Lori's thoughts

Some of you may be familiar with this song. Children like to sing it and believe it. “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

There’s more to the song, but this captures the essence of what God wants us to know and believe. I have heard it said that we are “all God’s children.” This simply isn’t so. To become children of God we must believe Christ died for our sins and rose again from the dead. We must accept God’s free gift of eternal life through His Son. Jesus paid our admission into heaven with his life. We can’t get to heaven by our own good works. This is the “gospel” (good news) in a nutshell.

I bring this up not to preach, but to know that there is such simplicity in God’s message to us that we try to make it complex through philosophical discussions that I think miss the main point. Jesus told us that we must have “childlike faith.”

What does childlike faith look like? It’s simple. Children know they can be bad or “sin.” They also know God forgives them. Children have an uncanny trust that God exists. They believe that God loves them and they want to give their love back to God. They understand the simplicity of the relationship before the world corrupts them, turns their world upside down and becomes so complex that confusion sets in. Children know that their heavenly Daddy has a world waiting for them where life is simple and know God loves them no matter what they do or don’t do.

So how do we know if we are children of God? We simply believe what Christ has done for us. We simply love God and allow him to love us. We simply trust that God will take care of us. We all have a simple choice.