{"id":9164,"date":"2014-05-08T01:00:40","date_gmt":"2014-05-08T08:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/?p=9164"},"modified":"2014-04-29T08:26:56","modified_gmt":"2014-04-29T15:26:56","slug":"the-care-of-gods-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/2014\/05\/08\/the-care-of-gods-children\/","title":{"rendered":"The Care of God’s Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Carol Lim<\/em><\/p>\n

I am extremely blessed to be a part of Fireflies Nursery ministry.\u00a0 This is where I get to serve the children and the parents, but more than that, this is a ministry that God has used and continues to use to teach me truth about Himself.<\/p>\n

I was recently reading a passage in Matthew 18 where Jesus\u2019 disciples are debating about being the greatest in the Kingdom.\u00a0 As they are arguing, Jesus brings a child in the midst to exhort those listening to have a childlike faith (v.1-3) and to be humble like a child (v.4) \u2013 completely lacking in sophistication and power, yet filled with simplicity and totally dependent on others to care for them.\u00a0 I saw from this passage how Jesus used a child to teach His disciples, children of God, a lesson about His love and affection for His own, and His desire in wanting to protect His children from falling into sin.\u00a0 He even lays out a harsh statement that \u201cwhoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.\u201d (v.6)\u00a0 How terrified those disciples must have been, when they realized that by bickering and arguing about being the greatest in the Kingdom they were in fact provoking each other to bitterness, pride, envy, jealousy and thus mutually causing each other to sin.<\/p>\n

The passage helped me to think through how our Heavenly Father feels about wanting to make sure that His children are being cared for.\u00a0 Having raised two children and now watching my older child raise a daughter of her own there is no doubt in my mind how far I would go to protect my children from anyone trying to harm them.\u00a0 If you attempt to harm my child (or my grandchild) I would probably come after you.\u00a0 There\u2019s no question that I\u2019m committed to care for them, to protect them from any harm and danger.\u00a0 This kind of love and care is what I regularly witness as I see moms and dads bring in their child into nursery week after week.\u00a0 I see how the parents want to make sure that their child is safe and is being cared for (I see some nervous first-time moms peeking in through the window from time to time).\u00a0 Likewise I am reminded to be cautious about how I treat another believer, who is a child of God.\u00a0 How I treat God\u2019s people has always been of great concern to God.\u00a0 My attitude, speech, and actions all have a huge implication on whether I\u2019m causing another believer to love God or to sin.\u00a0 It is no longer just about my spiritual well-being, but also looking out for another believer, encouraging him\/her to grow in their knowledge and understanding of Him who constantly desires to love, care and protect us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Carol Lim I am extremely blessed to be a part of Fireflies Nursery ministry.\u00a0 This is where I get to serve the children and the parents, but more than that, this is a ministry that God has used and continues to use to teach me truth about Himself. I was recently reading a passage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":469,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-affinity-groups","category-childrens"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/469"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9164"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9179,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9164\/revisions\/9179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}