“Then Jesus approached and said to them, ‘All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.'”

Matthew 28:18

This lesson rightly starts with a little Bible study because there are so many dramatic stories there about Jesus commanding weather, sickness, and even death and they all obeyed Him!  (It’s an attention-getting opener!)  These are just a few examples that show how Jesus reigns over absolutely everything in the universe and He has the authority to do the same with us, but instead he INVITES us to love Him and he WAITS for us to accept the invitation.  These choices we all make to accept God or to reject him are possible because God has given us each the gift of free will, and learning a little more about that makes up the next part of the lesson.

The activity for this lesson has two parts:

1. First, read The Story of Sir Victor the Braveheart to your kids.  Victor was a boy who lived “long ago in a village far away,” and he was training to become a squire and eventually a knight.  To get there, he had many skills to learn and personal battles to win.  The greatest of all of these was learning how to overcome his own pride to become a obedient and trustworthy person who could obey legitimate authority.
2. At a moment of crisis, he had a dream where he realized that Jesus was speaking to him through the guiding voices of his parents and his mentor, Sir Thurston.  Looking into a mirror, he was startled to see Christ’s face looking back at him as he was inspired with the prayer, “Heart of Christ, live in me, that I might serve You faithfully.”  You can help your kids be open to this invitation that Jesus is always extending to each of us as He humbly waits for us to open the door and let Him inside our hearts.  Tape the transparency of Jesus on a mirror at kid height and encourage your whole family to memorize this very simple prayer of invitation and surrender to His most wonderful authority!