CrossKids Devo | Good Samaritan
Draw a line on a sheet of paper. Place a 1 on the left end of the line, a 10 on the right, and a 5 in the middle. As kids arrive, ask them to pencil in their initials on the line.
Say: If your day was so awful you wish you'd slept through it, place your initials by the 1. If it was a great day and you wish you could repeat, put your initials by the 10. Place your initials anywhere on the line that shows how you feel today.
Bible Time – Good Samaritan – Luke 10:30-37 Jesus shared the story of the Good Samaritan as an answer to a question: "What should I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 10:25). It's a straightforward question. So why didn't Jesus just answer it?
He did . . . but the man asking the question tried to wiggle out of doing what Jesus told him to do. The "loving God" part was fine--this man clearly cared about loving God. But the "taking care of neighbors" stuff? That was a problem.
The man wanted to know who Jesus considered as neighbors. And the answer clearly wasn't what the man wanted to hear: a neighbor is someone who needs your help. It's still not a popular answer, but there it is. According to Jesus, your neighbor is anyone who needs you . . . and we can help our neighbors!
You'll help kids wrestle with that message today as you share this story-- also known as a parable--of the Good Samaritan.
Read: Luke 10:30-37, Discuss the following questions:
· Tell about a time you helped someone. What did you do to help?
· Why are we sometimes slow to help others?
· What can we learn from Jesus' story about the Samaritan?
Say: There are so many people we can help, including our family members, friends, neighbors, and even others at church. If someone needs help and we're there, that person is our neighbor--and we can help him or her!
Pray
Give each child an adhesive bandage.
Say: Bandages remind us of healing and helping, don't they? In our Bible story, we learned how a man helped his hurt neighbor. You can hold your bandage as we pray and ask God to help us think of people we can help too.