The Promise Of The Spirit.5

"He will praise me and glorify me, by revealing my glory to you. All the Father's glory is mine as well. This is why I am able to make this promise to you: 

the Spirit will reveal my divine nature to you. 

If your child asked of you bread, would you offer a stone? If your child asked fish to eat, would you offer a snake? Would you serve a scorpion to the little ones who ask for an egg?" 

--Jesus

When we last visited the Happy Kuyper family they were basking in the joy of their infant daughter, Raleigh.  Recent news suddenly appearing on their Facebook page reveals they will soon triple their joy!  Identical twins are nestling comfortably in momma's belly!  More Kuyper's to bless the world!

One of the most sobering lessons of raising children, in my humble opinion, is the realization that (be patient, this takes years to completely comprehend) 

you never stop being a parent!

A vital lesson Jesus came to teach mankind is this: God, our Father, revealed in the Son of His love, 

never stops being child-like in His devotion to us!

How often did He stop to take a child to his arms in the midst of the swirl of doubt, despair, dullness and deceit to teach this vital truth: Receive the Child, Receive Me.  Receive Me, Receive the Father!  Be sure it wasn't the most beautiful child, nor the child we'd consider most likely to succeed, He'd choose to use so that eyes & ears become channels to the heart.  It was the child who most demonstrated child-likeness.

"For when is the child the ideal child in our eyes and to our hearts? Is it not when with gentle hand he takes his father by the beard, and turns that father's face up to his brothers and sisters to kiss? When even the lovely selfishness of love-seeking has vanished, and the heart is absorbed in loving?

In this, then, is God like the child: 

that he is simply and altogether our friend, 
our father

     our more than friend, father, and mother
          our infinite love-perfect God. 

Grand and strong beyond all that human imagination can conceive of poet-thinking and kingly action, 

He is delicate beyond all that human tenderness can conceive of husband or wife, 

Homely beyond all that human heart can conceive of father or mother. 

He has not two thoughts about us. 
With him all is simplicity of purpose and meaning and effort and end—namely, 
      that we should be as he is, 
           think the same thoughts, 
               mean the same things, 
                    possess the same blessedness. 

It is so plain that any one may see it, 
    every one ought to see it, 
      every one shall see it. 

It must be so. 

He is utterly true and good to us, 
nor shall anything withstand his will."

(George MacDonald, The Child In The Midst, Unspoken Sermons I)