It Cost How Much? (Family Devotion)

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Scripture
He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all–how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32

Activity

Keep the sale fliers from a Sunday paper. Ask each family member to go through the papers and write down what they would get each member of the family for Christmas if they had all the money in the world to spend. Have them give their lists to you to keep for family devotions later in the week.

Family Time

(Begin by allowing each member of the family to read his or her list of what they would buy the other members for Christmas if money was not an issue.) Christmas shopping would be quite different if you didn’t have to keep track of how much money you spent when buying gifts for the people you love. Now, what if you couldn’t pay for those gifts with money? If you had to trade to get one of these expensive gifts, what could you trade?

All of these gifts are things we can live without. But let’s pretend that there was an incredibly expensive gift that one of us really needed, and you didn’t have the money to pay for it. What would you trade or do to purchase that gift?

It’s hard to figure out an actual dollar cost of something that you have or do that isn’t normally paid for with money. Actually, gifts that are not paid for with money are much more valuable that gifts that are. For example, let’s say that one of us was in the hospital needing emergency surgery for a new kidney to live. If one of us had surgery and gave up one of our kidneys for the other family member to live, could we put a dollar amount on that? (Allow response.) No, nothing in all the world could compare with a gift life that. Why? Because it has to do with your life. The giver could live on one kidney, but you are still giving a part of your life. That takes a lot of love. It’s a gift of love!

(Ask a child to read Romans 8:32.) God’s gift to us cannot have a dollar amount put on it. It was a gift of love. He gave up His own Son, letting Him die so that we could live forever with God. Is there anything that would be worth the same value as God’s life? (Allow response.) This verse is telling us that since He loves us that much, we can know that God is also willing to give us anything else that we need. Why? Because He was already willing to give us the gift that cost Him the most! (Lead in prayer thanking God for His gift of love. Allow each family member to say his or her own prayer of thanks.)

This lesson is the same style as those provided in the Family Time Can Be Fun Ebook.