THINK TOGETHER
Have you ever gotten in trouble for being bad? Did you hide?
READ TOGETHER
There was only one thing in the Garden of Eden that Adam and Eve weren’t allowed to do. Do you remember what it was? Here’s what God said:
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.”
They were not allowed to eat from the Tree of Knowing Good and Evil. To eat from this one tree would be a sin. What is sin?
Sin is anything we think or do that disobeys God’s rule or rejects his love and grace. And Adam and Eve did both. They disobeyed God’s rule to not eat from the Tree of Knowing Good and Evil, and they rejected God’s love and grace when they chose to reject the Tree of Life – the tree that would give them God’s eternal life. That’s right, they sinned. They chose to try to be like God instead of choosing to simply love and trust God.
And as soon as they sinned, Adam and Eve were afraid. Here’s what Adam said when God came to the Garden looking for him:
Genesis 3:10. And [Adam] said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid.”
Sin is a terrible thing. The Bible tells us that sin is not only the bad and selfish things we do, but that it is also a powerful force that tries to keep us away from God and his love for us. It makes us afraid of God. And it makes us want to hide from God. That’s what Adam and Eve did. They tried to hide from God. Can anyone hide from God?
When sin makes us feel bad inside that’s called guilt. Sometimes feeling guilty makes us do even more bad things. We might stay away from each other, or start to blame each other for what WE did wrong (have you ever blamed someone else for your sin?). That’s what Adam did. He blamed Eve for his sin. He told God that it was all Eve’s fault that they ate from the Tree of Knowing Good and Evil, because Eve had eaten from the tree first. But then Adam did something even worse – he blamed God. He said that it was all God’s fault, because God made Eve.
But Jesus came so that we don’t have to feel ashamed any more. We don’t have to feel guilty and afraid of God. We don’t have to try to make excuses for our mistakes and blame others. Instead we can confess (admit) our sin and ask others to forgive us. Why? Because Jesus died on the cross for our sin. And because of Jesus, God has already forgiven us!
Because of Jesus we don’t have to feel afraid when we sin because we are forgiven.
With Jesus we can admit our sin and make things right.
DO SOMETHING TOGETHER
Play hide and seek together. Talk about how with God we never have to hide and when we do he always comes to find us.
PRAY TOGETHER
Jesus,
Thank you for forgiving me and loving me even when I sin. Help me to be able to admit when I do bad things and make it right because I know you love me no matter what.
Amen.
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