Matthew 18:1-5.10

At about the same time, the disciples came to Jesus asking, "Who gets the highest rank in God's kingdom?" 2 For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, 3 and said, "I'm telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you're not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. 4 Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God's kingdom. 5 What's more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it's the same as receiving me. 10" Watch that you don't treat a single one of these childlike believers arrogantly. You realize, don't you, that their personal angels are constantly in touch with my Father in heaven?

Food for thought

Here is a very revealing question, followed by a very revealing answer. The disciples asked who was the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus took a child and said that unless they turned and became as this little child, they would not get into the Kingdom at all. The question of the disciples was: "Who will be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?" They were saying in other words, once in heaven, who will be greatest? Jesus said, "Unless you turn." He was warning them that they were going in completely the wrong direction, away from the Kingdom of Heaven and not towards it.

Jesus took a child and said that we be like children. What did he mean? Why children? Because many of us have lost the child within; we have to relearn looking at life as a child does, with a beginner's mind; we must free our mind of all expectations and learn to expect the unexpected.

Jesus called us to become as little children that we might enter into the fullness of life which he called the kingdom of Heaven. Yet, so often our self-imposed limitations of age, appropriateness of behaviour, business of living, the shoulds and the shouldn’ts, the cans and cannots, the images we hold of ourselves and what is possible for us may be robbing us of our life-full-ness.

The spirit within you can represent both the excited child and ageless wisdom. Do you truly believe that the spirit within you is unlimited? If so, what is stopping you from expressing abundance in your life? And we’re talking about abundance on all levels—health, relationships, business, studies, financial, mental, and emotional!

Unfortunately, as we grow older, many of us aren't growing towards the Kingdom of heaven, but away from it; the more we grow up, the less we become childlike; and the more un-childlike we become the further away from heaven we get.

We have to make a U-Turn and learn to be childlike again, otherwise we are going to a wrong direction. We do well to turn and accept and embrace the child within, for as Jesus taught us today, receiving this child within is like receiving Christ himself. And the more childlike (not the more childish) we become, the greater we become heaven bound. Happy the childlike because they behold the face of the Father in heaven, and are beheld by the Father in heaven.