Clean Heart Craft

I intended to do this craft at Christmas time to illustrate why it's important that Jesus came to earth. I just now got around to it, but it's an important lesson any time of the year!

We started by cutting a heart out of white cardstock. (Lucy was amazed that when I folded the paper in half and cut it, it unfolded into a heart! Haha.) I taped the heart onto a glass cutting board and covered it with saran wrap.

Then I told her the story of a naughty little girl named Julie. One day, Julie lied to her mommy. The Bible says not to lie, so lying is a sin. I told Lucy to put some paint on the heart. One time Julie got mad at her sister and hit her. The Bible says to be kind, so when we're not kind that's sin. Lucy put some more paint on the heart. Another day Julie stole a cookie out of the cookie jar. The Bible says stealing is a sin. More paint on the heart. Pretty soon the heart was starting to look pretty icky:

I told Lucy how sin makes our hearts look icky too, but God had a special plan to make our hearts clean again. I explained that Jesus used to live in Heaven with God, but he came to earth as a baby to take away our sin. I didn't get into the specifics about the cross yet. I just told her that Jesus made a way to clean our hearts. All we have to do is pray and tell him that we're sorry for sinning and ask him to wash away our sins. At this point, we unfurled the saran wrap to reveal a clean heart!

Lucy had forgotten about the saran wrap and was pretty impressed that the heart was white and clean again.

She did not make any kind of salvation decision or ask to pray, but I didn't expect her to. I just wanted to lay the foundation of sin and our need for a Savior. Later that night, we told Daddy about our clean heart craft and she did an amazing job of re-iterating what sin is, where Jesus came from, and why he came to earth, so I'm declaring this craft a success. :-)

"God, create a pure heart in me. Give me a new spirit that is faithful to you." Psalm 51:10 (NIRV)