Matthew 18:1-6 Jesus said, "Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." That's almost as difficult as what He said to Nicodemus, "You must be born again." The sober truth is that what we are or try to become can never be good enough or even acceptable to a Holy God. The important word here is change. The truth is that your physical birth and life, as good and upright as it might be, is not only not good enough; but it is also a whole different thing. Certainly, there are parallels and similarities; that's why Jesus said, "like little children." Our relationship with Christ is not something that is merely patched into our life." Jesus coming into our lives made alive a part of us that was dead until that time. A newborn baby does not take charge of his life at birth; but submits himself, willingly or unwillingly to his care givers. There is a built-in desire to please those to whom he is bonded. The child learns and grows by watching and being taught, but ultimately by trying what he sees for himself until he is successful. We can't do that for him. With our spiritual child, we so often become impatient and patch some biblical characteristics into our flesh lives and call it the real thing. Jesus said, "change!", get yourself out of the driver's seat and off the throne and allow your spiritual child to be a child so that he can learn how to be a spiritual adult. Your flesh cannot teach your spirit, it's in a whole different world. Your spirit child can only grow and mature by being allowed to be subject to the Holy Spirit through the Word and other spiritual adults in the body of Christ. Ultimately the flesh life needs to learn to be subject to the spirit life (die), never the other way around. Allowing this to happen is not easy - it takes much prayer and a lot of climbing out of the driver's seat.

You Can't Become an Adult Until You Learn to be a Child!