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A Child
Saved Is a Life Saved
When is the best age to trust
Jesus Christ? The simple answer is- the sooner the better. Is
it not better to be saved at seven years old rather than seventy?
Common sense and experience agree that it is better to come to
Christ early in life. It is better to know Christ as Saviour during
the years when habits and personality are being formed, rather
than after they have been formed. It is better to learn and absorb
the Word of God when the mind is open and learning is easy, rather
than try to do so afterwards.
The children's evangelist is not only interested in, and labouring
for , the souls of children, and not only praying that they will
be saved; his goal is also the salvation of lives- whole lives
to be lived for the glory of God. Many believers, who trusted
Jesus Christ in later years, have one regret- that they did not
do so earlier and as children. In this way they would have avoided
the waste of many precious years.
"Remember now thy Creator in
the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the
years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in
them; While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars,
be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: (Ecclesiastes
12:1-2)
"It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth."
(Lamentations 3:27)
The Bible includes testimonies
of those who started to walk with God while they were young.
David said:
" You have taught me from my youth" (Psalm 71:17)"
"For You are my hope, O Lord God; You are my trust from my
youth." (Psalm 71:5)
Obadiah declared:
"I your servant have feared the LORD from my youth."
(I King 18:12)
Josiah first began to seek the Lord, when he was eight years old
(2 Chronicles 34v3) and Samuel first responded to the voice of
God, when he was still very young (I Samuel 3v10), and the Lord
was with him from that time onwards (I Samuel 3v19). Also a number
of others, like Daniel, Joseph and Isaac, all seem to have started
walking with God when still young. Think of the influence and
value of such lives, and of many other lives since then, of those
who were converted in childhood.
Spiritual giants like Jonathan Edwards, Stephen Olford, Matthew
Henry, Jim Elliot, Corrie Ten Boom, Isaac Watts and Leighton Ford
were all saved as children. Many more names could be added to
that list.
Article taken from "How
to Evangelize Children"
by Sam Doherty,
Child Evangelism Fellowship Inc., May 2003
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