How BIG is the Love of God?

Needed:

• 8 full sheets of newspaper
• Tape (just about any kind)
• Scissors

About the Lesson:

This is a lesson that uses homemade newspaper “trees” to talk about how HUGE the love of God is. The trees just keep growing and growing and growing, the same way God’s love does.

Prep:

Get 8 full sheets of newspaper, lay them side by side and tape them together (you can use more sheets to try and get a bigger tree should you have a tall enough ceiling and enough paper). It is best if you can tape them from top to bottom making sure that you don’t leave any of the “sticky part” exposed which will make it hang up when you are pulling it out.

Once you tape these together, roll them up around a small tube like a gift wrapping tube or piece of pipe. Slide the pipe out and tape the outside to make sure it doesn’t come undone.

Lastly, you will cut the roll of paper into quarters from one end down to roughly the middle. Spread the 4 quarters out and you are ready to go!

As you teach your lesson and get to the part where you are ready to make the trees grow, carefully reach into the very middle and pull the center… the magic will happen on its own!

Make sure you try this at home to find out ahead of time just how far you can stretch your tree out…  you don’t want to be surprised in class. If you pull it too far the tree won’t be able to hold itself up and will fall over.

Lesson:

“Today we are going to be talking about the love of God.”

Many people struggle with the fact that God can really love them because they don’t even really love or even LIKE themselves. But GOD loves you! Unconditionally.

No matter what you ever do, it will never diminish the love of God for you.  It doesn’t mean God is OK when you do goofy things or sin against Him but He DOES still love you.

But HOW much does He love us?

We use the term “love” so casually all the time to the point where it doesn’t even mean anything anymore.

We say that we LOVE ice cream. Or I just LOVE your dress (well, you might say that if you were a girl… guys don’t say stuff like that)
But do we really LOVE those things or just really like them?

To know how much God loves us, first I think we need to know what God is.  Does anyone know what God is?

YOUR CLASS WILL PROBABLY RESPOND WITH A LOT OF DIFFERENT THINGS

1 John 4:8 says… “He that loveth NOT knoweth not God” OR If you don’t have love, you don’t EVEN KNOW GOD!

BUT WHY?!

The rest of the verse continues on… “for God IS LOVE”.

God is a whole lot of things and it is difficult to pin down one thing that encapsulates God but it is always safe to say, that God IS LOVE.
THAT’S WHAT HE IS AND WHO HE IS IN A NUTSHELL

PULL OUT THE NEWSPAPER TREES AT THIS POINT AND SHOW THEM TO THE CLASS. THEY WILL BE VERY CONFUSED WHAT IS GOING ON BUT LET THEM WONDER.

When you first hear that God is love you may be a little confused and think, “What does that mean, He IS love?” To put it in very simple terms, it means everything God does is based on love. Every action He takes, every move He makes, every word He says is based on love.

The Bible says:

1 John 3:1 – Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.

PULL THE TREE OUT ABOUT 8 INCHES OR SO

This verse says that if you are trying to figure out what kind of love God has toward us, just think that He loved us so much that we should be called the sons of GOD! He wants us to become a part of His family

PULL THE TREE OUT ANOTHER 8 INCHES OR SO

That’s pretty cool! God isn’t content with us just being a friend, He wants us to become like one of His KIDS!

But how BIG is His love for us really?

Some of us think that because we have made mistakes that He couldn’t love us – But He does!

PULL THE TREE MORE

Some think that we just aren’t good enough for God to love us
Actually, you are right… NONE of us are good enough BUT…
We don’t get good to get God… we get God to get good.

PULL THE TREE MORE

God wanted us to know just how much He loved us so He wrote to us in Ephesians 3:

• 17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in LOVE
• 18 May be able to comprehend (OR UNDERSTAND) with all saints what is the breadth (HOW WIDE), and length, and depth, and height;
• 19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge…

SO GOD PLANTED US, LIKE A FLOWER BUT INSTEAD OF US BEING PLANTED IN DIRT, HE PLANTED US IN LOVE.

• So we can understand how WIDE (PULL MORE TREE)
• how LONG (PULL MORE TREE)
• how DEEP (PULL MORE TREE)
• and how WIDE (PULL MORE TREE)
  His love really is

And just when we think we understand just how big His love can be. He wrote the ULTIMATE message to us about His love toward us in John 15:13 – Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

There is NO greater love than for someone to lay down their life for another and Romans says in chapter 5 verse 8 that, God did exactly that for us!

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

PULL THE TREE OUT AS FAR AS IT WILL GO WITHOUT BREAKING

Yes, God paid the ultimate sacrifice for us by giving His life so that we might live.

Thank you so much and I hope this object helps you teach your class more about the love of God. Make sure you check out the rest of apstolicsundayschool.com to find other object lessons like this, magic tricks that teach, how to tie balloons, teacher training and a WHOLE LOT MORE!

Also, if YOU have a good lesson that you would like to share with others please tell me about it. Email info@apostolicsundayscool.com, comment here, send feedback, record a video, post it on Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, ANYWHERE and share the link… Howeve you do it really doesn’t matter just please share it!

God bless and happy Sunday Schooling.