Christ Child

“ For the little child is the true St Christopher: in him is the light and life of Christ; and every birth is a message of salvation, and a reminder that we, too, must humble ourselves and become as little children. ”

“ Only the Bible gives the child a place.
“The Child for Christ” must be the watchword of our “organized motherhood for the children of the world.” The Bible is the only sacred book that gives the child a place of importance. Christ was the only founder of a religion who raised childhood into a type of those who were fit to enter His Kingdom. ”

“ And this is just the way in which Jesus was acting when he did and said so much to show his interest in children. He wants them all to understand that he is their friend; that he loves them, and wants them to come to him and love and serve him. And so every child who hears or reads about Jesus may feel encouraged to say:
"Once in his arms the Saviour took
Young children just like me,
And blessed them with his voice and look
As kind as kind could be. ”

“ Christ commends the humility of the little child and the spirit of those who receive a child gladly, whether into the home, the school room, or into any part of their sphere of influence. There is no place in Christ’s Kingdom for the one who “does not want to be bothered with children” or who provokes, injures, neglects, despises, or causes one little one to sin. ”

“ Then the people understood that the beautiful sleeping child, near whom were the carpenter's tools, was the Christ-child in person, become for an hour such as he was when he worked in his parents' house, and they bowed themselves before that miracle that the good God had seen fit to work, to reward the faith and charity of a child. ”

“ Not once in history alone, but every day and always, Christ sets the little child in the midst of us as the truest reminder of himself, teaching us the secret of happiness, and leading us into the kingdom by the way of humility and tenderness. ”

“ Another inference from these precious words of Christ is the importance of seeking to win the children for Christ while yet they are children, ere the evil days come, or the years draw nigh, when they will be apt to say they have no pleasure in Him. It is a sad thing to think how soon the susceptibility of the child-nature may harden into the impenetrability which is sometimes found even in youth. ”

“ For a child can see Him in imagination, and be made to understand something of his sweet and tender humanity. His affections can be drawn out toward Him by the simple recital of his deeds of mercy and compassion, his gentleness, forbearance, integrity, courage, sincerity, his patience in suffering, his unbounded forgiveness and his unselfish love. And in learning about Christ, the child is learning about God. He is acquiring a genuine knowledge of the Divine character. In learning to love and obey Christ, he is learning to love and obey God. ”

“ All missionary work for children, in the homes, in day school and boarding school, in church and Sunday-School, in hospital and orphanage, must have the great two-fold aim ever in view,—to win the child to Christ, to train the child for Christ. It remains for us to study briefly several agencies not yet touched upon, that have been greatly blessed in their effect upon children of many lands. ”

“ Christ prayed as a child. The spirit of a child was found in Him. At the grave of Lazarus “Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, Father.” Again we hear Him begin His prayer after this fashion: “In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father.” So also on other occasions we find Him in praying addressing God as His Father, assuming the attitude of the child asking something of the Father. What confidence, simplicity and artlessness! What readiness, freeness and fullness of approach are all involved in the spirit of a child! ”

“ But why were you christened? not merely because your parents chose, but because it was their duty. Every child ought to be christened, because every child belongs to Christ. Every child is in debt to Christ,—every child is bound to serve Christ. ”

“ You make the child confess that he is a person in Jesus Christ, that Christ has redeemed him, his very self, and taken him to Himself, and made him not merely God’s creature, or God’s slave, but God’s child. You make the child confess that his duty as a person is not towards himself, to do what he likes, and follow his own carnal lusts; but toward God and toward his neighbours, who are in God’s kingdom of heaven as well as he. ”

“ The fact evidently is, that the great mass of children ought to be led directly to Christ and become child-Christians without delay; and multitudes would so become, methinks, if parents and teachers and pastors had sufficient confidence in the power of God's Word and Spirit, and had faith for the early conversion of children to God. ”

“ And why, but because the Catechism teaches the child to believe that Jesus Christ is his salvation now, in this life, and believes that to be enough for him to know? For if Christ be eternal, His salvation must be eternal also. If Christ’s life be in the child, eternal life must be in the child; for Christ’s life must be eternal, even as Christ Himself ”

“ Since, then, even men who are not good will be kind to their children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give good things to them who ask Him! The Lord loves to hear the prayer of a little [61] child. You may pray when you like; at your mothers knee, or in the day if you feel you want God's help. He will hear [62] you if you say in your mind, "Make me a good child, for Christ's sake."
One day a lawyer stood up from among the crowd who listened to Our Lord and asked Jesus a question. He did it to try the Lord and see if He would say something that the priests might think wrong. ”

“ He entered into and passed through all the various states and stages of man’s development on earth, and thus became adapted to the wants of every period of our life,—man’s infancy as well as man’s maturity. Ireneus says, "Christ Jesus became a child to children, a youth to youth, and a man to man." The fact, too, that the blessings of the covenant of grace are extended to the children of believing parents, is sufficient to prove the validity of infant baptism. ”

“ If nurture has cared for the spiritual life of the child, he will probably desire during this period to publicly confess his love for Jesus Christ. Even if he has not been so nurtured, every condition in his life makes it easier now than it ever will be later to lead him to acceptance of Christ. Though there comes a great spiritual awakening in adolescence, there is at the same time more in the life to oppose the decision for Christ than in childhood. ”

“ Up to this point our study of The Child in non-Christian lands has shown that the missionary must touch the home life, the customs and ideals handed down from remote ancestors, the play and work and education and physical development of the child, in order to give him his inalienable rights, while in the next chapter we shall dwell on his right to know of Jesus Christ, the children’s Friend. ”

“ In order that this may be realized, it is first of all necessary that there be the proper surroundings. We cannot expect that parent to draw out these graces of the new life in the child, who is not himself imbued with a spirit of living faith and fervent love to Christ. ”

“ A new sense of reverence for the child is one of the most promising notes of our age, and the problems arising out of the care and education of the young have created the new sciences of pedagogy and child-psychology. Regard for child-life owes its inspiration directly to the teaching of Christ. The child in the simplicity of its nature and innocence of its dependence is, according to the Master, the perfect pattern of those who seek after God. ”

“ Read thoughtfully the attested truth concerning the childhood of the Christ: "And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him." [5]
In such simplicity is the normal, natural development of the Boy Jesus made clear. He came among men to experience all the natural conditions of mortality; He was born as truly a dependent, helpless babe as is any other child; His infancy was in all common features as the infancy of others; His boyhood was actual boyhood, His development was as necessary and as real as that of all children. ”

“ The Indwelling of Christ is a thought particularly fit for the children, because their large faith does not stumble at the mystery, their imagination leaps readily to the marvel, that the King Himself should inhabit a little child's heart. ”

“ Those who belong to Christ must become like children in obedience, truthfulness, trustfulness, purity, humility and faith. The child is an artless, natural, trusting believer; the childish one is careless, foolish, and neglectful. ”

“ Paul makes it clear enough that it takes more than an Abrahamic pedigree to be a child of God. To be a child of God requires faith in Christ. ”

“ Christ in the child which makes it shrink from whatever it has been told is wrong. It is Christ in the young man, which fills him with lofty aspirations, hopes of bettering the world around him, hopes of training his soul to be all that it can be, and of putting forth all his powers in the service of Christ. ”

“ A great part of God's kingdom is composed of such literally; and those only who resemble little children shall be received into it: see on [1159] (note) . Christ loves little children because he loves simplicity and innocence; he has sanctified their very age by passing through it himself - the holy Jesus was once a little child.
Verse 15
He - departed thence - That is, from that part of Judea which was beyond Jordan, [1160] ; and then went to Jericho. ”

“ Now if the boy begins to ask himself questions about Jesus Christ, whether He is the son of God, and whether He could take on Himself the sins of the world, I want to tell him that I am sure it is not so. I want the boy to remember that nobody can take away his sins: nobody but himself. He must accept his punishments. He must even go forward to meet them, for through them alone can he learn how to keep away from sin. And I want him to regard the life of Jesus Christ with love and reverence, and make his own life as much like it as he can. ”

“ But Jesus, looking upon the boy and upon the father and upon the Pharisees, and upon all them which were standing nigh, perceived straightway that there was no faith as yet that the boy should be cured. Therefore he asked the father certain questions touching the boy, and the man replied that the boy had been possessed even from [pg 275] a child; “and oftentimes,” continued he, weeping as he spake, “it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters to destroy him; but if thou canst do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” ”

“ And although we are placed so much at the head over these youths, Christ is also our head and according to his command we must govern and conduct our householding with the young. The Lord Jesus when he came to this world to seek and to make happy what was lost, called the children, especially out of love, to himself, blessed them, embraced them and promised them the kingdom of heaven, as can be seen Mark ix, verses 36, 37. Therefore it cannot turn out well with ourselves if we act tyranically with them, although they must be subjected to training and instruction in the Lord. ”

“ Just as if Jesus had never lived,
As if He had never died."
Thank God the Christianity of today is coming nearer the world's need. Live to help that on. Thank God men know better, by a hair's breadth, what religion is, what God is, who Christ is, where Christ is. Who is Christ? He who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick. And where is Christ? Where?—"Whoso shall receive a little child in My name receiveth Me.' And who are Christ's? "Every one that loveth is born of God." ”

“ It is also compared to a house, and every converted sinner is one of the domestics, one of the family, a servant and a child in God's house. In v. 20 the church is compared to a building. The apostles and prophets are the foundation of that building. They may be so called in a secondary sense, Christ himself being the primary foundation; but we are rather to understand it of the doctrine delivered by the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New. ”

“ During my pastoral labours for many years I found, that numbers of true children of God are without the knowledge of their standing in Christ. They do not enter into the fact, that they have passed from death unto life, that they are regenerated, pardoned, justified, accepted in the Beloved, and are no longer under condemnation. ”

“ Its object is not to lay men under obligations, nor does it distinguish between friends and enemies, or look to gratitude or ingratitude, but most freely and willingly spends itself and its goods, whether it loses them through ingratitude, or gains goodwill. For thus did its Father, distributing all things to all men abundantly and freely, making His sun to rise upon the just and the unjust. Thus, too, the child does and endures nothing except from the free joy with which it delights through Christ in God, the Giver of such great gifts. ”

“ It is looked upon as the indication of a kind and tender disposition to take notice of little children, and this was remarkable in our Lord Jesus, which is an encouragement not only to little children to apply themselves to Christ when they are very young, but to grown people, who are conscious to themselves of weakness and childishness, and of being, through manifold infirmities, helpless and useless, like little children. ”