Kids ALIVE

Saturday, we delivered Easter Goodies to some of the kids we know. There was candy (of course), crafts, and a booklet on Jesus’ teaching, death, and resurrection.

One little girl asked me, “Why did Jesus die on the cross?” “Well, “ I said. “Did you ever do anything bad?” “Yeah.” Did you get punished for it?” “Yeah.” “Wouldn’t it’d be great if someone else took your punishment for you?” “Yeah.”

“Well, everyone in the whole world has done bad things and one day God will punish them for it. They’ll be kept out of Heaven for ever and ever. But God doesn’t want us to miss Heaven. He loves us so much that He wants us to live with Him forever and ever. So, Jesus loves us so much that he took our punishment for us. If we love Jesus and follow him, God becomes our Heavenly Father and He’ll be with us always.”

I know this girl had hear the Gospel before - she recognized the parable of the Lost Sheep in the booklet - but sometimes we need to be reminded. That’s what the Easter season does for us every year. It reminds us it’s all real - God really does love us and our Savior is alive.

In school, tests are always pass-or-fail. So, if we think God’s testing us, we think He’s standing back with a clipboard in one hand and a red pencil in the other shaking His head at how dense we are.

We forget: God already knows we can screw things up. Instead, His tests are meant to bring out of us those things that cause us to fail - anger, envy, anxiousness, fear, worry, hopelessness, pride, selfishness - (whether we want to face them or not) so we can deal with them.

It can be ugly and messy, but He wants us to pass the biggest test of all: life itself. He wants us to be rid of all that junk so we can be everything He’s made us to be.

And here’s the thing about God’s tests: they’re open book tests. If you don’t know the answer - what to do - open your Bible and find out. You can even ask someone what the answer is. Heck, you can even ask the Teacher!

We don’t need to be reminded of our failures. God doesn’t need to be reminded of our failures. His tests are to remind us we need more Jesus.