Can all children hear the truth and have a choice to follow Jesus?
In his book Transformation, Ed Silvoso explains how Jesus “came to save that which was lost.” Because of the fall of humanity, Ed identifies three specific losses:
Because of the fall of humanity, Ed identifies three specific losses: 1) “our direct and intimate relationship with God,” 2) “God’s intended “harmonious relationship between men and women,” and 3) “the marketplace,” or “business, government, and education.”[1] It is not an accident that Ed includes education as the third leg of the marketplace tripod, because children are at the heart of the marketplace movement, as we will soon see. Jesus is showing us that the education of children is vital to the transformation of our children and the next generation.
Jesus is intensely interested in the education of our children. The Old Testament and the story of Jesus blessing the children in three of the four New Testament gospels clearly articulates the importance of teaching children. The Apostle Mark records Jesus’ powerful message about allowing children to come to His arms:
And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them.[2]
The Kingdom of God
At the beginning of this passage, the disciples rebuked adults who were bringing children to Jesus. This is how the enemy tries deceive us. HE claims children are too young to benefit from spending time with Jesus and that children cannot understand His profound teachings. The disciples were deluded by this common deception.
When I was a fourth-grade teacher, I discovered I could lead every child to receive Christ as his or her personal Savior because children have hearts with fertile soil for germinating the seeds of truth. I was puzzled by how readily children prayed to receive Christ. At first, the enemy tried to confuse me, as he confused the disciples, with the thought that it was easy for me to lead my fourth-grade students to receive Christ as their Savior because their responses were shallow and possibly even meaningless. Of course, that false message is a lie from the father of all lies.
Jesus’ words, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these,”[3] teach us that children have a heart to receive the truth. They have a unique default response to respond to Jesus and receive the kingdom of God.
What is Jesus saying? The main point is this: When brought to Jesus, children naturally fall into His arms because “the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” We are to “permit” them to come to Jesus and “not hinder them” because they, by default, possess “the kingdom of God” unless we hinder them.
This insight sheds light on the promise found in Proverbs 22:6 (NKHV):
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Here is the critical question: What happens if children in your neighborhood school do not hear the Word of God and the seed does not fall on the fertile soil of their hearts while they are young? I fear that we, as light bearers of the truth, “hinder them” if we do not share our light and let the children come to Jesus.
Think of all the children in your neighborhood schools. They have by default the same fertile soil to possess the kingdom of God as the children Jesus took “in His arms” and laid His hands on to bless them. The children in our neighborhood schools are not different from every one of the children who naturally received Jesus as their personal Savior when I was a fourth-grade teacher. Your neighborhood schoolchildren are not different from the approximately 500 children in the neighborhood public schools near Valley Christian Schools who personally received a new Bible with their name and the date of their second birthday when they received Jesus as Savior and He took them in His arms and blessed them.
We are the arms and the hands of Jesus to bless the children in our neighborhood schools. You can serve as the presence of Jesus’ love to imprint His presence and truth upon their hearts forever. That is why the mentee students in our neighborhood schools begin jumping up and down with excitement when the bus arrives on their campus bringing our high school mentor students for the Junior University and Lighthouse Initiative. Our mentor students take the love of Jesus to their mentee students.
That is why God inspired Ed Silvoso to include education as the third and potentially the most influential sector in the marketplace. Education determines whether or not the culture has a heart for God and whether or not the next generation develops hearts to love the Lord our God and their neighbors as themselves.
Imprinted by Truth
Perhaps you have heard of the psychological phenomenon called imprinting. Imprinting is defined as “rapid learning that occurs during a brief receptive period, typically soon after birth or hatching, and establishes a long-lasting behavioral response to a specific individual or object, as an attachment to [a] parent…”[4] For example, goslings follow the motion of the first object they see larger than themselves. Such imprinting determines the self-perceived identity of the gosling. If it first sees a dog, the gosling will follow the dog as though the dog were its parent. If it first sees a human, it will follow and identify with the human. When goslings are incubated in captivity with the intent to release the grown goose into the wild, zoologists must use puppets resembling a mother goose as the first object the gosling sees after hatching. Imprinting is so strong that if the incubated gosling first sees a human, the matured goose will refuse to leave human companions for release into the wild. Imprinting determines the self-identity of the gosling.
As the identity of hatched geese and ducks is imprinted based on the first image they see larger than themselves, the spiritual identity of children is imprinted on children as they get their first glimpse of Jesus while they are yet children. Jesus referred to children when He said, “… of such is the kingdom of God.”[5] Just as God made goslings and other animals to imprint on and follow their mother after birth our Creator made children to imprint on Him and to gain their self-identity as followers of Jesus and their heavenly Father.
Children are easily imprinted with the truth of their Creator when we follow Jesus’ command: “Permit the children to come to Me.”[6] Never is the soil of the heart more fertile for germinating divine seed and more receptive to the Savior’s blessings than in the hearts of young children. Jesus said “the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” because the future of every generation is determined by children who are happy to unashamedly be held in the arms of Jesus while in full view of everyone. We must understand how critical it is for Christians not to “forbid” the children in our neighborhood schools from being held in the arms of Jesus. It is for certain: The spiritual identity of a nation is determined by the imprint of education received while children are in school, and not after they join the marketplace as grown adults.
Breaking Strongholds
If, as Jesus taught, the default response in children is to possess the kingdom of God, why do the children in public schools seem so hopelessly out of reach of the good news of Jesus? Ed Silvoso describes “a mindset impregnated with hopelessness that causes us to accept as unchangeable, situations that we know are contrary to the will of God” as “a spiritual stronghold.”[7]
The disciples had a stronghold mindset when they tried to forbid the children from coming to Jesus. The Bible says Jesus was “indignant”! Please note: The Greek word aganakteho in Mark 10:14 in reference to Jesus being “indignant” is used to express Jesus’ extreme displeasure only this one time in the entire Bible. Only once in the New Testament is Jesus described as being “indignant” (NASB) or “much displeased” (NKJV), and it happened when His disciples tried to forbid children from coming to Him.
We need to ask ourselves, if Jesus is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance,”[8] and if the kingdom of God belongs to all children introduced to Jesus, what does this mean? Could it be Jesus wants all children in all schools to hear the Truth, have a choice, and no longer be sheltered from the Truth? What about the children in your neighborhood school?
Remember, a stronghold is “a mindset impregnated with hopelessness that causes us to accept as unchangeable, situations that we know are contrary to the will of God.”
I discovered two personal, educational strongholds God revealed to me as our prayer intercessors asked Him to transform our neighborhood schools. I had come to believe:
- The Supreme Court ruled that Bibles and prayer are illegal in our public schools, so there is nothing we can do to bring God’s goodness, peace, and joy to students in our public schools. (Read The Quest Continues to learn how the free exercise clause of the 1st Amendment protects your opportunity to adopt your neighborhood school through the Junior University and Lighthouse Initiative.)
- I serve at Valley Christian Schools because all public schools are off-limits to Christians and ultimately true transformation.
Then God began to put His finger on these strongholds. I cheered when I learned from Ed Silvoso, “The fold is not equal to the flock,” and “Pastors are called to pastor the city, not just the church.”[9] When I read Ed’s discussion of Jesus’ instructions in the gospels closely, I wholeheartedly agreed, church pastors should tend to the whole flock. Ed explains:
In John 21:15 (NKJV), when Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love Me?” and Peter replied in the affirmative, Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”
Jesus was very specific in His instructions: “Feed my lambs.” In the parable of the good shepherd, the 99 lambs are left in the pasture, with its abundance of food, while the good shepherd goes looking for the lamb that is lost and most likely now hungrier than the others (see Matt. 18: 12-14).
… First, those in the pews represent a minority of the lambs entrusted to us; and second, if we have done our job half-right, those in the pews should be able to feed themselves. The lost lambs need our care more, and they need it urgently. That is where our passion should be.
… We have erred in considering the fold to be the entire flock. This is a mistake. The flock and the fold are not the same. The flock is made up of the population of the city, the majority of whom are lost and spiritually hungry. The fold, much smaller, is occupied by those who are saved. When Jesus instructed Peter to feed His lambs, He was speaking primarily of those outside the fold, because they are the ones in greater need of feeding.[10]
I saw the need for pastors to go after the one and leave the 99 others who are safe in the pasture. But the idea became uncomfortable when I reflected on the phrase Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians, “pastors and teachers.” It reads, “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry…”[11] As a Christian educator, I am a teacher at heart. Ed did not help when he told me, “you are a pastor of education.”
“Wow! I thought, the children in our valley are just as much my responsibility before the Lord as the children up on the hill within the walls of Valley Christian Schools.”
[1] Silvoso, Ed. Transformation. Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2007: 54-55. Print.
[2] Mark 10:13-16, NASB.
[3] Mark 10:14, NASB.
[4] “Imprinting,” Dictionary.com: Web. Accessed October 5, 2015.
[5] See Mark 10:14, NKJV.
[6] See Mark 10:14, NASB.
[7] Silvoso, Ed. That None Should Perish. Bloomington, MN: Chosen Books, 1995: 155. Print.
[8] See 2 Peter 3:9, NKJV.
[9] Silvoso, Prayer Evangelism. Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2000: 154, 156. Print.
[10] Silvoso, Prayer Evangelism, 154-155.
[11] Ephesians 4:11-12, NKJV.