Matthew 19:13-15

Matthew 19:13-15

Then they brought to Him their young children in order that He should set His hand upon them He should pray.  But the disciples rebuked them.  But Jesus said, “Allow the children and do not hinder them to come to me, for the kingdom of heaven is of the ones such as these.  And after setting His hands upon them, He went on form that place.

Thoughts for Today

First Thought:

Notice that there are people who brought their children to Jesus.  We don’t know who they were, but we can presume that a good number of them would be the mothers or servants in charge of their care.  In either case, we have people who likely didn’t know Jesus all that well who are bringing their children to Jesus in order that He could lay hands upon them.  Why would they do this?  They’ve seen Jesus’ hands at work.  They’ve seen that the hands of Jesus can cure disease and work other miracles.  Of course they would want Jesus to lay hands upon them.

What have the hands of Jesus done for you?  How have you been blessed by Him?

Second Thought:

 Of course, then we have the disciples.  They sound like such horrible people in this passage.  After all, who prevents children from coming to the Son of God?  But in truth, I have to imagine that their motives were more about protecting Jesus’ time and space than preventing the children from coming to see Him.  They’ve seen Jesus mobbed by crowds before.  They probably felt like this was a situation where they could do something about it.  In any case, though, their actions are wrong.  We all need to follow Jesus’ lead rather than assert ourselves.

Can you see the disciples as well-meaning but misguided here?  Have you ever done something like the disciples do in this passage?

Third Thought:

We’ve looked at those who brought the children and we’ve looked at the disciples.  Now let’s look at Jesus and the children.  The children seem to love Jesus.  Jesus definitely seems to love them.  Often this is a great sign of Christian character.  When a person loves those who are not high in status, don’t have resources to offer, and with whom relationship doesn’t often have measurable gain then we can be sure that the love is genuine.  That’s the love that Jesus brings to the table.

How do you know that Jesus’ love is genuine for you?  Do you really bring anything to the relationship with Jesus?

Passage for Tomorrow: Matthew 19:16-22