During this past week at kids camp I sure learned a lot or at least was reminded of many things that I had forgotten about. And so during the week and as the days went by, I began to take some mental notes on what lessons children, God’s children could teach me.
So yesterday on the way home I ask Keeley what she had gleaned during her week as a Coach for kids camp and what did she learn about kids. The following is a sampling of what Keeley learned.
1) No matter how much you tell them, kids just CAN’T BE quiet.
2) Even though they are young and don’t understand a lot, they have so much love for God.
3) They like to have fun and be happy all the time.
4) They are very Blunt and always make sure you know exactly what they think.
5) They always crave your attention and want to please you.
6) Children are the most loving people on earth.
Matt 11:25 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)
I am convinced that there are some things that I have forgotten about that perhaps we need to relearn as adults that children as we watch them can teach us.
I LEARNED THAT KIDS ARE FOLLOWERS AND THEY WANT TO FOLLOW GOD AND THEIR PARENTS:
Every time I go to a camp or on a trip with kids, I see so many traits of those children’s moms and dads. I watched Marissa yesterday trying to pick from the Braum’s menu what to buy. She wasn’t just looking she was intent. She was shopping for the best value and the deal, and she was studying that like it was an element chart in advanced placement high school science.
Children want some one to show them the way through this life. They depend greatly upon us as parents to show them that. What should I wear? Should they be my friend? Where should I go? What should I think about that?
They are very teachable. I heard a statistic one time that said children learn more new things their first 12 years of life than an adult from 13 on up will learn. They learn their ABC, to talk, to walk, to run, to think….and the rest of our adult life we are just expounding on what was established in those formative years.
So kids taught me that I need to be more teachable. How about you? Kids teach me that I need to be pliable and putty in God’s hands. How about you?
Let me tell you briefly something about me and about you. The older we get the more inflexible we get. Starting at the age of about 30 my doctor told me that unless I do stretching exercising that I begin to lose my flexibility. I you don’t believe me stand up and touch your toes with or without bending your knees. Lol.
This week the camp called me just as we were leaving and told me I would be running the Cafeteria instead of being a councilor, because they had no one else to do it. So I did it. The first day I had 4 ladies with me 3 of which were older than I. From the moment they hit the door I thought it was going to be a long week. There was complaining and whining the first day that I had not heard before. They just wanted to come down there and pray for their kids in the altar, by the end of the week one of them was in the hospital with chest pains. Pray for her.
Then I had three boys help, one in high school, and two in college. They didn’t say a word, they were summer help they weren’t getting paid, and all they wanted to do was know what to do, and then they did it.
We adults become inflexible, I need air-conditioning, warm bed, fluffy pillow, big chair, and comforts and then I might be willing to bend a little. We sometimes become that way in our heart. I don’t want God to move like that in my life, that’s different than what I am use to. I don’t like that because it’s a change. I like the way it was and is and shall ever more be.
BE FLEXIBLE! Let God move when He wants to move, how he wants to move and lets move with him. With Him not against Him.
The children of Israel were a bunch of whiners, complainer, and belly achers and God said, I’ll raise up another generation and use them. Have you read the O.T.?
Children are flexible. I say one girl praying on her knees bent backwards for about 30 minutes….you don’t have to do that.
But lets move when God moves. Let’s go where God wants to take us. Let’s do what God is doing. Let’ go after what God is after. Let’s seek what God is seeking. Let’s not rely on the power of yesterday when God has something new he wants to do today and something new even tomorrow.
Last week there was a conference of all the Pentecostal denominations in the world and Bryon Houston the pastor of Hillsong church a church of over 20,000 member in Australia spoke. Bryon’s church is Assembly of God and he is the superintendent of the Assemblies of God in Australia. Most of you probably have one of his churches worship CD’s in your home.
Bryon had this to say in regards to change and being flexible.
"God thinks and moves generationally," "I want a church that builds princes on the earth." Though fathers generally represent knowledge and experience and sons represent the unknown, the untried, the unproven and unpredictable. Human nature wants to keep things tied to the known and predictable. "God wants fathers to move toward the sons. We must not try to pump new life into the ways of the fathers, but move forward toward the sons, moving from the predictable to the unpredictable."
I LEARNED THAT KIDS ARE TENDER TOWARDS THE LORD. We need to have a tender heart.
You know when you speak to a little kid with just a few harsh words they will begin to cry, and bawl. You don’t even have to be harsh you can just so “no” and they cry.
Our first night at camp as the altar call began the evangelist started his altar call and he shared a tremendous message that related to children. But he just said, “If you’re here tonight…and before he could finish his sentence children begin to get up out of their seat and respond to the altars and cry out to God in repentance and cry out to God for more of Him in their life.
What a day it will be when at the close of the service God so moves on adults and teenagers that before I can give the altar call we would respond like that.
What is it that God is calling out in your life that you won’t respond to?
We need to have tender hearts and tender spirits and tender minds that are sensitive to the Holy Spirit and sensitive to God’s move and his message to us. So we need to ask God to move in our hearts like that.
We are people that are a part of a generation that is desensitized. We watch live television of war, crime, murder, mayhem, abuse, lies, cheats, cons, and every other sort of thing and we become immune to the loss of human life. We have become immune to our feelings and immune to the touch of God because of callused minds and hearts.
Years ago people would watch a movie that included Dracula in a black and white silent movie and people were frightened beyond belief. It was rated R because the bad acting count would cover this woman with his cape and simulate sucking blood out of her neck. And again it was horrible acting, poor directing and the quality was bad. There were no special effects, no fake blood. But after a while that wasn’t scary enough so the created Jason for the movie Friday the thirteenth and he was really scary, because he wore a mask and slaughtered people with a knife, but then that wasn’t enough and now we have movies that including slashing, raping and even cannibalism so that we can shock people even more. Why? Because we have created callused hearts.
We need our hearts to be once again tender toward the Lord! Like a child.
After the altar call at camp I just begin to walk through the altars praying with kids and observing some things as I prayed. One boy maybe ten years old stood bent over, hands raised, sobbing with a pool of tears at his feet that had accumulated from falling from his cheeks and he was broken before the Lord. He didn’t care what any one thought about him. He wasn’t concerned if someone thought he was a crybaby. He wanted God to do something in his life and he needed it now.
I saw another boy. He was quit chubby, but he really spoke to me. Because there he sat on the front row with no one praying for him. He sat with his hands in his lap and his had bent back, crying like this aaaahhahahahhah. Why? Because he need God. He needed God to heal his heart that had been perhaps injured by kids at school that called him unseemly names. He needed God to talk to him and tell him it was going to be OK. And friend let me tell you God was doing some talking!
Ladies and Gentlemen we need that kind of tenderness and hunger and willingness in our own lives and we need to keep it.
KIDS TAUGHT ME THAT LOVING EVERYONE IS FUN.
Kids taught me that they want the truth.
Kids taught me that they can handle the truth.
Kids taught me that they are very forgiving.
Kids taught me that
We have a lot to relearn and rediscover. We have a lot to remind ourselves about. We need to be reminded that God is working in hearts of people that are flexible, teachable, willing and ready for Him to work. We need to be reminded that God despises a stiff-necked people, but is eager to work in those that are tender to Him.
(CLOSING)
I want us to come this morning for two purposes. One that we would be a tender church and a tender people, and tow that we would never grow inflexible towards what God does in our church, that we would never say no to what God want to do.
God has so much for us to do and we have so little time to do it in. Reinhart Bonke said this week in that World Pentecostal Conference "We need to rise up. A church that doesn’t reach out will pass out and eventually die out." Bonke urged the delegation to reach out to those who need to hear the gospel.
A person that doesn’t stay tender will eventually toughen up so much that they cannot be moved very easily.
The difference between a juicy steak and tough piece of jerky is one has been dried out. Don’t dry out friends!
