public but dealt with it privately. Just recently I have been going through a difficult time and felt that I had to pretend in public that I was coping well as my childhood upbringing had taught me.
We too can learn to share our tears with those who are mourning, or in health problems or major financial or family problems, offering them a safe place to do so.
The word, kindness, is tucked away in the list of the fruits of the Spirit and is often over looked for its importance and deeper meaning. “acts of kindness” has become a common phrase in today’s society and of course it is a positive thought to instil into our everyday activities. We have all experienced and appreciated the small gestures of a smile here, an opening of a door, a helping hand with dropped parcels. But when we look into Scripture and check a concordance, it is surprising the number of references to the word we find and the more surprising fact is that they refer to God’s kindness, so when we express kindness to another it is not to express us, but to show others the kindness of God. It is certainly not limited to that sweet smile or helping hand although that is still important.
himself and as he realises that he praises him for letting us all experience that kindness;
Kindness can take on many different forms. Sometimes we may be asked to show kindness to those who annoy us. It may be someone in our office who talks incessantly, it may be an old relative who moves so slowly we want to give them a push to get them going, it may be someone struggling with a mental illness. If kindness is one of the fruits of the Spirit, we can allow it to pervade our actions, so it becomes automatically part of our being.
The word “burden” even has an air of heaviness when we say it, and the immediate thought is something very heavy and we even get a mental picture of someone staggering while carrying a heavy load. The extension of the word, burdensome, sums up our mental picture. When I was doing some research on what the word meant, I found an interesting description of what the word meant long ago, to lay a burden against a person, implied that a court charge had been laid against that person. When one of us today feels burdened by life it can also feel like a charge of some sort or other is hanging over our heads, something worse, looming over us about to happen.
Jesus is very much aware of how life can burden us and knows that carrying that burden can result in great weariness and is willing to carry that load for us.
letter he assures believers that God’s laws were never intended to be burdensome;
Just recently I found a charming cartoon in the newspaper from the series Family Circus. It depicted the little sister kneeling on her bed with hands clasped in prayer and saying, “I think we need to talk”. It was left to the reader to imagine what had prompted her to need to talk to God, but several options came to my mind, perhaps she needed to say sorry for some bad behaviour during the day, or perhaps some thing had happened at school that had bothered her, or perhaps she suddenly realised she had forgotten lately to keep in touch with the Lord and was desiring a fun time sharing with him.
Moses has some very sound advice for the children of Israel before they entered the Promised Land and the same advice is still good for us today
Learning to sit quietly with the Lord without speaking, clearing one’s mind of extraneous thoughts cements our relationship with him, and beginning the day that way, clears the day of all the obstacles and gives us clear minds to cope with whatever comes our way. The Psalmists knew this only too well and advised us to do exactly that
The Old Testament has such exciting stories of God intervening on behalf of man. The two I find the most fascinating are when God dramatically shows his power over nature, by parting the Red Sea and then equally as astounding the parting of the Jordan for Joshua and the Israelites. The part that intrigues me about both stories is that even though the people witnessed the waters parting, it was up to them to trust God and take that first step between the walls of water. When I read it, I often wonder if they were hesitant about that first step, thinking what if the water begins to flow again will we be washed away?
country, but none of their dreams or hopes would eventuate unless they took that first step through the water. They trusted the Lord God Almighty would be there with them, protecting them, and bravely stepped between the waters.
As the New Year begins to take shape, all the activities that were temporarily put aside for the holidays, now have to be begun again, the children are back at school, exercise classes begin, soccer practice, basketball, swimming, all the after-school classes start, grown ups sign-up for new programmes, issues at work need to be addressed, life begins again in earnest.
listens intently to what Jesus is saying.
Shepherd? Jesus himself answers that question when Martha begins to complain about her sister, Mary. He points out what is important not only for Martha to realise, but us as well. Worrying about schedules, and all the other distractions of life creates a fog between us and the Lord. Making time to sit with him and listen to him through his word, is the most necessary task to accomplish in a day;
As another new year approaches, many of us have doubts about how we will face the challenges the new year will bring. Some of us have been damaged by many different events happenings this past year which have created havoc and ravaged our lives. Some have lost dearly loved ones, some have lost jobs, their reputations, some have experienced failures and have lost confidence in themselves, some have begun to think they are worthless. Scripture has a beautiful picture of what this might feel like…
The Christmas season has started with a blast of activities and shops filled with all the glitz of decorations and huge ads urging us all to buy, buy, buy! Our city begins the festivities with a huge Santa Parade down the main streets on, ironically God’s day, a Sunday morning in early December. I was amazed to see on the television the crowds of people, rugged up from the cold, lining the streets. One of the commentators spied two little girls, hopping up and down with excitement and peering anxiously down the street. He asked them who were they waiting for and they both shrieked, Santa!! I was suddenly overcome with sadness that this incredible moment of time, when God became man, in the form of a baby who was to be the Saviour of the world, had been forgotten and replaced by some jolly fat figure in a red suit.
The Magi knew who he was because they were following the star also to find and worship him, the king of the Jews, and they asked King Herod where he was;
