TLIC FAMILY. DAY 43. FEBRUARY 13: IF…THEN.

THINK TOGETHER

What good choice have you made today? What bad choice have you made? ?

READ TOGETHER

In Deuteronomy, right before God’s people, the Israelites, were about to go back into the Promised Land, God gave them a choice. Listen to what God said:

Deuteronomy 30:15-18. ¹⁵ “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. ¹⁶ If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today…by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live…¹⁷ But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them…you shall surely perish.

Did you hear the choice? What was it? They could choose to be good, or they could choose to be bad. God says IF you choose good THEN you will live, but IF you choose bad THEN you will perish (die).   

Have your parents ever used an IF-THEN sentence with you? IF you clean your room, THEN you can have ice cream. IF you get your homework done, THEN you can watch TV. IF you get good grades, THEN you will get your allowance. IF you play together nicely, THEN you won’t be in “time out.”

Now, mom and dad’s IF-THEN sentence are usually something that you can do. But God’s IF-THENs are way harder. In fact, they’re impossible. As we’ve said before, no one can keep all of God’s commandments, and rules can they?

But Jesus did. Jesus is the one human being who always chose good over evil. Jesus is the one human being whose heart was never turned away. And that’s why Jesus is our savior. And that’s why we all must choose to simply receive God’s gift of eternal life, and not try to earn it ourselves by being good. Because we’ll never be good enough without Jesus.

Because of Jesus I don’t have to be good enough to have God’s eternal life.

With Jesus I can be good because God’s goodness lives inside me.

DO SOMETHING TOGETHER

Play a board game together. What are the rules. Help your kids to imagine a game that you could never win because the rules were too hard. Talk about how Jesus came and played the game for you, and now with you, so that you could be a winner every time.

PRAY TOGETHER

Jesus, thank you for always obeying all of God’s rules. Help me to obey God because I know he loves me, not so that he will love me. Amen.