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Topic: Of the Renewal of Youth
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KnowHim
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But Jesus said, Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 19:14 rv)
Jesus Christ uses the child-spirit as a touchstone for the character of a disciple. He did not put up a child before His disciples as an ideal, but as an expression of the simplehearted life they would live when they were born again. The life of a little child is expectant, full of wonder, and free from self-consciousness, and Jesus said, “Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven” (rv). We cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven head first. How many of us thought about how we should live before we were born? Why, none. But numbers of people try to think of how to live as Christians before they are born again. “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born anew” (rv), that is, become as little children, with open-hearted, unprejudiced minds in relation to God. There is a marvellous rejuvenescence once we let God have His way. The most seriously minded Christian is the one who has just become a Christian; the mature saint is just like a young child, absolutely simple and joyful and gay. Read the Sermon on the Mount—“Take no thought,” (i.e., no care), “for your life.” The word “care” has within it the idea of something that buffets. The Christianity of Jesus Christ refuses to be careworn. Our Lord is indicating that we have to be carefully careless about everything saving our relationship to Him. Fuss is always a sign of fever. A great many people mistake perspiration in service for inspiration in devotion. The characteristic of a man who has come to God is that you cannot get him to take anyone seriously but God.
Spiritually beware of anything that takes the wonder out of life and makes you take a prosaic attitude; when you lose wonder, you lose life. The Spirit of God creates the intuitions of a child in a man and keeps him in touch with the elemental and real, and the miracle of Christianity is that a man can be made young in heart and mind and spirit.
Chambers, Oswald, The Place of Help, (United Kingdom: Marshall Morgan & Scott) c1935.
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