Enlisted!

I just finished reading a great book to the kids entitled, Teddy's Button. It was originally written in 1890 and is about a little boy who dreams of being a soldier. His father was a soldier who was killed in battle and the boy wants desperately to follow in his footsteps. His pastor explains to him that he can start being a soldier for Jesus right now by enlisting in God's army. The boy decides that he wants to do this and learns that he must constantly be fighting his number one enemy, the bad side of himself, who he has decided to name "Bully." He is always getting into trouble but continues to ask Jesus to help him fight Bully, and love people that he doesn't want to love, and be a brave soldier for the King.

Anyway, the reason I'm giving the short book synopsis is because Jake said to me tonight as I was putting him to bed, "I just enlisted in God's army." When I asked him how he did that, he said that he asked God to forgive him for his sins and that He heard God tell him yes in his mind. It was so cute and sincere and he was so excited about it, and so was I.

We have never said anything to our kids about "praying a prayer" in order to be saved. We know that they would very readily say, "Sure, I'll do that." But, we want them to really understand what it means to follow Christ. We want them to understand what He has done for them and their need of His forgiveness, and we don't want to relegate it to simply praying a prayer and thinking that they have their ticket to heaven...because it's so much more than that. It involves repentance and faith and heart change. Unless I'm missing something in the gospels, I don't think that Jesus ever once said anything about praying a prayer and asking Him into your heart in order to receive salvation. He spoke of belief and repentance and following Him. So, we have never specifically taught our kids that they need to "ask Jesus into their heart." We have tried to teach them, however, that we need God's forgiveness of our sins and what it means to have a relationship with Jesus, and we have tried (very, very poorly) to lead by example.

So, I'm hoping that Jake's declaration of "enlisting in God's army" involved sincere repentance that will bring about a gradual heart change in him as he learns more about what it means to follow Christ. I'm excited to see what sort of battles he is going to fight and win for Jesus!