God's Life Plan

Good evening all.  I'm home for a relatively short time, considering it's night.  I'll head to bed soon in the hope that I can get a good night's rest.  Tomorrow bus 38 and I will be on duty from early morning till late afternoon, doing the morning route, an all day field trip and then the regular afternoon trip.  Same thing Friday.  Then, on Saturday, Toni and I are planning on heading up near Mille Lacs for a wedding.  So, if I'm going to get a message together for Sunday I'd better sketch out a few thoughts now.

The group I'm working alongside these days is doing a series on "LIFE."  They actually began last Sunday--but I was called upon to share a message on commitment then so I'm a week behind the rest.  So we'll read Genesis 1:26-28, which speaks of the gift of human life, we'll celebrate the baptism of Raquel Grace Robertson, we'll share a scripture Raquel's grandpa brought to our prayer meeting tonight (Hebrews 3:1-6), add Psalm 8, and then I'll read this priceless scripture from Matthew's gospel:

Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them; but Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.’ And he laid his hands on them and went on his way.  (Matthew 19:23-25)

It's clear from all these scriptures that having and raising children to know Jesus is a sacred trust.  Part of the task to which God calls parents and every adult Christian is to help children know what God thinks of them, that they are precious in his sight, and that God longs for them to know Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior and then to know their own identity, as God's very own.

Anyone who has trusted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior discovers that they are holy in God's sight, precious, and called to His.  As I am reading in Raquel's grandpa's "Life Application Bible" in a reflection on Hebrews 3:1 -

"By knowing who you are in Christ, you can deny all the false messages of the world.  Many strident voices will try to convince you that you're not pretty enough, not smart enough, and not successful enough.  But your identity in Christ alone completes you!  You can add nothing to it, and this world's detractors can take nothing from it."

God's plan is that Christian adults impress that on young people as often as we can and by whatever means we can--through tender loving care, through prayer, through the scriptures, and through baptism...  God's life plan is that we would continue to do that as long as we live.

That's all I have time energy for tonight.  At least it's a start on what we'll share on Sunday.  I hope you can come and be with us.  It will be a God blessed day.

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