TLIC Family. Day 7. January 7: Tree of life.

THINK TOGETHER

How do you know that something is alive? Or for example, how do you know that you are alive and the chair your sitting on is not alive? (Answers might include moving, breathing, talking)

READ TOGETHER

Close your eyes and try to imagine the most beautiful place you can think of. What do you see?

The Bible tells us that God made the first two people, Adam and Eve, and he put them into a beautiful garden. This garden was amazing! It had everything they could ever need – rivers for water, trees and plants for food, animals to play with, and even rocks and minerals to build with.

God gave Adam and Eve this beautiful home to live in because he loved them very much. He wanted to live with them there, and be their only special God and they would be his special creation.

God wanted Adam and Eve to love him the same way he loved them. Why? Because to be alive as a person is to love God and others.

But you can never force someone to love you. Do your mom and dad, or grandma and grandpa force you to love them? Do they make a fist and threaten to punch you in the nose if you don’t love them? Hopefully not.

And why don’t they try to force you to love them? Because loving someone must be something you WANT to do. It has to be your choice.

And so in that garden God gave Adam and Eve a choice. A choice between two trees – one good tree, and one bad tree. Listen to these verses and see if you can name the two trees:

Genesis 2:9. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Genesis 2:16-17. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, ¹⁷ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

What was the name of the good tree?

What was the name of the bad tree?

Which tree would you choose? Which tree do you think Adam and Eve will choose?

Our choices are very important because they show what we love. If we love our family, we will choose to be kind to them and help them. If we are angry at our friends, we might choose to be mean to them. God gives us all kinds of choices so that we can learn to love and trust him. For Adam and Eve choosing to trust God would have meant eating from the Tree of Life.

Today for you and me choosing to trust God means trusting that Jesus came to die for our sins and to give us his goodness when we believe in him.

Because of Jesus we can choose to trust God and his love for us.

With Jesus we can choose each day to be good and kind.

DO SOMETHING TOGETHER

Help each other to list one way that you will trust God’s love today.

And here’s a great song about trusting in Jesus:

PRAY TOGETHER

Jesus,

Thank you for choosing to love me and to die for my sins on the cross. I know that God loves me because I know that you died for me. Help me to choose to love others today.

Amen.

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