Made Pure Again

Once while Jesus was teaching, some people brought little children to Him to receive a blessing.  The disciples rebuked them.  After all, the Savior was much too busy for children!  Then Jesus rebuked the disciples.  He said, “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (Mark 10:15).

The likeness of a little child has generally been associated with a pure heart.  Children don’t have the baggage adults have and they are often able to understand eternal truths with astonishing clarity and simplicity.  The prayers of a three year-old can be as theologically sound as that of a sixty-three year old, and what they lack in vocabulary they make up in passion.  One prays for the neighborhood cat and the other for world peace, but God hears them both.

Children are a great example, but it is important that we not think they are the only ones with pure hearts.  A child’s heart is pure because it is unpolluted by the world, but what has become polluted can be made clean again.

Suppose you lived in the mountains and a clear stream ran by your home.  The stream was so pure you could drink from it, and in the warm summer months you loved wading in it barefoot.  Then, one year the spring rains failed to come and the stream ran low.  It became blocked by twigs and leaves, and the marshy silt where the water once flowed emitted a putrid odor.  It was disgusting!

But the rains came at last.  They fell relentlessly, producing a torrent in the stream basin.  The rushing water washed the twigs and leaves away and cleansed the silt.  When the rain stopped, you kicked off your shoes and waded in where the clear, cool water rushed past your ankles.  That which was pure, and had become stagnant, was made pure again.

The fact that Jesus told His disciples to be like children so they could enter the kingdom of God presupposes the possibility.  But how does it happen?  How can someone who has been stained by sin be clean again?  (we find out tomorrow…)