Children’s Message – Full Measure

Scripture: Luke 6:38

Props: Measuring cup, flour

How much is a lot of money?  Well, let’s just say that you paid [insert twice the highest amount that was named] for one cup of flour.  You would want to make sure that you got all that you paid for, wouldn’t you? [Pour flour from container into cup until it is heaped up] Could you get any more than that in the cup?  Remember you paid a lot of money for this cup full of flour.

[Tap bottom of cup gently a number of times against something solid to settle the flour.  Show them the cup (It should have about a half inch of space left unfilled)]

That’s what our scripture means when it talks about a full measure shaken down.  Now if you were the person selling the flour and someone had paid you, you would want to make sure that person got their money’s worth, wouldn’t you?

Now you probably wouldn’t pay that much for a cup of flour even if you had that much money.  But you know God paid an even greater price for something just for us because He loved us.  He paid a price higher than any amount of money could measure.  He sent His only Son Jesus Christ to earth and Jesus died for us.  And because of that we should want to give back all that we can.  We can never fully repay what Jesus did for us, but we can show our thanks.

How do you suppose we can give back to God?  He certainly doesn’t want flour does He?  The verse before this one in the Bible gives us a clue about what we can give? [Read Luke 6:37-38] Because Jesus paid for our sins with His life, we can ask God to forgive us for the things we do wrong and He will.  And then, to make sure we give him back all that we can, we should forgive other people when they do something wrong toward us.  And we can love others even when they don’t act like they love us very much.  And we can help people that are hungry or need clothes; we can visit people that are lonely.  In other words, we can be as much like Jesus as we can be.  And that would be thanking God for what He did for us.

Prayer:   Thank you God for being so generous in giving to us even when we didn’t deserve it.  Help us to see ways that we can repay you by helping others around us and showing them your love.  Amen.