Lenten Devo #29—Like Children

"Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3-4)

We normally use this passage to look ourselves in the mirror and to ask if we are having faith like children—whatever we may take that to mean.

But this passage can also inform our prayers for the lost.

Everyone who comes to Jesus must do so in humility. There is no distinction, nothing like what the world presents to us. Children were nothing in Jesus' day. But he holds them up as a model of faith. The world's classes don't exist before God. The only division is between the humble who have received grace and the proud who have refused it.

When you pray for the lost, then, you must pray that God would humble them in order that they would see their need of Jesus, see that they cannot be self-sufficient, see that they have hard, unbelieving hearts. You must pray that God would make them like children before him.

Who are you praying for today?