Children's Sunday School Lesson - Jesus, the Doctor for Our Souls

Jesus, the Doctor for Our Souls

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Use this children’s sermon about Jesus’ saying to teach kids about the spiritual healing Jesus brings to us and the importance to check in with Him every day.

Needed: Bibles, drawing paper and crayons or colored pencils

Intro Game: Doctor, Doctor! 

In this game of Freeze Tag, students will come to you for “healing” to get back in the game.

First, divide students into two teams. One team starts as It, chasing the other. Set a timer for 5 minutes. When a student is tagged, they have to pretend they’re sick or injured and hop on one foot to where you are. You’re the Doctor that can heal them. If they make it to you before they’re tagged again, you can pronounce them Healed and send them back into the game as a normal player. If they get tagged before they make it to you, they’re out.

The round is over when your timer goes off or when the It team tags all the members of the opposite team before they can hop over to you for healing. Have the teams switch roles and play again.

Lesson

Do you remember when we were talking about Matthew and Matthew’s friends and about how some people thought that Matthew and his friends weren’t good enough to be friends with Jesus? Well, this is what Jesus told them.

(Read Matthew 9:12.)

“It is not the healthy people who need a doctor, but the sick.”

Have you ever been to the doctor?

Why do people go to the doctor?

People can go to the doctor for a checkup. People also go to the doctor when they’re sick. They feel bad or have a disease, or maybe they got hurt.

Maybe they’re even dying, and they have to go to the doctor to get better.

Well, did you know that just like our bodies get sick or get hurt, our souls or our spirits can get sick and get hurt too?

Maybe it’s because something bad or sad happened to us and it makes us feel bad on the inside, in our souls or our spirits. And the Bible says that we are all sick on the inside when we do bad things.

But Jesus said that He is the doctor for our spirits or souls. When we go to Jesus, He can help make us feel better from those bad and sad things that happen to us, and He can heal us from wanting to do bad things. Jesus is the doctor for our souls, and we can go to Him whenever we feel bad on the inside.

What are some things that might happen to you to make you feel bad or sad on the inside, in your spirit or soul? (Someone dying, someone calling you a bad name, getting in trouble, doing bad things, etc.)

Jesus says that if we pray to Him, He is the doctor for our souls and He can make us feel better about those things.

The other reason people go to a doctor, though, is just to get a checkup. They don’t feel bad. They simply want to go in and make sure they’re okay. Jesus also wants us to come to Him for a checkup.

Even if we’re not feeling bad in our souls or spirits, Jesus wants us to get our spiritual checkup every day. It’s easy to get a spiritual checkup every day, and it can help keep our spirits clean and happy.

We can go to Jesus for our spiritual checkup by praying, going to church, talking about God with our parents or grandparents, and reading our Bible. Those are all ways that we can get a spiritual checkup every day. We do those things to make sure our souls or spirits are doing okay, just like we go to the doctor for our checkup to make sure our bodies are doing okay.

So, remember, we can go to Jesus when we feel bad on the inside, and He’s the doctor who can fix our spirits or souls. But Jesus also wants us to come to Him every day, even when we’re not feeling bad, so that we can get our spiritual checkup and make sure our spirits or souls are doing okay that day.

Craft: My Spiritual Health Plan

Give students drawing paper and crayons or colored pencils. Have them write the name of each day of the week along with a description or picture of what they plan to do each day to get their spiritual checkup. Ideas could be praying, reading their Bible, going to church or a midweek children’s ministry, talking to their parents, etc.

Remind students that it’s important for us to get a spiritual checkup every day so that our spirits can stay clean and happy.

Game: Doctor, Doctor! 

Play the intro game again, but this time, have students pretend that when they tagged, it’s their spirit or soul that feels bad and that they have to come to Jesus for spiritual healing.

Closing Prayer

Jesus, we thank You for being the doctor for our souls. We know that we can come to You about anything and that You can make us feel better. We pray that You’ll help us to get a spiritual checkup every day so that our spirits can stay clean and happy as we follow You. Amen.

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The Beginner’s Bible: Timeless Stories for Children – for telling the stories to younger children

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My Big Book of Bible Heroes Devotional – a devotional to recommend for families or older students

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Jesus in the Spotlight and Jesus – Awesome Power, Awesome Love (Discover 4 Yourself series) – in-depth Bible study books for older children based on John 1-10 and John 11-16

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Who Needs a Doctor? – free children’s object lesson along with free coloring and activity pages