Babies, Little Children, and The Kingdom of God
The mission at Align is that we align with God to proclaim the gospel of Jesus and champion the sacredness of human life. A tangible way we carry out our mission is through pregnancy center ministry, which draws our focus to babies and the precious parents who bring babies into this world.
So, I guess it’s no wonder that the word “babies” jumped out at me when I recently read Luke chapter 18 verses 15 and 16 in the NIV. It says, “People were also bringing babies to Jesus for Him to place his hands on them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children to Him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
In a sense, one of the unique callings Jesus has placed on the lives of babies and little children is to show us by their very existence an important truth about the kingdom of God: that the kingdom of God belongs to human beings who, like babies, are completely dependent on someone else for life – that someone else being Jesus.
We can also see in this passage that Jesus gives parents the breathtaking responsibility of bringing babies and little children to Him so that He might touch their lives forever.
The theme God has given us for 2023 is Your Kingdom Come. Perhaps He did so because our ministry is so closely connected with babies, little children, and new parents – people linked so clearly in Scripture to a deeper understanding of the kingdom of God. His kingdom belongs to those of us who become like the littlest human beings Align serves: hearing Him as He calls us to come to Him and realizing our wonderful, beautiful dependence on Jesus for life.