If you were putting together a CV for a potential new role, it’s my hunch that you would be very keen to give a comprehensive outline of your experience and accomplishments. You would be careful to showcase your qualifications for the role.

It would be crazy to highlight your failures or weaknesses on your CV. It’s very normal that our strengths and abilities instead qualify us for our roles. This makes it quite shocking when we hear these words from Jesus in Luke 18:

People were also bringing babies to Jesus for him to place his hands on them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children to him and said,

“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

What would a baby put on their CV?

No qualifications, accomplishments, or experience. All they have is their dependence. There is nothing that they can do for themselves, they rely entirely on others, and they have nothing to commend themselves.

This is the point: we do not enter or receive the kingdom of God because of our qualifications or accomplishments; it is not something we can earn. Citizenship of the kingdom is received by acknowledging our dependence, like a small child.

For someone like me who tries to hide their weakness and dependence this is a very confronting idea: I might be excluded from the kingdom simply because I was too proud to admit my need.

At the same time, this is a strikingly beautiful and life-giving truth, that my citizenship in God’s kingdom is a gift kindly offered to me out of God’s wonderful and breathtaking grace. A gift that he has lavished on us in his son Jesus. A gift that frees me from being a slave to my CV and allows me to enter freely into his kingdom of love.