Tonight’s object lesson was a small set of photos of the boys’ friends. Last night they got little photo books with pictures of their family, so they added the pictures of their friends to the book. The Christmas devotional was all about God’s gift of friendship.
There are many proverbs in the Bible about friendship and being a good friend. We chose 4 proverbs to discuss: Proverbs 17:17, 18:24, 27:10, and 27:17. This gave us plenty of material to talk about how God gives us good friends to support us in times of need and to challenge us to become better people.
We then turned to John 15:12-15 to read Jesus’ words to His disciples about calling them friends. We asks the kids: What would it feel like if a great and powerful king came over to our house and told us he wanted us to be his friends? What would it feel like if that king sat at our dinner table and started telling us some of his personal stories and secrets—things he would only tell to close friends. What if that king eventually became such a good friend with us that he willingly gave his life for us. Jesus is that king, and he did all these things to show his love for us.
Gift Giving to Those in Need
We also had the boys pick out the Christmas gifts they want to buy for needing children and families. We had them flip through gift catalogues from Compassion International, World Vision, as well as a ministry to children in Guatamala headed up by people in our church, and an orphanage in Santa Marta, Colombia, our church has supported. Bradley had fun flipping through the pictures and choosing which gifts he thought would be the best. Cameron didn’t quite wrap his minds around the idea that he wasn’t picking out gifts for himself, so it took some extra explaining (what’s a 4-year-old going to do with a goat anyway).
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