Show Them Jesus

Agape Moms’ gospel-centered resource recommendation this week is Show Them Jesus by Jack Klumpenhower. To continue our theme this week with the problem with perfection, I couldn’t think of a better book to combat the tendency of our hearts to perform, prove and earn our way before God and others. This book is a very practical guide to teaching children and ourselves, especially reframing Bible studies to be gospel-centered. This is one of my faves, and worth the investment, or grab for free on the Hoopla app

“We’ve been dispensing good advice instead of the good news. Eventually, kids will tire of our advice, no matter how good it might be. Many will leave the church. Others will live decent, churchy lives but without any fire for Christ. We’ll wonder why they’re rejected the good news, because we assumed they were well grounded in it. In fact, they never were. Although we told stories of Jesus and his free grace, we watered it down with self-effort- and that’s what they heard.

Fellow teachers, our challenge is to proclaim the good news of Jesus so clearly and consistently that no kid of ours will ever place him in a category with typical religious leaders. Our calling is to be good news fanatics. I stress this because if I don’t, someone will hear me talk of teaching about Jesus and get the wrong idea. They will think, “Yes, we ought to teach kids to be like Jesus and to follow his example.” This would be typical religion.

What a tyrant Jesus would be if he lived a perfect life and then as his main message told us to be like him. What a setup for failure! What discouragement and worry would mark our lives! What masquerades they would be! We must understand that our central hope is in Jesus’ full saving work, not just his instructions, and that kids will be stuck in the pressure-filled mode of trying to measure up unless we bombard them with this good news.” (Pg. 18, Show Them Jesus)