I taught a lesson for the Young Women in my church titled, “Why is Jesus Christ important in my life? As I was thinking about how to best explain why Jesus Christ matters and what He can do in our lives, I put together this object lesson. It uses:
1 balloon
Several beans
It describes how the balloon is us, our spirit or soul. The purpose of the ballon is to be filled and to rise up and come closer to Heaven and ultimately live with Him again.
When come down to earth we forget our purpose and often just noticed that we are deflated and need to do something about it. Most of us are motivated by not having enough.
We don’t have enough money so we work hard to earn more. (add a few beans after each statement)
We don’t have enough things, so we do what we can to get more toys and material things.
We need more people to like us and think we are the coolest, so we revolve our efforts around impressing others.
We need to just DO more with our lives, so we cram our lives full of activities, tasks, to do’s to the point we are just crazy BUSY.
In the end all those things are semi-satisfying, but not really, right? We are still deflated. In fact all those ‘beans’ have become quite a burden in our lives. We start resenting our efforts because even though we worked so hard, someone else still has more! More money, more things we want, accomplishes more than we do!
All we know is that we are exhausted and not really satisfied with our lives.
Christ says: Verily, verily, I say unto you, I will impart unto you of my Spirit, which shall enlighten your mind, which shall fill your soul with joy;
He’s saying, ‘I am what you NEED and what you’ve been looking for the whole time!’
When we start letting go of some of the worldly things and desires (start dumping some beans out) and we start making room for Christ and His spirit, He can fill our SOULS up! (Blow up balloon)
Something of totally different substance, not material things. Something that actually fills us up!! He helps us feel satisfied at whatever level of progression we are in. We can feel like we are enough, have enough so we are more willing to serve, give, share and love others (see “Feeling Enough” post). We are filled with the desire to better serve God and seek His truths. It’s not that we stop entirely what we were doing before but rather we become wiser about what we choose to do and begin doing things with perspective, purpose, love and with the Spirit. We are happy and fulfilled but as the balloon continues to be filled up, our souls and capacity to receive more love, joy, light, understanding, wisdom EXPANDS.
In the meantime, He also lightens our burdens, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matt 11:28)” He helps us get rid of all those attachments to worldly things, let go of ideas that weight us down, doubts, fears, guilts. He purifies us to the degree we are willing let Him in our lives. (Hold on to open end of ballon and start to carefully get rid of more beans)
As this is happening, we also begin to rise. Christ helps us rise to our potential, and to God.
Without Christ, we could not have a relationship with God. He is the piece, the bridge, our advocate with the Father. God actually needs us to ‘be perfect’ but we simply can’t be perfect by ourselves, so that is WHY we COMPLETELY need a savior in our lives. Christ is that savior, that lived a perfect life, that atoned for us, died for us, resurrected for us, and is WILLING and WAITING to impart His endless perfection with us, to COMPLETE us, to make us whole, PERFECT us so we can have and enjoy a connection with GOD, here IN THIS LIFE and be able to live again with Him in the next!! Mutual theme comes to life! “Come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness” (Moroni 10:32).
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)
Also read post, “Why Christ Matters. A mother’s saving grace”
I created this printable for the girls to write (and share) their testimonies of Jesus Christ. Have them date it and put it in their journals or scriptures to refer to. Click on download link below for PDF.
Download “Testimony of Christ” testimony-of-christ1.pdf – Downloaded 1516 times – 155 KB