Bible Reading: Romans 3:23; Ephesians 2:1-7

Jackson was so excited he could hardly open his birthday gift. He hoped it was a puppet--something he'd been wanting ever since a ventriloquist had performed with one at a school event. He tore open the box. Sure enough, there was a puppet inside. His little sister, Jade, looked at it with wide-eyed wonder. "A doll!" she said. "Now we can play dolls together, Jax!"

"No way!" said Jackson. "This isn't a doll. It's a puppet like the one the guy had at our school carnival. Remember?"

"His puppet was alive," said Jade. "It could move and talk, but yours can't, can it?"

"It wasn't alive the way we are. That man made it move and talked for it." Jackson grinned. "Mine will come to life like that too! I'm naming him Vincent, and I'm going to learn to be a ventriloquist so I can make Vincent move and talk." Starting that day, Jackson began working hard to learn how to turn his puppet's head, move its mouth, and speak for it.

"Vincent is alive now, just like that man's puppet," Jade said several weeks later. Jackson beamed. He figured he was getting good enough to perform as a ventriloquist.

At family devotions one morning, Dad turned to the second chapter of Ephesians. "And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins," he read.

Jade frowned. "What are trespasses?"

"They're the wrong things we do," said Jackson. "They're kinda the same thing as sins."

"Well, who was dead, then?" asked Jade.

"In a way, everyone was--and many still are," replied Dad. "God says we all do wrong things because we were born into sin, and sin makes us spiritually dead." He looked at Jackson. "People are like Vincent--Jackson's puppet. Vincent is entirely limp and lifeless except when Jackson speaks for him and operates his controls. Vincent needs Jackson to have any kind of life, and people need Jesus to have spiritual life. When we trust Jesus, He frees us from sin and makes us alive."

Jade smiled at her brother. "I like it when Jax makes Vincent alive."

"And it's even better when God makes us alive," said Dad with a smile. "Because the life He gives us is real, and it lasts forever."

–Mary Rose Pearson