The greatest story every told. Teaching kids biblical truths Part 2.

The Salvation story! The most basic story your kids should know by heart so that they can fall more and more in love with Jesus.

As I was feeding my toddler at night, about to fall asleep myself, God started to speak about this lesson. I saw a very clear vision of what the whole lesson needed to look like and what I needed to write about. I pray that this seed will be sown deep and grow strong roots. I pray for a wall of fire around it so that no enemy will be able to pluck this one out. I pray that no matter what your kids go through, that they will feel loved knowing what God has done for them out of His great love for them. I pray that the Lord may reveal Himelf to your children so that they will have this strong foundation build on intimacy to build on. I pray for peace and joy in the heart of the parents that teach this to their children. May you build your home on love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfullness, Gentleness and self-control.

What you will need:

- Some colored papers OR one colored paper that you color in. (You can also skip this part by downloading the printable sheets.)

- Scissors

What to do:

- Draw 3 rectangles.

- Leave one rectangle as it is and cut the other two in squares. You should have 4 squares (You only need to use 3) and 1 rectangle.

- Color the squares each another color. One respresenting God, one representing satan and one representing people.

- Cut the satan rectangle in a circle.

- Color the rectangle on both sides. Drawing a cross on one side and leaving it without on the other.

Once upon a time, before the earth was ever created. God had created a heaven. It had an amazing garden filled with the most beautiful trees, fruits and animals. He also created angels that served Him. From those angels there was one very special angel named Lucifer.

Ezekiel describes this angel as the following:

“You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering,

sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle;

and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings.

On the day that you were created they were prepared. You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked. You were blameless in your ways

from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you.¨

Sadly this angel let pride grow in his heart and tried to overthrow God so that he could be god. He got cast out of heaven and fell down to earth.

Later God created the earth. He made a garden ¨Eden¨ that looked like His garden in heaven and He created a man and woman that looked like Him. In Genesis 1:26 is written: ¨Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”¨

*Put the two squares together representing God and the man made in His image. (Bonus points if you let your kids use toys to create a garden around it.)

God let them rule over the earth like He ruled over heaven. They only had to follow one rule: ¨Do not eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge.¨ Lucifer, now named Satan, came and tricked the people into disobeying God. This is called sin. After the people ate the fruit something happened. The people, once made to be perfect like God, changed and got disconnected from God. They couldn´t live with Him in His perfect garden anymore so He had to send Him out.

*Cut off the corners of the square to make it into a circle. Keep the corners! They are needed later.

Sin made people look more like satan. They just couldn´t stop doing bad things.

*Put the two circles next to each other.

God still really loved His people and He absolutely hated Satan and all the evil he was spreading so He send His son Jesus here on earth.

*Show them the rectangle representing Jesus. Use the side without the cross.

Jesus lived a perfect life as a human here on earth. Jesus never sinned. Then one day Satan, working through people, got Jesus nailed to a cross to die. What Satan did not know was that this was God´s plan all along! Jesus was absolutely perfect. He never sinned. So Satan had no right to kill Him and yet He did. Jesus was a perfect offering, taking all of our sin upon Himelf. Because of this, death had no right to keep Jesus and He rose again 3 days after. This did something very special for us. It connected us back to God. THANKYOU JESUS! He gave up something really big so that He could fix this really big problem we had of not being able to be with God again.

*Cut off half a circle out of the rectangle and connect it to the square. Then connect the circle to the rectangle putting the side with the cross upwards.

But the beautiful story doesn´t stop here. God loves us even though we sin. We still looked like satan, but He loves us so so much that he doesn´t want us to live a difficult life full of sin, but a joyfull and free life looking more like Jesus! So He send us a gift.

After Jesus went back to heaven to sit on His throne next to God, God send us His spirit called The Holy Spirit. This spirit helps us to grow back into the people God has intended us to be by helping us make the right choice. When we look more and more like Jesus we can also do the things on earth that Jesus did to help others find God.

*Add the previous cut off corners back to the circle.

The more time we spend praying, by listning to what God is telling us, and reading our bible. The more we will look like Jesus. And that will make us the happiest we can ever be until we go back to our home in heaven.