Revealed to Children

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

REVEALED TO CHILDREN

 

Matt 11:25-26

25 At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

NIV

To be a little child so that the kingdom of heaven will belong to us is a wonderful thing. To have everything revealed to us because we are like a child is overwhelming. Of course, we are not little children, as we are quite older and have lived many years. We have taken on the responsibilities of adulthood, even raised children of our own. The burdens of life have weighed upon us, including difficult times with struggles that could crush others. Most of our youth, we could not wait for the next phase of our lives, as little children, we could not wait to go to school, then we could not wait until we were old enough to drive, then we waited to graduate, and go on to bigger and better things. We either wanted more education to have a better chance to succeed, or we couldn’t wait to get out in the world and make our mark. We always believe that through learning we would be wise. However, Jesus said something else about these children to whom the kingdom of God belongs. We will see this later in this gospel; however, his words are in conjunction with this idea of the little children he speaks of here. Jesus called children to stand in the middle of his disciples in response to a question about who is the greatest in the kingdom. He then told his disciples that unless you, and that includes us, change, and become like a little child you, including us, will never see the kingdom of heaven. Jesus went on to say that whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom. Certainly, we cannot turn the clock back and become a child again, but we do know how to change the way we think. We cannot abstain from all adult responsibilities, and just act childish, or child-like without a care in the world, trusting our parents to take complete care or, meeting our every need as well as living as part of a family, and understanding our part, being a child listening and obeying our parents, but still having fun all day. But wait, that is what we are supposed to do in our relationship with Jesus. We need to change and become humble before Him. Children have no need to be prideful, they need their family, their parents, being dependent on their parents. We need to change to be like a child in our thinking in our relationship with Jesus, depending on Him completely. Certainly, His disciples were Jews and had lived most of their lives under the pressure of leader groups, like the Pharisees or the teachers of the law, and perhaps even felt their righteousness was dependent on following the law. We might, as adults, feel a certain compulsion to try to live right by doing “Good works”. But that is the adult thinking, and if we change and become like a child, then all we can do is put all our trust in Jesus, then we will belong to and have the kingdom of heaven and have everything revealed to us.