The future of every society is linked directly to the attitude they have about children. Social architects tell us that any people group who are not producing children at a rate greater than two per family is doomed to extinction. The birth rate in the United States is currently below two children per family.

Everybody has some concept of God, and the reigning attitude about God is, “What has he done for me lately?” We want blessings — good jobs, good relationships, things, security, peace, etc. Certainly, all that we have came from God and we enjoy it at his pleasure, but we can quickly pass by one of the greatest blessings God gives us and consider it annoying.

That great blessing is children. The Old Testament book of Psalms 127:3, declares, “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.”

We would all like to get a really good inheritance, something we can enjoy. God says that children are what we inherit from him. If children are God’s heritage, then they belong to him. God in his sovereignty grants us the privilege of calling his children our own for a period of time. Children are a reward from God; they are a treasure.

Currently, our society has a convoluted approach to children. A person can do harm to a pregnant woman causing an unborn child to die and that person can be charged with murder. Yet, a pregnant woman can choose to end the life of her unborn child and she is within her “legal rights.” It is astounding the technology and skill employed to save and nurture a premature baby. That life is treated as precious. On the other side of the “medical field,” an abortionist can cause a baby to be ejected from the womb and, even though that baby may be alive, it is left to die because of the intent of the mother.

God is serious about his children, and he will not hold us as a nation guiltless in this self-seeking upside down world.

It is interesting that when the time came for God to give us his greatest gift, that gift came as a baby. We are told in the fourth chapter of the epistle to the Galatians, verse 4, that “when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman . . . .” Jesus Christ the Son of God was given to us as the virgin-born Christ child.

These days, on one side of the street, that baby Jesus is honored and adored, while on the other side of the street, children are discarded like trash.

We must treasure what God treasures. We should get as upset about what is happening to the children worldwide as we are about our portfolios, etc.

We have taken God’s order and pronounced it out of order. It is time for us to rise up, speak out for God, and stand in the gap for the children . . . the true reward and blessing from God.

The Rev. Dan Puckett is a minister with Life Action Ministries.