Responses Available

Educators are concerned about the amount of time children spend in front of screens, from televisions to smartphones and tablets. This is because researchers have found that screen time elicits a biological response that is similar to encountering a danger in the real world. This response includes a faster heartbeat, unusual focus, and higher levels of blood sugar.

The life of Christ is the source of our response of faith and love to God. But unlike the negative effects of too much screen time, reflection on the life of Christ can give us both peace and incredible joy.

There may be times when we feel that we have to manufacture our religious feelings and decisions, but the Bible explains that even our reactions to God are initiated by Him. Although we can reject God’s attempts to elicit positive responses from us, we all have the opportunity to let God’s goodness lead us to Him. For the apostle Paul, this removes the opportunity for boasting or a sense of religious superiority: “I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith” (Romans 12:3).

God uses the life of Christ to inspire faith in us because the gift of Jesus is the clearest revelation of God and His love: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Along with inspiring faith in God, the gift of Christ produces in our hearts a love and repentance from sin. When Christ died for us, we saw the culmination of a life of love and goodness.

Apply It:

Play an outdoor game with a child.

Dig Deeper:

Romans 2:4; 1 John 4:19; 1 Corinthians 1:30, 31

Key Bible Texts

That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:7 KJV)