DEDICATION OF CHILDREN
The dedication of an infant is meant to be infinitely more than a “Sunday morning baby show” at which the minister kisses the baby in keeping with the proven political custom. It can be cheap and carnal, or it can be spiritual and strengthening.
It is primarily a public declaration of responsibility by parents, involving desire and gratitude.
Adults come to the altar of God in such a moment in a new, significant sense. They share a responsibility forever. It can never be erased. It must live with these adults day and night.
Parents who participate in such a dedication share an awesome thing. They have ventured with God. They have invoked a trust. The infant in their hands is also, in a manner, “set for the fall and rising…of many” (Luke 2:34).
The service should be clothed with a spirit of humility. Adults, in such moments, need all the help that the Church of Jesus Christ can afford. It should be manifest as they stand before the altar of God. The acknowledgment of each should be: “Oh God! I cannot of myself or by myself accomplish the eternal mission for this child’s life; but with Thy help it shall be done.”It is a moment of supreme dedication. It is meant to mark another difference in adult living. The striving for spiritual goals in the home becomes much more intensive. “ The unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice” ( 2 Timothy 1:5).
The task is gigantic. It should bring you to your knees. It is fitting that the parent should stand before the altar with the infant. They need all the help they can get for the experiences ahead of them.
The Minister, in the name of Jesus, must meet the parents at the altar. Every parent in the audience should sense the eternity of the moment that is upon them.
There is a grace and a power ready to be released if they are appropriated at such a service. The Son of God was not without this benefit.
“And Simeon came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for Him after the custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God. And Joseph and his mother.
marvelled at those things which were spoken of him. And Simeon blessed them…. (Luke 2:27, 28, 33, 34, 36-38).
THE NURTURE AND ADMONITION OF THE LORD
At this moment adults invoke at God’s altar and before God, the ability to “bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). Nurture means to feed and to care for during growth. Only an act of God can change your nature, but you can nurture that nature. The adult is responsible for the child’s nourishment. The upbringing is in the parents hands. It is up to the parent to avail themselves of every agency.
The fact that parents come forward in the sight of witnesses, is a personal declaration. It signifies the parent’s faith in the Christian way of life. It says affirmatively, “I cannot raise this child in my own strength. God does not ask parents to do that and so at the altar of infant dedication you affirm a divine partnership between yourself and God.
INFANT DEDICATION INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING ELEMENTS:
1.It include some initial statements stating that parents owe it to the child :
For example:
Every child has a right to dedication for your child belongs to God first.
What you do with your child is a responsibility that only heaven and eternity can calculate. “Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward” (Psalm 127:3).
2.It should include the contract:
The act of dedication does not automatically make children Christian. Dedication is a point of beginning. It is a public commitment. The possibility of a contract exists. Dedication is meaningless and worthless if parents come with reserve clauses. Parents may have their own selfish desires for their son or daughter without God being part of those plans. Dedication must be a complete giving, as though the child had never belonged to the parents in the first place. Parents give the child back to God and they volunteer to be expended for the purpose and pleasure God chooses to make of the child’s life.
QUESTION TO PARENTS?
Are you willing to have God take absolute possession of the child? Will you allow Him to use that offered life to His glory in whatever manner He proposes to use it without ever again offering an objection?
Dedication occurs at that altar where final and complete ownership is debated and decided forever.
A PARENT WHO HAS LENT A CHILD TO THE Lord faces the ensuing battle with supreme confidence. You expect your investment to pay dividends. Without this foundation you are on your own, dependent upon human skill and your own personal assets alone.
- The Parents responsibility.
Dedication is not abandonment. Parents have a responsibility. Parents act as an instrument under God for the training of the child. That is the position parents voluntarily accept when they stand before the altar of infant dedication. It is the parent’s job to make an adult out of a juvenile. That is God’s requirement in extending the privilege of parenthood. Parents have by an act of dedication assumed that responsibility.
- The Reward.
- There is a reward given to a faithful steward. And if any person is a steward, a parent is meant to be. Under God it is the parent’s responsibility to produce and help shape a great man or woman. There is no equal reward this side of eternity.
WHAT DO YOU DO NOW?
If you would like your child to be dedicated we invite you to the church and speak to the minister either before or after the service and you would be instructed further.
We look forward to seeing you as you owe it to God and your child.
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