Monday, November 26, 2012

God and children: salvation and love?

I think one question we hold before you God is what about the children?
What happens to children who die in non Christian countries? What happens to children who die in war, sickness, poverty, hunger, and even pregnancy before birth.They are innocent right?

I believe God knows each of us before we are born or even conceived:
God says of Jeremiah:
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5 NIV)
And even before we took form in conception and pregnancy God says of us as he said to David:
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
(Psalm 139:15, 16 NIV)

Yet there are children in Israel and Jerusalem, Sodom and Gomorra that God likely died when the cities were destroyed and or exiled.
God how did you love those children?
Yet as Jeremiah is revealing this society was so corrupt there was not even one righteous person. The only righteous people in Sodom: Lot and his family were saved, yet a family that ends up with the father drunken and daughters having sex with their drunken father to have sons sound like some messed up people and yet they were considered righteous and worth saving.

Children in a society that corrupt and evil can't grow up innocent in a society like that with parents like that. God I want to know more what you say and feel about children and their salvation and righteousness.

But I want more. God what hope is there in you for children?

This is how dear Jesus held children:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
(Matthew 18:1-5 NIV)

Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked 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." (Matthew 19:13, 14 NIV)

That sounds like a God who loves children dearly. More than we can imagine.

The kingdom of heaven belongs to children.

Yet these children didn't not know who Jesus was. They were not baptized. They did not proclaim Jesus as savior. They may have died shortly after seeing Jesus. And yet Jesus was not worried about any of that. He was confident in saying the kingdom belongs to children and those with hearts like children. Jesus seems to act as if there were more to the faith story than this life. That children would choose Jesus eternally and that the kingdom of heaven is for them.

I hope that all children would go to heaven. If any of this is not from you God and only heresy or misunderstanding then I ask you God to reveal your truth to me and others and change our hearts to align with your heart for children and for God and our eternal home in heaven.
Amen

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