THINK TOGETHER.
Have you ever been around little toddlers? What are they like?
READ TOGETHER
Proverbs 20:11. Even a child makes himself known by his acts, by whether his conduct is pure and upright.
Do you remember yesterday’s proverb? It said that none of us is good. None of us can make our own heart pure, or cleanse our own sin. Solomon’s argument in this proverb is that young children are the proof of man’s sinfulness. Even a child makes himself known by his acts, he declares. What does this mean? It means that if we look at children we can see that they are naturally selfish and sinful, not pure and upright.
The world around you wants you to think that people are born innocent and good, but then they are corrupted by the environment around them. Do you know what your environment is? It is the people, the places, the things that are around you all the time. Your environment is your neighborhood, your school, your family, and just society in general. But is this true? Do we start out good and learn to be bad? Or do we start out bad and have to be taught how to be good? What do you think?
The bad news is that we start out bad. No one had to teach you how to be selfish. How to whine. How to pout. How to lie. How to show off. You just know how to do all these things naturally. The good news is that, by God’s grace to everyone, we can learn how to be good, and care about others. And, like we learned yesterday, when we trust in Jesus so that he lives in our hearts, we can even do good from a pure heart like him.
It is so important to understand that people are naturally sinful and have to learn how to be good, because that is what will allow us to have patience with others, and forgive them. We ALL have sin inside of us. We all mess up. And we all are forgiven by God. So now we all can forgive others too.
Because of Jesus our sin can be taken away and replaced with a pure heart.
With Jesus we can learn to be good and also patient with ourselves and others when we mess up.
DO SOMETHING TOGETHER
Look at old baby pictures together. Talk about how cute and fun you were, but also how sinful you could be.
PRAY TOGETHER
Jesus, you are so patient with me. Help me be patient with others knowing that we all have sinfulness in us that you are slowly getting rid of. Amen.
TLICfamily 