Forgiving Challenge Kids: The 11-Day Forgiveness AdventureSample

The Rise Up (Restoration)

In 2015 a twelve-year-old Taiwanese boy lost his footing and accidentally punched a hole into a $1.5 million painting while trying to break his fall. Thanks to modern technology, you can watch the fall on YouTube! After lots of work from some talented artists, the painting was restored to look exactly like it used to be. If you were to look at it today, there would be no signs of any damage.

This is the kind of restoration that King David meant when he said:

He restores my soul: he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Psalm 23:3

To restore means to bring back, refresh or turn back. So it isn't making something new but getting something back to its original purpose or creation.

It's easy to think of forgiveness as a one-time thing. After that, we want to just move on and leave the mess behind.

But the problem is, God isn't interested in leaving the scraps behind.

He declared His creation "good" in the Garden of Eden, and God doesn't waste anything. He wants to fix what is broken, not just throw everything out. He wants beauty to rise up out of the ashes.

God didn't just pay for your sin, just like the museum didn't just charge the boy for the ripped painting. They took time to fix it and get it back to what it was. God wants to get you back to what He created you to be. The restored painting didn't just stay in the restoring room; it was put back up on the wall for people to enjoy.

God doesn't forgive you and keep you in the back room. You are his creation, and He is proud of you! Though sin should have been the end of your story, God's forgiveness is bigger and greater. He still wants to move powerfully through you. And God has the ability to not just restore an item back to what it was worth, but to make it even more valuable in the future.

That's precisely what Jesus did with the disciple Peter. Even after Peter failed Jesus, Jesus forgave him and invited him to lead the very first church. His past sin didn't disqualify him from a significant job. Peter would go on to be one of the most valuable and influential Christians ever to live!

If a group of artists can make a punched painting look brand-new through detailed restoration work, imagine the kind of work God can do in your own heart!

Challenge: Practice restoring something today. What is something you can fix today? Maybe it's a broken toy that you intend to repair, or perhaps it's a friendship that is just not good right now.