Is your faith really childlike?

Sadly at Christmas we all become childlike, but the rest of the year we have an impossible time having childlike faith. I will honestly admit I am a big kid, anyone who knows me knows that. But I am also very driven, so I believe in staying on course and full speed ahead at all times. My coaching side kicks in and I feel like if I am not doing something to better myself I am wasting time. But, from about Halloween on it slowly gets to me. It starts with the great pumpkin Charlie brown, then Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and boom ABCFamily’s 25 days of Christmas takes over my life. I love Rudolph that’s my favorite along with Charlie Brown. P.J. loves the Grinch so we watch that one several times. We all turn into big kids don’t we, thinking about Christmases past and our childhood memories that are so fond. Kids believe in things with all their hearts, whatever it may be. As adults, we have seen so many things in a different light that it makes us skeptical about everything. John 20:24Now Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Ecclesiastes 1:18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;the more knowledge, the more grief. Doubting Thomas gets a bad rap, but we are just the same, we need proof of so many things that if we are honest we believed more strongly as kids than we do now. It is now “tell the current time” now be honest how many of us looked? You trust me as your Pastor, you trust me to share with you God’s word but you don’t trust me to tell you what time it is? Interesting! The older we get, the more we struggle to believe in things. Why? Because we have a better knowledge of how things work, we realize that the people we looked up to and idolized were just people. Many of us have been let down by people and we gain a perspective of God as if He can ever make a mistake and let us down in some way. “Dear Santa, please get me some things on my list. And there is some fruit salad & water to help your type 2 diabetes. “ There you have it, this young man thinks Santa has diabetes. He is able to fly a sleigh around the world in just a matter of hours, slip down a chimney and deliver millions of toys to millions of kids, but he can’t handle eating cookies and drinking milk. How often do we see a God who made everything, who knit us together in our mother’s womb as if he has a weakness of some sort. God knows everything, and He is all powerful but He can’t get me out of this mess I am in. “Dear Santa, I like you. Do you like me? I would like a DS Mario please. Next year I will give you money. How does that sound? Pretty cool. It does to me. That’s the deal.” We often try to bribe God don’t we. We think in order for Him to forgive us we need to do something. God if you will forgive me I will go to church more, I will read my Bible more or give more to those in need. God sent His Son to die on a cross for your sins, not for your gifts or bribes. He did it because he loves you, not because he wants something in return. We love the people we love in our lives because they love us, hopefully not because they buy us stuff or do things for us to bribe us into loving them. If that is the case that isn’t love anyway. Dear Santa,“We don’t need very many presents. You can give them to people who don’t have money to buy toys.” We think we have it all together, so the sermon must be for someone else. That facebook post or tweet full of Spiritual insight has to be for someone else, not me I am a pillar of Christianity. If you aren’t asking God for anything then you aren’t evaluating your life closely enough. “Dear Santa, I want you to know that I want a puppy, I do not believe in you and I do not think you are real. A lot of us ask God for things just encase. I meet a lot of people who say they want to pray and accept Jesus, and get baptized just encase all the religion stuff is right. Sadly, that is not salvation, that is insurance. God didn’t send His Son into this world for insurance, it was for salvation and love and as a way to pour his grace and mercy out on us. Dear Santa, I would like a new keyboard and some costume jewelry but please don’t go into my private things. Thanks, God I love you, I believe in you whole heartedly. I want to live for you, I want the salvation and the forgiveness, but wait I need to keep this one part of my life mine. You can have these days each week, this time frame each night but this one part is my life and I can’t let you in there. Dear Santa,I know that you already know most of my Christmas list so I won’t bore you with all of the details. I really do want a bike and a bb gun, and anything else you think I might enjoy. And I was just wondering how you eat the hot wings from Domino’s without staining your white gloves. You know the ones you are eating on the Domino’s billboard by my house. Back to doubting Thomas, God I believe in you. I believe you sent your Son to die on a cross for me. But how do you do this……… If you fully understood God He would no longer be God would He? I remember watching magic tricks as a kid and as I got older I figured out how they were done and guess what they were not magic, but they were tricks. God is not magical in any way. He is all powerful, all knowing and in every place at one time. I do not need to know how or why He is, I just need to know that He is. You see sometimes we get so scientific we end up being like Thomas and well, we forget that we are not supposed to understand God fully. Dear Santa,For Christmas I want walkie talkies, the ones that really work, I also want some handcuffs and a gun, with a real police car. One just like the ones they drive on television. I also want some dinosaurs, a fake camera and cellphone and some small cowboys and indian toys. My sister wants all of the same stuff that I do, only pretend police stuff not the real ones for her please. And here we go with the competing. There are three types of Christians: 1. Christians who have a revelation from God and cannot wait to tell everyone about it and share it with everyone. 2. Christians who have a revelation and are just too lazy to share it, they get it and they add it to their knowledge base with no plan of doing anything with it. 3. Christians who take what God reveals to them and use it to make themselves feel and seem better than other Christians. That kid wanted all the real stuff, and all of the fake stuff for his sister. Little league and youth sports is a funny thing. You have the dads out there that just want to be a part of their kids lives. You have the dads who want to make sure their kid is the best and focus soley on their child. Then you have the dads who realize that in order for their child to get better all of the other kids need to get better therefore they spend as much time as they can with all of the kids. As Christians we need to realize that we cannot grow unless other believers around us are growing with us. And we cannot reach this world for Christ unless we are all in it together. “Dear Santa,All I want for Christmas is peace and a job for my daddy. I am a big boy and I do not want any toys. Mommy said you will not be coming to my house this year because Obama got elected again.” This child is limiting the abilities of what God can accomplish based on what others believe. What are you going to do with Jesus this Christmas, how powerful do you truly believe he is? How much has your faith grown or dwindled because of your head getting in the way of your heart?