Not Good Enough

Acts 10:1-33

We re-told the story of Peter going to visit Cornelius and the spread of the gospel to the Gentiles as a result. We talked about how no matter how charitable someone is, how kind they are to others, how often they go to church, or how many good deeds they do, it is never good enough to get them into heaven. Like our hard-boiled eggs lesson a while back, we reminded the kids that looks can be deceiving and talk is cheap. We cannot judge someone's spirituality by their outward appearance, actions, or even what they say. Even Satan knows Scripture!

To demonstrate this, we had two identical tin containers. We put packing peanuts into one, each peanut representing some good work, thing said, or action that made the person "appear" Christian. The container filled up very fast and we told the kids that some people see their salvation bank account this way...."I'll get to heaven if only I keep this full and even overflowing." Then we pulled out the other container and told the kids that it represented our salvation account, but with Jesus as the banker. What the kids did not know was that we had an inch of acetone in the bottom of the container, which instantly dissolves packing peanuts on contact. No matter how many good works, actions, and Christian speech we put in the account, it never filled up! It just kept dwindling, as if there were a leak in the can!

And that's because no amount of good deeds, actions, or words on behalf of anyone will ever make him or her good enough to get into heaven. There is only ONE way...salvation through a real and personal relationship with Jesus Christ...and not by anything we could ever do or say, but only through His sacrifice on the cross for us. We talked about the importance of not judging others based on where they are spiritually or otherwise too and how, after tonight's lesson, very important it is to be bold in their witness for Jesus Christ.

We worked on Billie art tonight also for Bites for Billie, as well as decorated our own ZG cups tonight for snack time. We decided to invest in these after realizing we were using almost 60 styrofoam cups a week! Now we have permanent and personalized cups we can rinse out each week and reuse.