The most delicious part of the Christmas season may be the baked goodies that pop up everywhere. Christmas cookies, pumpkin pies, chocolate cakes. It’s January and we’re past all that…but is anyone getting hungry all over again for December treats?
- What’s the treat that tempts you most during the Christmas season? (Accept all reasonable answers.)
Eating sweets is a fun part of enjoying the holidays! There’s no shame if you gave into temptation and ate some goodies. Cookies speak to us in a way that broccoli doesn’t. However, sometimes temptations can lead us to sin.
We’re going to watch four little kids face two temptations. The first temptation is to eat a piece of chocolate cake. They aren’t disobeying if they give in—they were given the choice. They will get a reward if they don’t eat the cake, but it’s okay if they choose to eat it and give up the reward.
However, the kids will also be faced with a second temptation: will they answer honestly about whether they ate cake? Or will they lie? Let’s watch.
Show your students the following video [2:43].
Brain Games – Lying and Cognitive Development in Children
- Is there anything morally wrong with tasting a chocolate cake when it’s left right in front of you? (Of course not. At least so far as we can tell from the video, eating or not eating the cake wasn’t a matter of disobedience. The children would get a reward if they stayed away from the chocolate; if they chose to eat the cake, they were just giving up the reward. There was no sin involved.)
- When did the kids commit a sin? (Obviously, it was when three out of four kids lied about whether they’d eaten some of the chocolate.)
- Why do you think the kids lied? (They probably wanted to receive the promised reward even after they didn’t fulfill the conditions.)
Life is full of temptations—from eating chocolate to lying. Some temptations can be harmless—like an occasional piece of chocolate cake! But other temptations can lead us to violate God’s will. Like lying about what you ate, for example.
As Christians, God wants us to resist the temptations that lead us to sin. It’s not easy, but it can be done, as Jesus demonstrated in the Gospels. Let’s look at the most famous time that Satan tried to persuade Jesus to disobey God.
