Day
4
Forgiveness
Then
Peter came to Him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and
I forgive him? Till seven times?
Jesus
saith unto him, “I say not unto thee,
Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” Matthew 18:21-22 KJV
[This
is a parable Jesus told at another time about forgiveness.]
“Two
men owed money to a certain money lender. One owed him five hundred denarii,
and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he
canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
Simon
replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.”
“You
have judged correctly,” Jesus
said. Luke 7:41-43 NIV®
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Memory
Verse: “For if you forgive men when they
sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” Matthew 6:14 NIV®
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Discussion
Example:
Say,
“Jesus knows that it’s difficult for people to forgive others and says that He
wants us to forgive them 70 x 7 times, which equals 490 times. Jesus picked a
big number, because He wants us to have the forgiving nature of a Christian,
not keeping count of how many times we’ve forgiven others.
“Wouldn’t
we want our parents to forgive us every time we make a mistake instead of
saying you have made seven mistakes and now you are going to have a consequence
every time you do anything else wrong? Although we know we are going to have a
consequence, we want our parents to always forgive us and love us
even though we make lots of poor choices.
“In
that same way, Jesus wants us to forgive others, because that’s how He forgives
us. The related Memory Verse is: ‘For if
you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also
forgive you.’ Matthew 6:14 NIV®
“I
want Jesus to forgive me in spite of all the poor choices I make, so I’m going
to try harder to be more forgiving of others. Of course, God knows of our
sinful human nature and sometimes we forget to have a forgiving Christian
nature. When that happens, we can pray and ask Jesus to help us be more
forgiving. Jesus will do this if we ask Him.”
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Arts
and Crafts Example:
Color
rice with food color, etc. and put the different colors into empty egg carton for each group. Students will need a pencil, paper, flat
ended toothpicks and glue.
Explain,
“We are going to make a picture that reminds us to have a Christian heart and
to forgive others like Jesus forgives us. The picture itself can be anything
that reminds you of Jesus like a cross or something else. After you quickly
sketch out our picture, you are going to put glue in each section and put
colored rice in that section. I will only let people use toothpicks who use them appropriately to move the rice,. Those who don’t use them appropriately,
want me to put their toothpicks in the garbage can.
“After
that, you will put glue in the next section and fill it with colored rice.
Since we may run out of time to finish putting rice on all of the picture, make
sure you put it on the most important parts of your picture you want
covered with rice.
“It’s
really the rice that reminds us of having a Christian heart and forgiving others lots of times, just like there will be lots of grains of rice on your picture. Every time you see the rice, try to remember to forgive others the
way we want Jesus to forgive us lots of times.”
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Science
Example:
You
will need a plastic cup of water and a penny, crayon, key, pencil, dry bean, a
Styrofoam peanut, etc. for each student or group.
“You
will have a collection of items that you will test in your cup of water to find
out which ones sink and which ones will float. What is your Hypothesis about
which will sink and which will float?” Listen to all their Hypotheses.
After
they perform the experiment, have them explain their results. Explain that the
items that floated were less dense than the water and the items that sank are
denser than the water.
Say,
“When we do things wrong, we have a sinking feeling inside, because we know we
are not acting the way that Jesus would want. But if we ask Jesus to forgive us
for what we’ve done, we feel light inside like we are floating, because we know
Christ has forgiven us. Well, Jesus expects us to forgive others, as well.”
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Game
Example:
Each
child will need a cup and lots of narrow strips of paper and a pencil or crayon
at their table.
Say,
“We are going to play: I’m Forgiven! On each strip of paper, you are to
write down something you have done wrong like cheated, got angry with someone,
told a lie, etc. You are going to wad the strips up into little tiny balls.
Each time you wad up a strip, you can flick it with your fingers into the cup
you’re going to put across from you. Each time you get it in the cup you’ll
say, “I’m forgiven!”
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