Happy Valentine’s Day, Jesus! Here is my homemade valentine for You! MY LIFE is Yours to keep—forever and ever!
Superkids, could it be that simple to give Jesus your life? As easy as exchanging valentine cards and goodies with friends at school? Good NEWS! It’s even simpler!
Notice that I said SIMPLE, not EASY.
Really though, the simpler you allow life with Him to be, the easier it becomes. I’ve said it before: What makes things complicated is when you try to live one way on Sunday or with your parents, and you live another way at school or with your friends.
So, this month we are going to decompartmentalize our LIVES and give it ALL to Him.
I know, that’s a pretty big word.
Decompartmentalize means “to undo the compartmentalization.” That doesn’t help? Look at it this way. When you take your lunch to school, and you separate your sandwich from your chips, and your chips from your cookie, you have compartmentalized your lunch. When you separate your baseball stuff from your soccer stuff you have compartmentalized. Or when you separate your Legos by color. Have you ever tried that? In the end, to make something good, you must mix all the colors together to build what you want to build. Then you have decompartmentalized. Or, when all your toys get thrown into your closet and nothing is in order, you’ve what? Decompartmentalized. I am being funny with it, but you get the picture. The root word means, “divide into categories” (Dictionary.com).
It’s easy to divide your life into parts or categories. But it’s not so easy to live like that. For instance, Jesus is involved with your life at home. You pray with Mom or Dad over breakfast, on the way to school, at dinner and at bedtime. But what about during lunch when you’re at school? You pray over your knee when you fall at home, but do you pray over your knee when you fall at school? You would never use bad language in front of Mom and Dad. Nor would you be mean to someone in front of them. But what happens when it’s just you and your friends? Can you be tempted to use bad language, be a bully, make fun of someone or cheat on a test when you aren’t at church or with your parents?
Don’t feel bad if you answered yes. We all must realize that we respond this way at times. It’s not because we are evil in our hearts; it’s because we are divided in our love and devotion! It’s not unusual, but it is wrong. And it makes walking with Jesus difficult.
That’s not HIS fault. It’s our own fault, or weakness.
So, hey! Let’s fix that weakness as your valentine heart you give to Jesus. Let’s pull all the pieces of your LIFE together in one container (YOU) and give it to Him.
I have listed some ways the word life is used. Let’s go through some of them, and think about how you can give that part of yourself to Jesus. I am not going to give you all the answers. It’s YOUR life, so take a moment to make your own heart for Him, just like you would make a valentine with construction paper, scissors, markers, stickers and glue.
Life, as in…
1 Your life span. From the time you were in your mother’s belly until the time you go to heaven to be with Jesus. Will it ALL be His? Or will you wait to give it to Him when you get to be an adult?
2 Your daily life. Are you a Sunday-kind-of-Jesus person, or are you a Jesus person seven days a week? EVERY DAY JESUS!
3 When something bad happens, sometimes people say, “That’s life.” Will you trust Him to see you through when times are hard? Or will you blame Him for letting you down?
4 Life can mean a part of life, such as your social life (your friends), family life, church life, play life, school life. Will you be the same, love Jesus the same, give Him your all no matter what part of your life is going on?
5 Some people don’t like their lives. They would rather be like someone else—to have what they have. Can you love who Jesus made you to be? Can you give Him the opportunity to develop the LIFE He put in you?
6 People use the phrase, “Full of life” to mean that someone has a lot of spunk, pizazz or excitement and they SHOW it. What will you be FULL of? Will you be full of yourself or other things? Or, will you be full of Jesus, and show HIM all the time? This doesn’t mean you don’t like other things or get excited or passionate about the things you care about; but it does mean your life is centered on Jesus. You wonder, What does Jesus want, think, do, like or think about me?
Superkid, I hope you will take this whole month and think about each of these. Add to the list of ways you can give Him your LIFE, and love Him with your LIFE. Make it a family project to craft a TRUE valentine heart for Jesus. Remember: You are not making a one-day decision, but a LIFETIME choice that your LIFE, in all its forms, belongs to Jesus. If you make a quality decision and commit to it now, you’ll make a ONCE-in-a-lifetime choice that you will walk in every day. Will it always be easy? No. But it will always be simple because you will be walking with the One who makes it EASIER! Jesus is the One who gave us this life, and He’s the One who will keep it safe.
Jesus will watch over your life—your hand-crafted valentine. He offered you His own life on the Cross! Today, you can hear Him say, VALENTINE, PLEASE BE MINE!
JESUS
and His friend, Commander Kellie ♥