The Secret of Being Childlike, But Never Childish

“…Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”
– Mark‬ ‭10‬:‭14‬-‭15‬ ‭ESV‬‬

What is better than being a pure joyful child? Being a pure joyful child with knowledge and maturity, this is what being a childlike adult is. Because we have a Heavenly Father, we are children, but children that are adults in that we have knowledge and maturity, and therefore have the best of both realities of innocence (purity) and maturity (knowledge). 

How to Be a Pure, Innocent Adult, and Thus Childlike

In this perverted world, how can a mature adult be pure? By clothing ourselves with Christ and receiving His perfect Holy Spirit through making Him our Lord and Savior so that when the Heavenly Father sees us it’s like He is seeing His perfect Son, in whom we are cleansed and made perfect.

Since we’ll await our glorified body that Christ Jesus is in, because He was in the beginning only as the Word that came out of God’s mouth and became flesh to die for our sins (and is Son as God being born of Himself), and therefore got a new (glorified) body as the first into eternal life, and makes us inherit that same body because He came to make us like Himself: sons and daughters of God Almighty, as we wait for this body we must get a renewed mind to conquer and overcome the perversion and impurity of the world ruled by satan as its god. All it takes to have this renewed mind is the decision to acquire it through God’s Word and practice, practice, practice. 

Through the Spirit of God, who we will sharpen our ears and hearts to by meditating on His Word (the Bible) day and night, because there is nothing more worthy to have like His Word in our hearts, we will train ourselves by the power of the Holy Spirit to choose the pure thoughts and neglect the impure thoughts consistently (as a practice) until we become experts at doing it and be ones who have rewired their brains to be undefiled of the world. 

Instead of grasping a thought saying, ‘That girl is ugly’, we grasp (and believe) the thought that says ‘If one human is beautiful that must mean all humans are beautiful’. Realize how I’m not saying that impure thoughts won’t come, for we have the knowledge of good and evil until we get our glorified bodies, but because our brain is like a machine that can be programmed, we will practice choosing the knowledge of good over the knowledge of evil. 

Not By Your Strength, But By His Spirit

When we are in the flesh, meaning we are not spiritually conscious and spiritually minded, we won’t delight in choosing the knowledge of good because the flesh and soul are fallen and need saving from eternal doom by God sacrificing His Son to cleanse us and satisfy His holiness and justice.

Our flesh and souls (because they are what fell from glory and oneness with God), will delight in choosing the knowledge of evil to satisfy its fallen lusts of evil, perversion, and impurity. 

It is only through firstly being born again of God’s Holy Spirit, meaning we’re born like how Jesus was born from the Spirit of God, meaning we’re no longer born of flesh and blood (the sinful body we all inherited from Adam), meaning only the Heavenly Father is our Father and Parent (though still honouring our earthly parents for it is the way of loving our neighbour), can we begin to have a fighting and conquering chance in overcoming evil and the schemes of the devil that only lead to darkness and death, overcoming and conquering by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Heavenly Father: God Himself.

It is through the Holy Spirit and God’s Word, with the Holy Spirit as our only Teacher (meaning all preachers and teachers of the Word cannot contradict or be primary to our knowledge of God, for there are many false prophets and false teachers), that by overcoming darkness and evil, we can partake in the immense and incomprehensible joy, peace, love, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, self-control, and faithfulness that will make us childlike adults.

Empowered

Along with these stated fruit of purity and innocence, our maturity will be informed and established by the Holy Spirit’s spirit of wisdom, spirit of knowledge and understanding, spirit of counsel and might, and the spirit of the Lord and the spirit of the fear of the Lord which are who the Holy Spirit is.

And if we say, oh, so does the Holy Spirit fear Himself because He has the spirit of the fear of the Lord: the fear of the Lord is not being scared of God, it is respecting Him over anything and everything else. We have the spirit of the fear of the Lord and it means not fearing satan or evil and darkness because we have a God and know a God (as the only living God) who is worthy of fear. 

The Holy Spirit doesn’t fear Himself, He has the spirit of the fear of the Lord meaning He has the acknowledgment of being worthy to be feared and has that quality that says God is God over all, and it is He who fears no one and nothing in or outside of creation and time.

We cannot think of the Word of God with the carnal (fleshy, unspiritual [worldly]) mind. What is spiritual should be dealt with by the spiritual. The Bible is a spiritual book, with only the Holy Spirit being the one who will make us understand His Word. We do not read or believe with our minds, we read and believe with our spirits (hearts).

A Renewed Mind is Key

However, without our minds (being renewed), we will be unable to live the life Jesus came and died for us to have. We must have a renewed mind by the power and strength of Christ’s Spirit.

We must have our fleshy (as from the brain) minds become spiritual minds (as from our spirits), not thinking like the world, but thinking and being how God says we are and have become (through Christ and His Word). Having the Holy Spirit is having access to the mind of Christ, only, we should not let the fleshy (impure and perverted) mind defile us and overpower us. 

Surrender to Mighty God. Seek Him and find Him, knock and have the door open. Eternal life begins in this lifetime, for who we are in this lifetime determines who we are in eternal life (or eternal death), and that is either dying forever, for a spirit is in the eternal image of God and cannot die but it dying is it being away from Christ who is life.

Or living forever, which is why Christ died for us, so we can inherit eternal life with God the Father, who can never have us unless we are holy and perfect like His Son, and thus Him sending His Son to die for us so our sins are paid for and we can be in His Son by His perfect Holy Spirit and thus be perfected unto inheriting eternal life.

May your mind be renewed, your faith be strengthened, and your peace be anchored in Christ, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

~

Did this Resonate with You?

~

If you’re looking for a more in-depth, guided approach to spiritual maturity:

~

If this spoke to you:

Comment your thoughts & questions below 👇 

Share how you like or with social buttons below 👇 

Save this blog to your favourites and return whenever you need encouragement to realign your heart in truth.

~