Heidelbergian Children's Catechism (age 8- 10 years)
Lord's Day 25
When you were a baby, you could not believe yet. Nor when you were a toddler in the playpen. When were you old enough to believe? When you were three, or on your fifth birthday? Did you ever think about when you began to believe? Faith has been growing in you. That began when you as a Iittle child started looking around. You began to understand more about the world around you. Your father and mother began to tell you about the Lord. They taught you to pray. They wanted you to be obedient. One day, they took you to church. At first, you did not really understand what was going on. But going to church was not useless. You did realize that people are in church to hear the good news about God. You also noticed that father and mother were listening respectfully, and that they were really involved. You, too, were part of it. When the minister prayed, you folded your hands. You did understand some things. And at home you could talk about it. That was how your faith grew. But it did not happen by itself. The power of God came with the words and stories from the Bible you heard. You can also say that was the Holy Spirit. Do you remember the Spirit from a previous Lord’s Day? That was the way you became a believing child of God. But to continue to believe you have to do something, too. Remember the desk lamp? The plug of the lamp must be connected to the socket to give light. In the same way, we must be connected with God. We do that by listening to his Word, the Bible. Then we can count on the power of God’s Spirit. You can look it up. That is explained in Lord’s Day 20. lt’s true, not all people in church heard about the Saviour when they were young. There are also people who heard God’s Word at a later age, and so came to faith. The Bible is the one of the greatest gifts we ever received. It’s a present from heaven. It speaks about the good news. With our ears we listen to this good news. But God gave us two more things t help us understand his Word even better. We use not only our ears, but also our eyes. We can with our eyes se two holy things. We call them sacraments. That is a difficult word, but I am sure you heard it before. They are the sacrament of baptism, and the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.