THE CHILDREN'S BLESSINGS

To be blessed means to be made happy by receiving something from God. Even the fields around us partake of His blessing when they drink the rain and grow useful plants. But whereas this old creation is only for a time, the blessings which God gives by the Holy Spirit to the believer on the Lord Jesus are for eternity as well as for time.

Jesus welcomed the little children, and blessed them, taking them in His arms. This is the only time in the New Testament that this part of the Lord's body is mentioned. If the older children think carefully, they will remember at least fifteen distinct members of His body in the Gospels. With the Psalms, Prophets and other scriptures, reference is made altogether to about thirty.

But whilst there is always blessing in thinking about the Lord Jesus, we must remember that we know Him now in glory. Mark's Gospel says that He was taken up into heaven and then that He sat at the right hand of God. The former could be seen by the ordinary eye, but the latter only by the eye of faith. Therefore our blessings are in heavenly places.

One great blessing that even the little ones have is to know God as their Father who cares for them and watches over them. Also Timothy, from boyhood, had known the sacred letters which, through faith in Christ Jesus, were salvation to him and were enough to make him a man of God when he grew up. Do you, too, learn and know the Scriptures?

J.C.Evershed

London.