11/20/19 Julio (click HERE to see video)
“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little
children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
So what’s the secret? What did Jesus mean by this statement, that we
must change and become like little children?
What do children know that we
adults don’t know when it comes to entering God’s kingdom?
I was talking with a man named Julio, who grew up in a
churchgoing family, believes in God and Jesus, and tries to do his best in
being a good person. And yet, there was
something he was missing, something that most of us as adults are missing when
it comes to entering God’s Kingdom, something we are missing when it comes to
any one of the paradigm changes we go through when we are being transformed
from a worldly mindset to a kingdom mindset.
What is it we adults are missing? It’s there in the text – “unless you change”. We no longer have the ability to change like
we once did. And the longer we live and
the more set in our ways and in our thinking we become, the more difficult it
becomes to change. Children might have a
relatively clean slate on which to simply add kingdom beliefs and values, but
the slate of adults may be cluttered with a whole lifetime of worldly habits
and mindsets that must be erased as new kingdom ways are added.
In my conversation with Julio, I found him to be very
friendly and open to talking about the things of God, but there were a few
things that stood out to me that seem hard for him to grasp. First, Julio has the idea that, though he
isn’t perfect, he would be regarded as a “good person” by God’s standards. I think this might be hard for Julio and
others like him because, by man’s standards, he would be seen as “good people”
as they say here in Chicago. He’s a good
neighbor, family man, and coach who cares about his ball players on and off the
field. What could God have against him?
But Julio has distanced himself from God’s word through not
reading it on his own or hearing it in church, so the only standard he has by
which to judge himself is man’s word, which for him means the affirmation of
those who appreciate his good efforts.
But the Bible is meant to be a sort of mirror so we can see ourselves as
we truly are, and so during our conversation I tried to “hold up the mirror” so
to speak, by getting him to compare himself to God’s law such as the Ten
Commandments. Still, one doesn’t usually
just change their self-concept with a quick look in a mirror, unless of course
they are ready to change and think as a child.
Second, Julio and many others like him have a “works-based”
mindset when it comes to God. They have
the deep-seated idea that a right relationship with God must be earned through
our good deeds, and as long as the good outweighs the bad then Heaven is the
reward.
But the Bible tells us “For it is by grace you have been
saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) If we could be saved by our good works, then
we wouldn’t need Jesus’ work on the cross.
I gave Julio a friendly reminder that we are to put our faith in Jesus –
not in ourselves and our own good works.
I’ve come to believe that faith in ourselves and our own
good works is the default human belief, a mindset that has a sort of
gravitational pull on us unless we are constantly reminded and fed by the truth
of God’s word. It was hard for Julio to
break out of that good works paradigm as it is for all of us. But if he is willing to change – to erase the
slate and start with a new one like a child as Jesus said we should – then he
can begin to fill that slate with the new truths of God’s kingdom.
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