Lift Me Up So I Can Reach Jesus

I have these moments where I’m driving down the road, having a conversation, or hear something, and it hits me that the comment would make a good sermon. I doubt I came up with this quote, but I will reply with “That’ll preach!”

So let this be the first in an going series on the blog for “That’ll preach!”

It’s really amazing what kids will say — often times not knowing how poignant their comment is.

When Caleb was less than a year old, my parents gave us a picture of Jesus for his room. It’s not your standard picture that you grow up — it’s a bit different, and looks really nice. Each week we give Caleb an allowance of 4 quarters, and we let him keep 2, save 1 and give the other 1 “to Jesus.” (Yes, I know it’s more than 10% but we should start early, right?)

So we store the quarters on top of this hanging picture on his wall. He’s collected several quarters now and we haven’t taken them to church for offering just yet.

So Caleb comes to me and asks, “Lift me up so I can reach Jesus.”

I look at him and ask, “What?”

He tells me he can’t reach the picture and he needs for me to “lift me up so I can reach the Jesus picture.”

AHHHHH! Got it, son!  I go to his room, pick up this boy who is getting too heavy for this sort of thing and he places the quarter on the picture. And it’s in that moment I realize that what Caleb just said would be a pretty good sermon.

It’s our duty as parents, and particularly fathers, to lift our children to God. We should be asking for protection for them. We should be asking God to help us be better fathers, parents and husbands, and godly men.

Our kids watch us closely. They do what we do. Just burp at the table one night and you’ll hear the chorus of burps soon after (and it’s usually followed up with a scowling wife  — and if you’re really brave, do it at the mother-in-law’s table).  So it’s critical that we ARE godly men — don’t just act it – but be godly.

The world asks a lot from us. For the most part, most men bring home the bacon (and the money). We are looked at to be the leaders in the home – both spiritually and physically. When we aren’t stepping up to the plate, our wives will (and that’s not what God wants).

Our children need godly men. They need to see men going to church. They need to see men praying and reading the Bible. They need to see men willing to talk about Jesus, God, the Bible, on a regular basis.

As fathers our most important duty is to raise children that are God-fearing and understand the Cross. If we don’t teach our kids that, it opens up the door for the enemy to step in and fill those holes in their lives with evil and sin.

We need to be regularly lifting our kids up so they can reach Jesus.