Responding to God

Kids amaze me. Every week something happens that keeps me so excited about being a children's pastor. Today's service was a great example. We had a wrap up sermon about Christmas. I preached about Simeon and Anna celebrating Jesus' birth in the temple. I talked about how sad it was that some people only celebrate Jesus' birth on Sundays and Christmas day. I told the kids there were TONS of ways to celebrate His birth but the three most important were to 1. Ask Jesus to be your Savior. 2. Celebrate His birth everyday simply by remembering Him and spending time with Him and 3. Telling others about Jesus and how much He loves them.

When I was talking about telling others, one of my girls was on the edge of her seat with such an intense look on her face, I knew that this was hitting home with her. It was beautiful to see God speaking to her heart as I talked about telling our grandmas and grandpas and other family members how much Jesus loves them. When I asked, "If we don't tell them, who will?", I thought she was going to jump out of her chair and shout, "Amen!" I even called her mom to give her the "heads up" in case she talked about it at home and mom said they weren't even out of the parking lot before the conversation started about witnessing to her family. WOW! I am so humbled that God allows me to be a part of something so powerful in the life of a five year old. She's so young, but totally gets it. This girl is going to do incredible things for God, well actually, is already being used by Him.

At the end of my sermon, I felt there needed to be a salvation challenge. As I asked the kids to raise their hands if the would like to ask Jesus into their lives, every one of them raised their hands. Now granted, some of them have raised their hands before but this was the first time for many. I was watching some of the kids repeat the sinners prayer and my eye caught one of my boys who is only three years old. He had his legs crossed in front of him on the seat, his hands folded and locked under his chin and his eyes were squeezed shut. As I had the kids repeat after me, his little brow was furrowed and he repeated every word. I had to stop watching him for fear I would begin to weep before the prayer was finished. Some people may think, "He's only three. How can you possibly think he knew what he was doing?" If you had seen his face, you would have NO doubt. The child was going after God with all his heart.

This Christmas has been one of the best I've had in a long time and a big part of it is due to my JCFC kids. Our Christmas program was a humble little affair but they gave it their all and really understood that Christmas isn't about us, it's about Jesus. They are an amazing little tribe that are growing physically and spiritually and I'm so very glad to be witnessing it all.