The Atonement

Song: "If The Savior Stood Beside Me" here

Open by telling this story: (Friend, March 2004)

One day Lincoln’s friends told him that they had pretended to put money into the school’s pencil machine. They told the secretary that they didn’t get a pencil, and she gave them one. Lincoln decided to give it a try.

At recess Lincoln sat on a bench and looked at his free pencil. He felt very sad inside. He wanted to do what was right. He told the secretary what he had done and gave her the pencil. Lincoln felt better.

Have you ever done something wrong and wished you could make it right?

In order to return to live with our Heavenly Father, we need to be perfect. But we are not perfect. We all make mistakes, these are called sins.

Give some examples of sins that are appropriate for children: stealing, not obeying parents, hurting others, lying.

Heavenly Father knows that everyone makes mistakes. He loves us and wants us to return to live with Him, so He provided a way for us to become clean again. It is called the Atonement.

Jesus Christ suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane and by giving His life on the cross. Those two things are called the Atonement. Because he did that we can repent. When we repent it means that we are sorry for what we did and we do everything we can to make it right and we try very hard not to make that mistake again. Like Lincoln in the story. He felt sorry that he took a pencil without paying for it, so he told the secretary what he had done and gave the pencil back.

Activity:

Use a bottle of clear water as a representation of a person free from sin. Drop a small amount of food coloring in the water and point out how the color spreads throughout the water. Compare this to sin. Then add a few drops of liquid bleach to clear up the color. Compare this to how repentance cleanses us from sin. (Sharing Time, Friend, April 1998)