February 14th, 2012 by Kristi Stephens

It’s Valentine’s Day!

My peaceful morning reverie while cooking heart-shaped pancakes on the cast iron griddle was shattered as children began hitting and tattling and waking up younger siblings. No names will be mentioned to protect the not-so-innocent.

Love was in the air!

I decided to spend some time with my kiddos discussing God’s love – and how we should be compelled to act based on His love for us. I will share it here in case it might get someone else’s mental gears turning and help them engage their children with the truths of God’s Word.

First, I compiled a list of Scripture verses that we would be using – you can download the list I used here (they are from the NIV) or make your own! I then cut apart the strips and pulled out our trusty metal Valentines mailboxes from the attic. I picked these out of the Target dollar bin a few years ago and they make their appearance every now and then for a variety of activities! Each box was labeled with a category- “How God shows His love for us,” “How we show our love for God,” “Commands to love,” “How we show our love for others.”

The kids and I (well, really just AG – LB stayed with us for about 30 seconds!) took turns reading the verses, discussing what they meant, and sorting them into the appropriate box.

After the verses were sorted, we looked at one “box” of verses at a time, underlining repeated phrases and ideas, and then summarizing what they meant.

We spent a lot of time talking about God’s unconditional, faithful, sincere love for us, and how knowing and loving Him should change us into people who will obey Him and show selfless and sincere love for others that is not conditioned upon how they treat us in return.

A reminder we all needed.

Teaching your kids to study, understand, and apply God’s Word doesn’t have to be complicated, boring, or overly profound! Just help them see what the Bible says to us, summarize what it means, and apply what it says. We moms need the reminder along the way, as well. :)

Happy Valentine’s Day, friends – how great is the love He has lavished on us!