If you look around at my generation in the world today, you see kids with more holes than Swiss cheese in every part of their body that listen to the most vulgar music. It is a generation that is surrounded by hate for one another where the schoolhouse is no longer a safe place of learning. But yes, even my generation is savable! Only by God’s grace and mercy can their salvation be obtained. I beg of each one of you that you would pray for the youth and CanTeen, our youth group, as we work together, developing the children of God, so He could raise up this generation to be a generation of His own.

You may be asking yourselves, “Why is it that these youths from CanTeen have been so touched? What is the underlying factor that makes them want to come and be blessed by God?” My answer is simple and one word: “Jesus.” We come to see Jesus. We want to see Jesus lifted high. We want know Him and hear His voice, and be able to run around and tell the world to get ready because Jesus is coming.

Children, in the Bible, are looked upon greatly from Jesus’ perspective. That is why Jesus said in Luke 18 that whoever did NOT receive the kingdom of God as a child would NOT enter in. That doesn’t mean you have to be a baby to enter in. Think of a child, an infant, they do whatever they want. If they want to go to the bathroom, they go to the bathroom. If they want to run around the house naked, they run around the house naked. No matter how hard you try, they will still do it if they want to. It is so hard sometimes to keep control over little children, because they do what they want to do. They don’t care what people think of them. They don’t care what their best friend is doing. They don’t care who is looking at them. If they want to wear a shirt that is three sizes too small, and it’s their favorite shirt, they wear it. They don’t care if people will make fun of them. If we come to God like that, then things would be different.

Just the other day I was helping our pastor with his twin girls, I was holding one, and she didn’t like that idea. No matter how hard I tried to hold her back and keep her from her father, she pushed me away and ran to him, asking for him to hold her. She was desperate to be with her dad. I even tried to bribe her with a toy. She said “No. I want daddy.” She didn’t care what was in her way; she didn’t want a cheap substitute. She wanted the real thing. She flung herself from my arms and ran across the room at him, till he reached down and held her and calmed her. And oh, did she smile. She was in her own little world, just her and her father – her and her daddy.

That is the kind of relationship the Lord wants to have with us – one that is not willing to accept any cheap substitute; one that will throw every hindrance aside, beg and plead, push through temptation after temptation, do whatever you have to do to get into your Daddy’s arms and strive for an intimate relationship with the Father.

We call Him Lord, Savior, and Friend. We call Him Father, but why not Daddy? Children call their fathers “Daddy” because it’s their special word for their father. Some say “Dad” others “Daddy” and some “Dadda.” That is what they refer to their father as, because they are so close, they love their father so much, he has his own special name in their heart. Maybe we need to start referring to God, not as everyone else does, but as a name that is special to us.

So many people refuse to even call Him Father because of one or two incidents that didn’t seem good at the time, where they didn’t even wait to see if something good could come from it. They get caught up and disgusted with what they think is bad, even though the outcome could be heavenly. Look at what happened when Jesus cleansed the temple.

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. Matthew 21:12-13

Jesus did a radical, a loud thing that day. He came in and destroyed a major part of the economic contributions to the church. (At least what they thought.) He really made people mad, and people thought their lives were destroyed. But Jesus only did this so that God could reach His people in a way no one had ever seen before. Everyone thought it was a bad idea, but Jesus knew it was a good idea because it was God’s idea.

“And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them.” Matthew 21:14

God knew what He was doing even though it seemed bad at first. But the priests and scribes thought they knew everything that God could do. They put Him in this tiny little box and told Him when He could perform miracles, when He could be worshiped, when He could be prayed to. They were trying to be god to God. And they wouldn’t let God be God. And when the Messiah came in and turned all this upside down, do you think they were accepting of it?

“And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased” Matthew 21:15

Sore displeased doesn’t sound too happy. It sounds more like irate, furious, or enraged. They were so mad because Jesus turned their lives upside down. They never even thought a child knew how to worship God, but the children were crying out “Hosanna to the Son of David!” The lame and blind were now leaping for joy in the presence of their Savior.

God did a mighty deed that day, and some people accepted it, and others rejected it. My petition that I put in from of each one of you is this: Will you be like the scribes and priests and get all mad when Jesus comes into your temple, when He turns over the things in your life that hinder you from reaching an intimate level with God? Or will you come before the Lord as a child and do as they did and shout “Hosanna! Hosanna to the King of kings!”