A wage vs. a gift

On Sunday, I got the privelege of teaching my 2nd and 3rd grade Sunday school kids about how God loves them so much he sent His son Jesus to die on the cross to take the punishment for our sins. I love to teach these kids and usually feel pretty confident and prepared each week. However, knowing what I was going to teach this week I had a nervous anticipation and prayed that God would lead the kids to open their hearts to him and choose Him as their forever friend. We got into a great discussion about the difference between a wage and gift. Interestingly, they really didn't know what the word "wage" meant. (Ahhh, to not know about working for money. To be a kid again!) After we talked about it for awhile, they understood that you earn a wage but Christ came as a gift. An undeserved, unearned, freely-given, amazing gift. My prayer (and my friends at Bible Study were praying too) was that God would do the leading and if the kids asked Jesus to be their Savior --- great. If not, they could take some time to think about it and choose when they were ready. Nine kids responded and asked Jesus in their heart. Awesome. Way to go God!