TEXT: 2 Timothy 2:1-4; 3:14-15

Did you ever hold a brand new baby? He felt so tiny in your arms, didn’t he? His little fingers were ever so small, but how tightly they held onto your finger.

If you ever had a baby brother or sister, though, you know they don’t stay little very long. They start to get bigger right away. Soon everybody is saying, “My, how that baby is growing!”

It’s a lot of fun to watch them learn new things. As a baby gets bigger and stronger, he learns to sit up by himself. Then he crawls. He may fall down a lot when he begins to take his first steps, but one day he toddles all the way across the room. He’s growing up!

We want that little one to grow, don’t we? Even though he is perfect as a little baby, we would feel sad if he never grew and developed the way he should.

In the same way, we need to grow as Christians. We don’t want to stay “baby” Christians forever. We want to be strong, and be able to do things for ourselves and others. We need to learn and develop just like a new baby does.

A baby needs food and exercise and love to grow properly. We need certain things to help us grow as Christians too. One important thing we need is God’s Word, the Bible. We find out how we should live by reading the Bible. It answers our questions about what we should do.

Another important thing that we need is prayer. Praying is talking to God and listening carefully for Him to talk to us in our hearts. We can tell God when we are happy. We can thank Him for the good things He gives us. We can ask Him to help us with things that are hard to do. God always hears us when we pray. He is glad when we take time to talk to Him.

Jesus tells us that it will help us grow as Christians if we keep busy working for Him. He wants us to show love for others by being kind and helpful. Jesus always notices when we do something good for someone else.

We need to tell others what Jesus has done for us too. We can tell our friends about Jesus and how He loves all children. If they do not go to Sunday school, we could invite them to come with us. We should always be ready to talk about Jesus because that will help us grow as Christians.

You are growing taller every day. You are learning new things at school and at home. Are you also growing as a Christian, like God wants you to?

PARENT’S CORNER

Use a yardstick to show your child how many inches long he was at birth. Then measure him now to see how much he has grown. Talk about what growing is, and how we can tell that it is happening.

Discuss some of the things that are necessary for physical growth. Make a list together, or let your child cut out pictures from a magazine showing things we need. Then compare these to the things we need for spiritual growth.

In your family time together, talk about why it is important to grow spiritually once we have been born into God’s family.

FAMILY DEVOTIONS