Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

by Jack Klumpenhower

1. Unless our hearts are in it, we haven’t fully obeyed God in the first place.

We’re alive in him and growing spiritually.

4. Knowing we’re surely saved can’t lead to lax behavior if we understand how grand our future happiness will be.

5. The idea that God’s grace might let us get away with sin is not how reborn people should think.

The law-based mentality does the minimum to get by; a love-based mentality does the most it can. Which is a fuller obedience?

7. We can’t really obey God if we’re unsure of his pleasure toward us.

If we aren’t convinced he actually loves us, forever and unfailingly, everything we do for him will only be a scheme to impress him and try to earn or keep his love.

9. To become more effective at fighting sin and at obeying, we must focus on believing the good news.

Unless kids learn to strengthen their belief in Jesus by hearing and responding to the good news, their fight against sin will have a lousy strategy. They’ll struggle with surface sins while ignoring the heart—and get nowhere. The good-news strategy is far more serious about whole-life obedience than an approach that just takes pot shots at certain visible sins.

Silly!

10. Unless our good works spring from belief in Jesus, they aren’t even actually good.

he doesn’t say that the solution is to stop teaching grace.

people who love God’s grace

A true appreciation for grace always brings humility,

???

with the best of motivations,