This Christmas devotional sounds as if it should have gone earlier in the series, but there’s a reason for it being number 11. We really wanted to make our object lesson be new Christmas PJs for the kids, so we scheduled this one for Christmas Eve.
The point of tonight’s devotion was to help the kids be thankful for the way God provides us with clothing.
After they opened their presents, we started by opening to Matthew 6:25-35. We talked to the kids about how easy it is to become anxious when we don’t know what the future has in store for us. But we don’t need to worry about the necessities of life like clothing, food, or water, because we have a Father in heaven who knows our needs. If he clothes the lilies of the field, certainly he will clothe us. And He has.
For the second half of our devotion we took the kids to John 19:16b-19,23-24. This part of the devotion really grabbed their attention. We talked about what it was like for Jesus to be crucified—not just his physical suffering but the shame he experienced. We told them how, like all criminals, Jesus was probably crucified naked, evidenced by the fact that soldiers gambled for his clothing. We talked about how Christ took the shame of our sin on the cross; just as Jesus didn’t even have the dignity of clothing, so our sin is also shameful.
Tonight, as the kids put on their PJs they were reminded that not only do we worship a good God who supplies us with clothing to wear, we also worship a God who subjected Jesus to the shame of nakedness so that our sin could be atoned for.
This is so well thought out and different than most things I’ve seen. I turned it into a talk at our church for the elementary grades! We homeschool too and this encouraged me in many ways.
Glad you like it!