This past December, a mere four days after Christmas, was a mixture of both God’s bitter and sweet providence as I watched my sister and brother-in-law faithfully disciple their 32-year-old son into eternity. These two parents were utterly broken but rejoicing in hope because, by God’s sovereign grace, their son Matthew, after years of suffering, was ready and eager to meet His Savior.
Let this sink in—deeply. Pause and consider the implications. Parents, your calling above all else is to prepare your children to meet Jesus! Everything else you desire for your children pales in comparison. Pastor David Michael reflects on these glorious and sobering realities in his message, “Let Them Bless His Holy Name Forever: Our Eternal Hope for the Next Generations.”
Every face you see in your classroom or at your kitchen table will see the Lord, seated on his throne, and they will be confessing Jesus as Lord.
They will be either “calling to the mountains and rocks: ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb” (Revelation 6:16).
Or they will be shouting: “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns…Worthy is the Lamb who was slain…[so that our] guilt is taken away, and [our] sin atoned for” (from Revelation 19:6; Revelation 5:12; and Isaiah 6:7).
Keeping the throne room in view and keeping the last day in view has been for me a way to keep a right perspective in ministry to children, youth, and families. This reinforces a sense of urgency—a seriousness about our task.
Look into the faces of children, or anyone for that matter and be reminded that this face will one day be in the presence of this holy, high, lifted-up God. That head will bow, those knees will bend, that tongue will confess Jesus is Lord.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, when we minister to the next generations, we are dealing with the most weighty truths in the universe. We are preparing them to meet the King of kings and Lord of lords! May this reality cause our hearts to go about our task more diligently, earnestly, and prayerfully so that, by God’s grace, the children in our care will come to know, honor, and treasure God, setting their hope in Christ alone, so that they will live as faithful disciples for the glory of God!
Yes, our hearts are still breaking over the death of my dear nephew, and I know that this heartbreak won’t fully heal this side of eternity. It is a bitter providence. But it is the sweetest providence to know that, upon meeting Jesus, my nephew was welcomed into “fullness of joy” and “pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).
