Know Your Value
Take out a new crispy $10 bill and ask the students or congregation what you are holding . Ask if anyone would like it. All would raise their hands. Then take a another $10 bill out of your pocket that is dirty and crinkled up and ask what you are holding now. Ask if anyone would like to have it. All would raise their hands again.
Each one of us is so valuable! We were made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Just like the $10 bill didn't lose its value and was still worth $10 no matter how dirty it was, so too our value doesn't change even though we may have gotten dirty with sin. We need to look at ourselves through God's eyes, knowing that we are loved, we are chosen, we are the most precious creation of God!
Luke 12:6-7 says "Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God." If God does not forget about the smallest of his creations, he certainly is not going to forget about you his son/daughter.
In 1John 3:1 it says "Behold what manner of love the father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God." We are his children made in his image.
The problem isn't us losing our value (child of god), it's us not realizing our value at times.
Just like the $10 no one minded when I asked the question would you still take the $10 that was all squished up and dirty because the knew the value. The value does not diminish because of the circumstances it was in. It could be a crispy new $10 bill, an old one that is a little ripped, one that is a different older design, one that has been used a lot or a little. They all are worth $10.
My prayer is that you live with the knowledge of knowing your true value and don't let someone else or your circumstances dictate what your value is. The $10 only gets its value from one place: the US Treasury when they printed it. If I told you that the $10 in my hand is actually $5 you wouldn't believe. In that same sense, don't let others or the devil fool you about your true value.
Don't Step on the LEGOs
Did you know there is a scientific reason for why it hurts so much to step on LEGOs? According to one report:
As it turns out, a LEGO won’t squish under your foot unless you weigh 953 pounds. Each brick can take 4,240 Newtons of force.
And it doesn’t help that the bottom of your foot is one of the most sensitive areas on your body. Your feet have up to 200,000 exteroceptors, or nerves, that connect directly to your brain.
Careful stepping, America!
In an effort to illustrate allowing the light of the Lord to guide your path you can lead students to "feel" how it is to to walk in the light of the Lord vs.walking in darkness.
Ask for a volunteer (make it clear their participation may not be totally comfortable!). Then have them blindfolded.
PART 1:
Scatter a bunch of LEGO bricks in their path. Have them take off their shoes and socks, and then have them slowly walk toward you (over the path of the scattered LEGOs).
As they walk on the LEGO bricks they will begin to "feel" the pain of walking in the darkness. No doubt, the other kids will begin to giggle, watching their freind walk through this minefield of LEGOs!.
PART 2:
Now have them take off their blindfold and walk back toward you. They will "feel" how much more comfortable it is to walk that same path when they can see how to avoid those pesky LEGO bricks.
Take the students to Psalm 119:105. Expalin that the Lord wants to guide our paths through the light of His Word. Explain how the LEGO bricks illustrate various temptations in our lives. Giving in to these tempations can result in really painful or harmful consequences. Ask for some examples of bad experiences with sin and giving into temptation. Examples: Getting caught for cheating at school, and thus receiving a bad grade; trying drugs and having a bad reaction or getting addicted; stealing and having to go to jail; lying, and thus people not trusting you anymore.
Living with the consequences of giving in to temptation can lead to a really sad and painful life. By asking the Lord to guide our paths, we are able to avoid these painful temptations.
BONUS ILLUSTRATION for this verse can also include a slight variation of this exercise:
Have all the kids take off their shoes and socks and walk around on the LEGO bricks. Then explain that, over time, their feet would begin to toughen up and get used to the feel of the bricks, so they won't hurt so much.
When it comes to temptation and sin, this can be very dangerous. We may get numb to our sin, and no longer respond to the conviction of God's Word.
Ask the Lord to guide your path in life ("And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one," Matthew 6:13, NIV). Use the light of God's Word and the leading of the Holy Spirit to guide your decisions in life. Live in the light and not the darkness.
"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (Psalm 199:105, ESV).
"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7, ESV).
"For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light!
For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them" (Ephesians 5:8-11, NLT).
Of Prayers and Paper Airplanes
OBJECT LESSON ...
Take a moment right now to write down a prayer request on a slip of paper. Your mission is to get your prayer request up to the pulpit. You can throw it. You can try to shoot it with a rubber band. Or you can fold it into a paper airplane and try to fly it. Do your best, then let 'er fly!
We often make certain assumptions about prayer. We think it’s some kind of game with a long list of complicated rules, or that it requires some magical strategy or gimmick. So we devise elaborate methods in order to get God to hear us and accept our prayers.
Maybe we think we’ll be heard for our many words, or our impressive words. Or maybe the task looks so daunting that we don't even try.
But truth is, we could have simply walked up here and placed our prayer request on the pulpit.
God doesn't want us to just try to be heard from afar. Rather, He invites us to come near to Him.
Prayer isn’t about getting the right words, but having the right heart -- a heart transformed into a child of God.
"Come close to God, and God will come close to you" (James 4:8, NLT).
"Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16, ESV).
""Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus ... let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith ..." (Hebrews 10:19, 22, ESV).