God Is Love Object Lesson: The Flashlight and the Mirror

This God is love object lesson uses a flashlight and a mirror to show kids what 1 John 4 means: love starts with God, he loved us first, and our love for other people is his love bouncing off us. It takes about ten minutes and works with preschoolers through preteens.

Get ready

Find a spot where you can dim the lights or close the blinds. Before class, practice shining the flashlight onto the mirror so a bright spot bounces onto the wall or ceiling. Smooth out a square of foil for each child.

Teach it: can a mirror shine?

Turn the lights down and hold up the mirror.

"This mirror is going to light up the room. Ready?"

Hold it up proudly. Nothing happens. Wait a few seconds.

"Hmm. Why isn't it working?"

(Usually: "It's not a light!") Switch on the flashlight and shine it onto the mirror. A spot of light jumps onto the wall.

"Now it shines. But did the mirror make that light?"

Let them answer. The mirror only passes on light it gets from somewhere else.

Read 1 John 4:7-8:

"Beloved, let's love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. He who doesn't love doesn't know God, for God is love."

"John says love comes from God, the way this light comes from the flashlight. God doesn't just do loving things. God is love."

The big turn: he loved us first

Shine the flashlight around the room so it lands on each child for a moment (keep it away from eyes).

"Did you do anything to earn that light? No. It just came to you."

Read 1 John 4:9-10:

"By this God's love was revealed in us, that God has sent his only born Son into the world that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins."

"God loved us first, before we ever loved him back. That's what John 3:16 says too: 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only born Son.'"

Now hand the mirror to a child and shine the flashlight on it. Help them aim the bounced light at a friend.

"Look where the light went. It came from the flashlight, hit the mirror, and landed on your friend. That's how God's love works. When you share, forgive, or sit with the kid who's alone, that's God's love bouncing off you onto somebody else."

Read 1 John 4:11 and 19:

"Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another... We love him, because he first loved us."

Did you know?

In Bible times, most mirrors were not glass. They were discs of polished metal, usually bronze, and they had to be polished often to keep them shiny. Exodus 38:8 says the bronze washing basin at the Tent of Meeting was made "out of the mirrors of the ministering women." A metal mirror gave a dimmer, blurrier picture than ours, which is why Paul could say "we see in a mirror, dimly" (1 Corinthians 13:12) and everyone knew what he meant.

There's also an old story about John, the friend of Jesus that Christians have long credited with this letter. Jerome, a Bible scholar writing about three hundred years later, said that when John was very old in Ephesus he had to be carried to church, and every time he would say only one thing: "Little children, love one another." When people asked why he kept saying it, he answered that it was the Lord's command, and if they did only that, it was enough (Jerome, Commentary on Galatians 6:10). We can't be sure it happened exactly like that, but it sounds a lot like 1 John.

Talk about it

1. Could the mirror light up the room by itself? Where did its light come from?
2. God loved us first. What did he do to show it before we did anything?
3. Who is someone you could shine God's love on this week? How?
4. What makes it hard to love some people? What could help?

Pray together

Hand each child a foil square. Shine the flashlight on each one as you pray:

"God, thank you that you are love, and that you loved us first. Shine your love on us, and help us pass it on to (let kids say a name). Amen."

Take it further

• Preschool: Give each child a foil square to hold while you shine the light on it. Say together, "God loves me first." Then they point their light at a friend: "God loves you too."
• Elementary: If you have two or three hand mirrors, try bouncing the light from one mirror to the next and around a corner. Every mirror passes the light along, and none of them makes it. Ask: who passed God's love on to you?
• Preteen: Read Romans 8:38-39 and list everything Paul says can't separate us from God's love. Then have each student add one thing they worry might, and talk about why Paul says "nor any other created thing" covers it too.