From time-to-time, I’ll have someone say to me, “You mean that you have to be involved in children’s services each and every service?” To that I always reply, “No, I get to be involved in the children’s services each and every service.” To be quite honest, I love it. I often tell my staff in the middle of our services that the Holy Spirit is speaking to me through the message that we are ministering. I know that the same Holy Spirit who is ministering in the adult service is present in our children’s services. There are no two Holy Spirits, a big Holy Spirit for the adults and a little Holy Spirit for the children. The One and only is present and accounted for and is ready to speak to the children and ME!
Here’s an example of His talking to me. This past weekend, we continued on a new series that I am writing called Children Who Know Their God which is based on Daniel 11:32. Our lesson for the weekend was entitled Can’t You See God’s Fingerprints? using both Ephesians 2:10 and Genesis 2:7-8 as our foundation for the teaching. Let me try to put into words what the Holy Spirit said to me this weekend.
In reading the verses from Genesis, the word formed jumped off the page of my Bible. I wasn’t just created. I was formed by God. In reading this, the Holy Spirit amplified my uniqueness to the plan of God by telling me that the Master Sculptor set aside time to form (Hebrew yatsar … sculpt, mold, squeeze into a specific design or shape) me both internally and externally. In illustrating this truth, I took a blob of Play-Doh and thoughtfully made strategic moves to form a unique, distinct masterpiece. With each move, God changed what was at one time totally worthless into something of beauty and of great worth. You and I became a uniquely sculpted masterpiece (literally a piece of the Master).
Among the many passages (take a few minutes to see the number of scriptures that tell us that we are formed) that show the foresight of the Master Sculptor, this whole teaching is summarized best in God’s instructions to Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 1:5, we read that Jeremiah learned that even while he was in his mother’s womb, God was at work strategically forming (sculpting) the unborn child both internally and externally so that his life would glorify God. From this we learn that you and I come into this world covered with the fingerprints of God!
Now you can see why I say that I get to work in the children’s ministry. I’d sign up for another year of ministry just so that God could talk to me again and again like He did this weekend!
