Mark 10:15 (New King James Version)
15 Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.”
Luke 18:17 (New King James Version)
17 Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.”
The faith of an adult and the faith of a child.
One of the main differences between an adult and a child is that when you are a child you don’t cook, you don’t go to work and you have someone else thinking for you. The life of a child sees you having a house to live in without expenses, food on the table three times a day and fun times with friends in the meantime.
As adults we have the opposite. We have the stress of having to work for an income. We have to put dinner on the table, and life can’t be spent just playing with friends. We have to prioritize what we do with our time. The more we play, the less money we have. The more we work, the more money we have.
The world we live in is full of information and Christian books and technology and MP3s and DVDs and all kinds of things for a person to grow in faith. But few adults approach the Christian life like children. We like to look for information and we get an idea that we want to know something and we look for the answer.
An example in my life.
On one occasion the Lord Jesus gave me the three gifts of word of knowledge, prophecy and words of wisdom. I exercised them for several years and learned more and more about the gifts as I took an object lesson from the Holy Spirit. I had no human teacher. I was as a child learning firsthand when the Holy Spirit and Jesus gave me messages to deliver to strangers and people I knew, and it all worked out.
Then came the time when I wanted to know more about the gifts that I had already been given and the other nine gifts as well, so I went looking for a book on the gifts and spent a lot of time reading in Christian bookstores and having a lot of disappointment to judge. a book, I just looked up word of knowledge or prophecy in a book and read what they had to say about it. I thought that if he didn’t teach me anything about those two gifts, the information would not be good for the other seven gifts. I searched for more than two years for a book as an adult with adult faith.
faith as a child
One day I gave up the search and told the Lord that I was not going to look for a book on that subject anymore. If there was a book, you would have to bring it to me. One day I went to a street evangelism where one of the guys came up to me and said, “Look at this book.” The title was “Gifts of the Holy Spirit”, and it was from Dr. DGS Dhinkaran, an Indian apostle.
I asked my friend if it was a good book and he said it was amazing. I quickly did some reading and had to agree. I went to a small store 40 minutes away by train and bought the book. I learned a lot from that book, and it’s the only book I recommend these days.
You see, child, how faith brings food to your table.
The adults decide what topic they want to learn about and go to a bookstore to try to find a book on that particular topic. But the faith of a child allows the Holy Spirit to find the scriptures you need to know each day. When He wants a book to teach you something, He simply causes you to stumble across a book on the subject you need to learn.
The food is usually the Word of God. If he prays for at least half an hour before reading the Word and asks the Holy Spirit where he should read in the Bible, he will find that the Holy Spirit will serve him the Scriptures and open his ears to understand them.
Psalm 16:7 (New King James Version)
7 I will bless the LORD who has counseled me; My heart also instructs me in the night seasons.
The heart is the spirit of a man and that is where the Holy Spirit speaks to us. It is the Lord who gives us advice on the paths we should walk and the ways we should act. It is the Holy Spirit our Master, not men.
1 John 2:27 (New King James Version)
27 But the anointing that you have received from him abides in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you about all things, and it is true, and it is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will remain in it.
The Holy Spirit is the Teacher and we do not need men to instruct us. If we trust the Holy Spirit as a child would trust its parents to feed it, then we will find ourselves learning much more from Him than from men.
This goes for careers, friends, churches, and all decisions.
We like to be adults and be in charge of what happens to us, but having the faith of a child is letting God guide us through the Holy Spirit. If you pray instead of making decisions on your own, you will find that God answers your prayers and acts according to his will. Then his heart will be instructed in the night seasons by God speaking to his spirit or even in a dream. If we allow the Holy Spirit to lead us, we will get good advice, but if we do it ourselves, we are left to our own faulty ways. The spirit works through the heart as I said:
Proverbs 3:5 (New King James Version)
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And do not lean on your own understanding;
This means not following your mind and its ways, but rather being like a child and letting your spirit lead you through your heart. Allow the Holy Spirit to lead you through the Scriptures before making decisions.
The Lord will take care of you. He promises that if you have the faith of a child, you will enter his Kingdom. It’s time to go with your heart and be a kid instead of living like an adult in your mind.