Day 40 | Child's Play

May 30th, 2019

Matthew 18: 1-10
Childlike Humility
1 At that hour the disciples came to Yeshua, saying, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
2 And He called a child to Himself, set him in the midst of them,
3 and said, “Amen, I tell you, unless you turn and become like children, you shall never enter the kingdom of heaven.
4 Whoever then shall humble himself like this child, this one is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
5 And whoever welcomes one such child in My name, welcomes Me.
6 “But whoever causes one of these little ones who trust in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck and to be sunk in the depth of the sea!
7 Woe to the world because of snares! For snares must come, but woe to that man through whom the snare comes!
8 “And if your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away from you. It’s better for you to enter into life crippled or lame than having two hands or two feet, to be thrown into fiery Gehenna.
9 If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away from you. It’s better for you to enter into life with one eye than, having two eyes, to be thrown into fiery Gehenna.
10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that their angels in heaven continually see the face of My Father in heaven.

REFLECT

Humility. It can be a daunting word for those of us who want to follow after Yeshua. Here the disciples are questioning aloud which one of them would be the most famous. To understand why they were exploring this line of thought, it's important to understand the context. They were in Capernaum, which literally and quite fittingly translates to English as “village of the Comforter”. Here we see our Comforter at work performing great miracles among the people as they were being healed and set free from demonic oppression. It is important to note that Capernaum was a coastal city known for its great wealth. They approached Him with the question, “who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven,” because they saw elite, wealthy people being drawn towards Yeshua and must have felt starstruck by all the attention. They naturally assumed that since they were HIs “dudes” that they’d be rock stars! In response, the Lord brought a child before them. He did this in order to show them that: 1) authentic humility free of personal ambition was the only way to even enter the kingdom of God, 2) if there was anyone God gave special attention to, it was children, and 3) humility is expressed by lives that have departed from sinful behavior and practiced radical (by human standards) forgiveness. We must, as disciples of Yeshua, remember to exercise humility as He explained it in our lives. It will take forgetting ourselves, putting our own agendas aside, making the needs of others (especially the littlest among us) a priority before our own, and being intentional in fleeing sin and practicing forgiveness.