Holidays are a great excuse to get families talking about faith at home. Share this devotion with your church families to spark some fun, spiritual conversations today.
Verse to Remember:
Dear friends, let us love
one another, because love comes from God. – 1 John 4:7 (NIrV)
Ahead of Time:
Cut out several
paper hearts of various sizes. Use construction paper, notebook paper or
anything you have available. If you have enough time, let the kids cut
them out. For the quick version, do it yourself ahead of time.
Keep one heart
back to represent God’s heart. Write the word “PEOPLE” on it. If
you’re really feeling ambitious, make it bigger and fancier than the rest.
Talk About This:
What special holiday do
we have coming up? Valentine’s Day. What are some things you think of when you
think of Valentine’s Day? (love,
hearts, candy, chocolate, cards, etc).
Let’s use these paper
hearts to think about some things we love. Take a heart and write down one
thing you love on it. It could food, a toy, a person, a song, or whatever. If
you love it, write it down.
(Parents should
write some things down too. After kids fill out their paper hearts, have kids
share what they wrote, and share yours with them.)
Okay, now lets put them
in order in front of us. Put the heart with the thing you love most at the top
and put the heart with the thing you love least at the bottom.
(Show kids the
heart with the word “PEOPLE” written on it.)
God loves people. People
are at the top of God’s list and at the bottom of God’s list and everywhere in
between. For God, people are always more important than things.
God loves you, and now we
get to share that love with others. Check out what this Bible verse says, “Dear
friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God.” -1 John 4:7.
Let’s say it out loud together.
“Dear friends, let us love one another, because
love comes from God.” -1 John 4:7
It’s great to have things
you really like, things like pizza, puppies and ice cream. But the longer we
follow Jesus, the more we learn to put people at the very top of our list.
Let’s flip our hearts
over and make a list of people we can show love to this week.
(After kids make
their list, have them pick one heart and talk about how they can share God’s
love with the person whose name they wrote down. Help them make a plan and put
it into action.)
Prayer:
God, thanks for loving
us. Thanks for putting us at the top of your list. Help us to have a heart like
yours. Amen.
Extra Prayer
Activity:
Put the hearts with names
on them somewhere you’ll see them all week and choose one each day to pray for
together.
Just For Fun:
Check out this awesome Valentine’s Day breakfast idea for kids.
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