“Don’t be selfish” seems to be one of those phrases that is said often when you have kids. Especially when you are home with each other more than normal. The opportunities abound daily to turn your child’s heart away from their sinful nature of serving self and towards serving others.
As important as it is to not be selfish, the Bible calls us to so much more. We are called to put others’ needs before our own AND do it with a willing spirit.
In Luke 10:25-37, Jesus tells the parable of The Good Samaritan to help us understand what it means to put others before ourselves.
Read Luke 10:25-28. How does Jesus say we can have eternal life?
In verse 28, we learn what it means to be selfless, “love your neighbor as yourself.” The lawyer asks Jesus who his neighbor is. So Jesus tells a parable, or story, to help the lawyer understand.
Read Luke 10: 29-37. Having read the parable, who is your neighbor?
A Samaritan would have been the LAST person on earth a Jew would have expected to help him. So when the crowd heard Jesus say that a Samaritan helped this man, they were shocked!
How did the Samaritan go above and beyond to help the man who was beaten?
Jesus was showing them that loving their neighbors means loving people that they may not even like or are not kind to you. True selflessness is putting your neighbor above yourself, and if we are to do that with people we don’t know, how much more should we practice this within our own families?
ACTION STEP with Your Child: Look for ways today to love your family. On a sticky note or a scrap piece of paper, write down one person in your family that you can love well today. Now, pray before you go do anything else, asking Jesus to help you to be selfless and love them. Now, go put that sticky note somewhere safe and pray for help to love them everyday this week.
—
Fun Activity: Make cards for Nurses and Dr’s and drop them off in the box on the Library book return dropbox.
