Hi all! Welcome! This lesson is from James 2.

Let’s close our eyes and pretend for a minute. A boy was having a party. And someone very fancy looking and rich came to the party and someone very dirty and poor came to the party. The boy told the rich person “Ooh! You come sit right up here by me.” But to the poor person he said, “Ew. You can just sit on the floor.”

What do you think about that? Does that seem like God’s love?

I don’t think so. God tells us to love everyone like God loves us. God doesn’t care if we have a lot of money or not much money at all. He cares about what’s in our heart…and we should care about other peoples’ hearts…not just their money or fancy clothes or fun toys.

In James 2, God tells us that acting like that is not what He wants us to do. Do you know that sometimes people who have a lot of money think they don’t need God? And people who don’t have any clothes or money…sometimes they love God more because they know they need Him. Sometimes people who have less clothes and food are better about sharing than people who have a lot of stuff.

When we are nice to some people, but not other people it’s called favoritism (like having a favorite). And you will have some friends that you see a lot that might be your best friends, but that doesn’t mean you are nicer to them than everybody else.

If we are really loving other people like God loves us, we will love people for their heart…and NOT worry about if they have cool toys or video games or fancy clothes.

Do you know that sometimes grown ups and kids don’t want to be friends with someone if they have different skin color? Sometimes kids are mean to other kids who use a wheelchair or glasses. If we are loving like God loves us, we will try to be friends with everyone, even if they are different than us. (Because can I tell you a secret? EVERYONE is different than you! God did that on purpose! No one on earth is just. like. you. There is only ONE you! God made you special and He loves you…and He loves everyone who is different than you too.)

So if you see a kid who seems different than you some way, that’s no reason to not be nice to them. When we love like God, we don’t show favoritism, instead we show love and are a nice friend to EVERYONE.

 

For our craft today, we cut out two hearts. On the one heart, we drew a fancy person on one side and a poor person on the other side. Then we added some sparkl-ies to the rich person and rags to the poor person.

On the other heart we wrote James 2 and stapled it down the center to the bottom heart (so each side open us underneath).

 

Then we opened it up and wrote on the backside of the top heart: “Do not show favoritism”

 

On the other side we wrote: Love everyone like God loves us!

Thanks for joining us today! Love to you all!