This time, God impressed upon my heart that the little ones should come to understand that though they be young ,they need to be regenerated. That except they be spiritually born again (John 3:3), there can be no hopes of seeing God. Following God's wisdom, we had a short interactive lesson. Here's how we did it:
1. I showed them a clean ,blank paper. This symbolizes the heart.
2. Each child wrote their sins until the whole paper was filled.
3. They then described that the paper is filthy and ugly. I explained that it's the same with our hearts. It's filled with sin so all we can do is sin against God and fellow men.
4. I asked if we can possibly remove every sin until we have a spotless heart. They said yes. How? They answered by going to church, praying always, reading the Bible, avoiding bad influences , don't do the same bad deed again and so on.
5. As a representation of everything they have said, I had them try to erase each word they have written. One tried to cross out, another blotted the paper, and the rest used crayons to conceal the words. The result as you may guess is one messy paper.
4. I asked if we can possibly remove every sin until we have a spotless heart. They said yes. How? They answered by going to church, praying always, reading the Bible, avoiding bad influences , don't do the same bad deed again and so on.
5. As a representation of everything they have said, I had them try to erase each word they have written. One tried to cross out, another blotted the paper, and the rest used crayons to conceal the words. The result as you may guess is one messy paper.
"Tsk, looks like our efforts were all in vain kids. What will we do now? If it's impossible for us to clean a soiled sheet of paper, how much more with our hearts?"
6. Finally, one got an idea. He said we need to change and then buy a whole new piece of paper. He hit the bull's eye! Of course, I had to expound. Just as the grimy paper is useless, so does our sinful hearts. We need a change of heart, a new one. We can change our outward self but not our inner person. Only God can transform us from the inside out. His way of drawing people to Himself is to remove the sinful heart and put a new one. With our old hearts, we have no ability to love Him nor to care about the things that He cared. Even so, with the new He's given, we now become responsive to His love and call, obedient to His commandments, sensitive to His guidance, and our lives revolve around Him. ( reference; Ezekiel 11:19-20 , 36:26-27, 2 Cor. 5:17 )
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I'm deeply grateful to Father because of the manifold richness of His wisdom
( Rom. 11:33) ingrained
in our lessons. Countless times I've screwed with lessons and presentations. Often, I'm tempted to compromise and just teach out of compliance.
"Just be entertaining and tell them stories.That's it! Be gone afterwards. Some kids are not listening anyway and most ,only sat there for free candies."
Those thoughts scare me. Children also have souls! Doesn't that matter? How I wish all their parents are or will become Christians that they may be properly discipled ( verb, it's not in the dictionary I know). Yet God is faithful. I know that teaching children His Word won't go to waste (Isa. 55:11). In due time, our labor, through His grace, will come to fruition. So if I can only point children to God , whatever the cost, it will be worth it.
Those thoughts scare me. Children also have souls! Doesn't that matter? How I wish all their parents are or will become Christians that they may be properly discipled ( verb, it's not in the dictionary I know). Yet God is faithful. I know that teaching children His Word won't go to waste (Isa. 55:11). In due time, our labor, through His grace, will come to fruition. So if I can only point children to God , whatever the cost, it will be worth it.
