By CTA - Christ to All
Editor’s note: The Gospel Story by Colors is a great way to teach kids about God’s love for us in Jesus! Use this devotion—along with the colorful frozen pops recipe here—in your children’s ministry opportunities this summer. Don’t forget to check out The Gospel Story by Colors gifts and resources, too!
Colorful Party Frozen Pops
What You’ll Need
1 1/4 cup apple juice or lemon-lime soda
1 cup strawberries
1 cup peaches
1 cup mangoes
1 cup kiwifruits
1 cup mixed raspberries and blueberries
3-ounce paper cups
Craft sticks
What You’ll Do
- Blend strawberries with 2 tablespoons juice. Fill cup 1/5 full and freeze for 30 minutes.
- Remove from freezer and blend peaches with 2 tablespoons juice. Pour onto frozen strawberry mixture and add craft stick.
- Repeat with mango, kiwifruit, and raspberry/blueberry mixtures, freezing 30 minutes between each layer.
- Freeze pops for a few hours or overnight.
What is your favorite story? Why do you like it? (Let several volunteers comment.)
Those all sound like interesting stories! Thanks for sharing them! Today, I am going to tell you my favorite story. Some of you know this story. If you know it, you can help me tell it. If you don’t know it, you will want to listen extra hard because it is the most important story ever! It’s a true story - and YOU are in it!
(GREEN) This story starts out in a garden. It starts on a day just after God finished making the world and creating the first people. Their names were . . . (let children who know finish your sentence - Adam and Eve.) The world God had made was wonderful! There were bright blue skies. There were dancing dragonflies. There were humpback whales playing in the oceans.
Green is for God’s wonderful creation.
Many things in our world today amaze us. They are so interesting and wonderful. But back at the beginning, our world was even more wonderful! The Bible says . . . (Read Genesis 1:31.)
Everything God made was very good. There was no sickness. There were no tornadoes or hurricanes. There was no pollution. There was no sadness or hurting or death. Our world today has all these things! What happened?
(GREY) That’s the next part of our story, and it is a very sad part. Gray is for the sadness and gloominess of sin. Evil, sorrow, sickness, shame, and death entered God’s wonderful creation. Here’s how. (Read Genesis 3:1–7, perhaps from a children’s Bible.)
Later that very same day, God found Adam and Eve hiding in the beautiful garden he had given them. He told them about the consequences of their sin. What are consequences? (Let volunteers explain.) Sometimes consequences are good, like when we finish our homework early and Mom takes us to get ice cream. Sometimes consequences are bad, like when we yell at our friends and they decide not to play with us anymore. Do you think the consequences of sin were good or bad? (Ask one or two volunteers to explain.)
You are right. The consequences Adam and Eve earned were horrible! With sin came all the trouble in the world. With sin, came death. (Read Romans 3:23.)
Adam and Eve were not the only people to disobey God. I do it, and so do you. All of us have sinned. We deserve to be punished. This is getting to be a very sad story, isn’t it!?
(RED) God could have left us alone in the mess we have made. But our next color reminds us that he did not. It’s an amazing, surprising twist in the story. Red is for God’s great love. We could not escape from our sin. We could not make up for it. So, in love, God came to set us free! Listen! (Read John 3:16. Invite any children who know the verse to say it along with you.)
God didn’t pay money to free us. All the money in the world would never, ever have been enough. What did God do instead? (Invite one or two volunteers to answer.) Yes, the Bible says that Jesus made peace by his blood shed on the cross (Colossians 1:20). Jesus came on the very first Christmas. He lived a perfect life. He made sad people happy and sick people well. He gave hungry people food. And he taught everyone about their sin and about God’s love.
Then, enemies killed Jesus by nailing him to a cross. There he died. That is the very saddest part of this story! But here’s the great part! Jesus did not stay dead! He came alive on the very first Easter, just as God had promised he would.
Because Jesus lived, and rose again for us, God can make this promise: (Read Acts 16:31.)
(BLUE) What does it mean to believe? (Let volunteers comment.) When we believe in Jesus, we know what he did. We ask him to take away our sins. We trust that he loves us and that he will always, always keep doing that. Blue is for the gift of our faith.
We can’t make ourselves believe. Faith is another one of God’s good gifts. He gives it to us - freely! And he makes our faith stronger every time we hear about his love and about the forgiveness Jesus earned for us. When we believe in Jesus, eternal life is ours! Here’s what the Bible says. (Read Galatians 2:16, from a children’s Bible, if possible.)
Is that the end of the story? It is not! In fact, our story doesn’t end at all!
(YELLOW) Yellow is for the promise of eternal life. Eternal means “never ending.” The life we receive from God by faith never, ever ends. You see, life on this earth is not all there is. Just before he died, Jesus made this promise. (Read John 14:2–3.) What do you think the heavenly home Jesus is making for us will be like? (Let volunteers comment.)
We have heard many promises from God today, but this promise may just be the best promise of all!
You can use these colors to remind you what God has done for you in our Savior, Jesus! You can also use them as you share the very best story of all with other people. Whom will you tell?
You are welcome to copy this article for one-time use when you include this credit line and receive no monetary benefit from it: © 2018 CTA, Inc. Used with permission.
