To the Depths: What Your Child Learned in Church Today (Jan 4)

Bible Lesson:
Today your child learned the story about the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-35).

Main Point:
God loves everyone so should I!

Bible Verse:
"For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" Galatians 5:14

Bible Readings at Home: Please read through the Book of James with your child through the months of January and February. James is so rich with messages from God on how to live the Christian Life. The primary passages that correspond to today's lesson is James 2:8-9.

Your child learned today that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. We talked about how it's easy for us to love our family and our friends. However, there are a lot more people in the world than our family and friends - and God commands us to love them all. God loves everyone - He chooses to love us - all of us. Therefore, we should love others as well. It's not always easy. We discussed how we always tend to love the popular, cool kids, or tend to gravitate toward the kids who are easy to like or who are funny. However, God's love doesn't stop there so neither should ours. We saw how it's often hard for us to love those who we see as different, strange, weird, or mean. But they are our neighbors, too, and therefore we should show them love. How? By treating them the way we want to be treated, by looking out for their interests and not just our own, and by treating them with respect, or helping them if they are in need.

Showing love to others this week is a great way to start off the New Year!

TRAINING UP A CHILD HOMEWORK:
1. Help your child memorize Galatians 5:14 and be able to recite it to me next Sunday.
2. Your child brought home a Friend Journal. Have them find a friend (preferably someone new) and answer the questions asked on the journal page. The goal is for them to reach out to someone new and show an interest in learning about them. Then encourage your child to show that person God's love and pray for them.

God bless you and your family as you dive into God's Word and live it! This is a perfect opportunity to instill in your family the Spiritual Development Pastor Ronnie preached about today! (BTW, wasn't today's sermon just AWESOME!)

In His Love, Cathy