Use this children’s Sunday School lesson on the sixth Beatitude to teach kids to have only love in their hearts.
Needed: Bibles, a glass or bottle of dirty water, a glass or bottle of clean water, pieces of paper with different emotions represented on them, tape
Intro Game: Finding Purity
In this game of Eye Spy, you’ll only choose items that are only one color, only one shape, or made out of only one material.
You’ll choose the first item. When a student guesses your item, explain why you choose it (based on one of the criteria above). Have the next student pick their item, but tell them that their item has to match one of the criteria.
Lesson
Prepare two bottles or glasses of water beforehand. One is clean; the other has a bunch of dirt in it.
Bring the two bottles out and ask, If I were going to give you a drink, which bottle would you want to drink from?… Why?… What would be so bad about drinking from the dirty one?
Which bottle do you think has the water that is purer?
What do you think that word “pure” means?
For something to be pure, it has to be clean, and it has to be made up of one thing. It can’t have anything else mixed in with it. The dirty water isn’t pure because there’s dirt mixed in with the water. The clean water is pure because there’s nothing else in the water. It’s water only.
(Read Matthew 5:8.)
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
What do you think it means for us to be pure in heart?
To be pure in heart means that there is only one thing in our heart. The water is pure if there’s only one thing in the water. Our hearts are pure if there’s only one thing in our hearts.
What do you think God wants that one thing in our heart to be? (Love.)
God wants our hearts to be full of love. He wants us to love Him and to love other people and to not have anything else in our hearts except love.
Sometimes, our heart might not be pure, though. Sometimes, we might have hate in our heart. Or anger. Or we might want to do bad things. If we have those feelings in our heart, we should ask God to fill up our heart with love again so that we can get rid of those bad feelings.
What does Jesus say will happen if we have pure hearts and have only love in our hearts?
We will see God. We will go to Heaven and see God if we keep our hearts pure and full of love for God and other people.
Game: Purify Our Heart
Draw or print out smiley faces with different negative emotions on them. The negative emotions could include sad, worried, afraid, angry, guilty, or embarrassed.
Tape one of the negative emotion smiley faces on each of the kids’ foreheads without letting them see what it was. They then have to ask each yes or no questions to figure out which emotion they have. Once they know the answer, give them a smiley face showing love to replace their negative emotion.
Remind students that we want our hearts to be pure, so we need to replace our negative emotions with love.
Game: Finding Purity part 2
This time, name your category and have students race to bring you something that matches your description. The first one who does gets to choose the next item.
Remind students that God wants our heart to be pure, filled only with love for God and other people.
Closing Prayer
Jesus, we pray that You’ll help us to have pure hearts. Help us to get rid of everything in our hearts that doesn’t please You. Amen.
You can also find this lesson for Kindle or in print in my book, Jesus Teaches on the Mountain.