While in Grade 12, our daughter was invited to enrol in a vocational education and training program where she could earn credits towards a certificate in education.  Her secondary school and university campuses were adjacent, and the institutions enjoyed collaboration across many disciplines.  As she had wanted to be a school teacher from about eight years of age, she leapt at the chance to be part of the program.  After being successful in her studies, she merited early acceptance into the university to gain her Bachelor of Education.  That was around ten years ago, and she is still teaching, but as her Mum, I remember feeling relieved when I learned about that early acceptance.  She was in!  And on her way to the career of her dreams.      

I was reminded of ‘early acceptance’ while watching interviews with Professor John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University.  He was asked, ‘What is a Christian?’  (I’ve paraphrased his answer.)

“I often explain it this way.  At University, you can get a degree, but you’re not guaranteed one because it depends on your merit.  The professors may be the best in the world, but they cannot guarantee you a degree because the whole principle of universities is that you get a degree based on merit, and if you don’t earn it, you don’t get the degree.  People think they can merit God and a relationship with Him through behaviour and deeds, and if they pass the grade, they get accepted.

That’s not Christianity, it’s religion.  It’s a path or a way, and you pile up your good deeds and try and please God, and then comes the judgement at the end of the journey, and you hope that God won’t take His law too seriously and will let you into Heaven.  Christianity turns that on its head.  It’s revolutionary!  The acceptance comes at the beginning of what Jesus offers.  If you repent and turn away from your sin and trust Jesus as Saviour who died for you, He will forgive you right then and there.  Acceptance is not dependent on performance.”

Professor Lennox’s words reminded me of the importance of early acceptance of Jesus as Saviour. The younger the better.  Many people have told me how blessed I was to be raised in a Christian home and to know Jesus from an early age.  I know it and I am very thankful to God!  

George Barna wrote that ‘the probability of accepting Christ is highest among kids under 14’.  The older children get, the less likely they are to respond to the Gospel. 

I preached the Gospel at the end of a Kindy lesson, and a four-year-old responded.  I told his Mum when she came to collect him, and I could tell she was unhappy.  He was too young.  Had I done the wrong thing?  After all, his Mum knew him best.  I spoke to the Church eldership, and our senior Pastor assured us. Jesus Himself declared, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’  (Matthew 19:14) 

I was three years old when I accepted Jesus into my heart.  I don’t remember it, but Mum and Dad said they had told me about Jesus and led me in a simple prayer.  At eight years of age, I responded to an altar call, crying to the front of the chapel because I fully understood I was a sinner and needed to repent.  I will never forget that moment.  The three-year-old me responded from her heart, and the eight-year-old me responded from a proper understanding of sin and the Gospel.  My ‘early acceptance’ of Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour has given me over 53 years of loving Jesus and experiencing Father God’s blessing in my life through good times and bad.  Nothing I’ve done over those years has ‘saved’ me.  I am fully reliant on the free gift of God I received as a child (Romans 3:23-24). 

Can a Child Be Saved?

• There is not a different Gospel for adults and children
• Jesus said, ‘Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matthew 18:2-3)
• God wants to save everyone who is lost in sin! 
• Jesus said, ‘So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.’ (Matthew 18:14)
• Every child is unique.  There is no age or grade level a child must attain.  It’s about what God is doing in a child’s heart. 
• Many great Christian men and women decided to follow Christ from an early age.
• Salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit.
• Jesus said, ‘No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.’  (John 6:44)
• There were saved children in the early Church.  (Acts 16:31-34)
• One of the requirements for electing church leaders was that they be parents of believing children. (Titus 1:6)
• If children understand their sin, they can understand God’s salvation. 

Before posting this blog, I discussed it with my husband, and he said, ‘Do people think the devil is holding back his influence until a child is older?’  Enough said.