“Except you are converted and become like children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).
What’s lacking in the great majority of religious experts–of all tribes, all beliefs, all everything!–is a childlike humility.
I’ve sat across from the salespeople hawking Jehovah’s Witness and Mormon doctrine door to door and been amazed at the sheer gall and arrogance of these know-it-alls.
I’ve sat in the auditoriums and classrooms when prophecy teachers were spreading out their charts and telling far more than they could ever know, pronouncing their anathema upon anyone daring to believe otherwise and taking no prisoners in the process.
I’ve sat in massive conferences among thousands of my peers and heard ignorance spouted as truth but camouflaged with alliteration and pious phrases and encouraged and affirmed by thundering echoes of “amens” and “hallelujahs”.
In every case, I longed to hear someone say, “We see through a glass darkly….” (I Corinthians 13:12).
To hear someone say, “I have not arrived. I press toward the mark….” (Philippians 3:12-13).
To hear someone say, “We do not know how to pray as we should….” (Romans 8:26)
To hear someone say, “That which I am doing, I do not understand. I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:15).
Where is the childlike spirit we hear so much of in the Word?
1) I can hear someone say, “Well, we enter the kingdom by that spirit, but thereafter, as we learn and grow, we become teachers and instructors and gain confidence and are allowed to become more bombastic.”
Rubbish.
We are expected to be of a childlike spirit all our lives. We are to remain teachable all the way to the end. We are instructed to grow in the fruit of the Spirit, and that includes such traits as gentleness, humility, self-control, and faithfulness (Galatians 5:22-23).
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