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CHAPTER FOUR

STILL LOOKING WITH A CHILD

AND LOOKING AFTER ONE SPIRITUALLY

This is part II in the series on the child. It follows on the basis of Chapter Three, which should be read first. 

Daddy, someone at school said I am not a Christian. I said I think that I am. Who is right ?

Well how did  we look at the Creator ?

We saw what happens and what was back of it.

Let us do so again, about this.

Good, I think I like that.

I believe in God and I am happy Jesus died for my sins. Does that make me a Christian ? I would have thought that it did. Does it ?

We will have  to look and see.

I mean that if I want to thank God for sending Jesus to die for me, and am glad about it, isn't this to belong to Him,  so that I am a Christian.

This is all  good, and I wish the whole world thought as you now do, but we need to make sure, don't we ?

I should like to do that.

If you sin,  what do you do ?

I feel ashamed and come to Jesus in my heart and I am learning to ask Him to forgive me,  since He died for me.

Do you trust Him to do that ?

What ? forgive me ? Of course.

You believe He can do this ?

Why otherwise would I ask Him ? He is there to do it.

He is reliable, and so you can trust Him. I do.

So do I.

Suppose then you wanted  to  do something really badly, something you thought would be a very good idea, but you read in the Bible that it was really a tricky thing and best left alone, what would you think about doing then ?

Well it would all depend ... no, it wouldn't. If it said that, I would not want to do it, for God knows.

What if it meant giving up something you really love ?

Then too bad for what I really love. We can  make mistakes, can't we ?

We certainly can. If you were a Navy of ships, then, who would be your Admiral ?

I would, but I would let Jesus be my Admiral.

What if you, Admiral John, found that Admiral Jesus said no and you had just commanded something to happen, what then ?

Then I would have to advise the ships  or their various captains of my mistake, and revise orders.

What if they would not do it ?

Then I would have to ask Admiral Jesus to act so that they do.

That is trust.

Even my dog trusts me, so how would I not trust Him ?

But what if some boys at school said you were stupid to be a Christian and were missing a good life to come, a good career, that you would always be in trouble since the School is teaching bad things about it ?

Then I would ask Jesus to put ideas into my mind and words into my mouth, so that I could answer them, and maybe some of them would cease to be so hypnotised by sin, as to think that way. If not, it is not I who am God, I leave them to him. Why not ?

Why not indeed! You are right. So you trust Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, in God as your Creator!

Yes, but does that make me a Christian ?

Where are your sins at the moment ?

In my heart, I suppose, though I try to vacuum them out by asking Jesus to work on me.

If they had an address, what would it be ? Jesus or John ?

Of course it would be John.

Then what about a change of address for them ?

How and where, Daddy ?

Jesus once said to some people, "If you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." They kept their sins, address ? themselves (unless they were later sorry, and gave different orders concerning their sins,  repented we call it).

I do not want to die in my sins. That would be horrid.

Then change their address. Since Jesus came to die for them, address them to him.

But will that do much, since they have to actually change address, and not just have them in a letter not posted.

True indeed, so post the letter.

Where ?

You believe in Jesus, so call that trusting Him, or having faith in Him.

Is faith something ?

Yes, it is a sense of looking to something or someone, being sure, and knowing in your heart that this thing or person is going to be all that is needed, true and reliable, dependable, sure to act aright.

Do I have faith in Jesus, is that it ?

Yes it is.

Well I do.

Good. Then ask Him to receive the letter changing the address of all your sins.

What about future sins, if I do them ?

Those too.

Could we put in it all sins for ever ?

Excellent idea, for He said, "I will never leave or forsake you" - you see that in a book in the Bible called Hebrews in Chapter 13. .

Then how do I tell Him  ?

You could simply ask Him to come and get them, for there is nothing too hard for Him.

And then He does, doesn't He, for He died for my sins.

Yes He does. Have you done this ?

Not yet.

There is no time like the present.

I will pray that then.

He says in His word, this:

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all that is not right."
That is in the First Letter of John, Chapter 1. We call it an Epistle.

But He could not do that if He were dead, could He ?

No, but He is resurrected. Death could not keep God down, even if He died for sin, which is deadly.

True, and it actually says this very kind of thing in Acts Chapter 2 and verses 23-24.

Then I will pray and ask Him to receive all my sins, and while I am about it, receive me too, for if He is alive, and He is, and I am alive, something that I fully become when my sins are taken away, then we need to live together.

The Bible actually puts this, "Christ in  you, the hope of glory," and that is in a book in the Bible,  called Colossians, Chapter 1, verse 27.

I have done that.  So now I am His, and since He lives in me, He is mine, isn't that about it ?

Ít is exactly it. As you have believed, so you are a Christian.

What can I say now to the people who say I am not ?

You tell them, perhaps something like this.

Look, you say, I was born in Australia. What am I ? An Italian ? Of course not! they reply. Then the Bible says that when I have been born again, that is, make different by coming back to God who first created me, then I am a Christian. I am born in Him, who is alive from the dead, and gives new life to His children.

You, a Christian! they may say.

Then you reply, That is correct, that shows where I was born.

Born! they may say.

Yes, it is hard to describe to people not born, about being born. You should try it!

But we do not believe ? they may say.

Then all that is clear, you say. I am a Christian since this is where I was born the second time, and you are not since you were not born the second time. So what is there to talk about ?
If they are later interested, you can tell them.

But I need to know more of the Bible.

Yes, and I will help you bit by bit, to get things clear so that you know where to find things.

It is good to be a Christian and not just to hope, isn't it!

Yes, Jesus said that He was like a door, and you had to enter through Him, and that is in the Gospel of John, Chapter 10, verse 9. You have entered that door by faith. Now He also says in that same Chapter, verses 27-28, that His sheep hear His voice, that He knows them and they know His voice, and that they will never perish, and that no one can snatch them from the hand of His Father who sent Him to earth as the Saviour.

So there can be no smash and grab raids to get me out!

Correct. They may try; but they are not born as Christians, and are out of control. Do not let them trouble you; but sometimes they get mad, as they did with Stephen. He was a wonderful Christian you read about in Acts of the Apostles, Chapters 6 and 7. He was telling the Jews who did NOT believe about the Temple which is Jesus Christ.

How is He the Temple ? It is made of stone.

He is a Temple in Spirit. Indeed, the author of man is more temple than any stones man puts together. Think, He died like a sacrifice, for they used to kill animals to picture sin being bad enough for death, and to seek pardon in terms of the picture of death in the beast. Christ died without a temple, cursed for being good and for what He was and did. He sacrificed Himself in the Temple of His own life.

Wow! you mean that people who do not want a new address for their sins, and a new Spirit in their hearts, can hate like that.

They even killed Jesus.

And what happened to Stephen ?

When He had made it clear that it is not temples of stone but the truth of God which matters most, and that they were always rebelling against God, even to the killing of Christ, they stoned him to death.

Each stone then would be like an angel, to bring him closer to God. Did he hate them for it, for it must have hurt atrociously, Daddy ?

No, he cried out as he died, "Lord, do not charge them with this sin!"

That simply shines, like a diamond it is, for it is clear: they are imprisoned in sin, and he is telling them how to get out and to get on with life, and they kill him for it, and so he being forgiven, forgives them. You don't have to show how good you are by stirring amongst them any more.

But what a great apostle, or man sent of God, saw there in the face and death of Stephen when he was being stoned, may have helped him to become a Christian later, and many churches came that way.

Now when boys try to make me smart and say I am foolish, I shall know to tell them the truth, and not try to get back at them.

A Christian you are then, and as a Christian you will act.

It is like coming to another land,  like Charlie my friend: he came from Britain. He was first born there, but now his life is here.

Yes, it is as if he died to Britain, and now his life is hidden away in Australia.

It is, isn't it!

The apostle Paul, in Colossians, says this, at Chapter 3 and verse 3:

"For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God."

I suppose this means that Admiral John is no more Admiral, and has sort of died to that post. Yes, but you live under Jesus as Admiral, and must marshal your troops!

And 'hidden' means that since I have entered through Him as the door, I am inside God's kingdom and hence secure from enemy eyes, who cannot really see me any longer, as I now am!

That's just what the apostle Paul says in an Epistle called I Corinthians, in its Chapter 2, verses 15 and 16. It also means that God has you covered, so that any sin is already contained, and no one can really know you any more, unless they know God, whose you are. They simply would not understand.

It would be like someone on board a ship in the Navy, and someone on the land, who did not believe in ships, trying to understand you.

Exactly. It would all be confusing to such a person.

It is good living in Jesus; for you have a place to be.

There is no place like it.

Now I can understand the others at school a lot better.