I felt challenged by a friend who is a missionary to teach Joshua some memory verse. She gave me a lesson plan they use in Vacation Bible school or Sunday School. The first on the list is John 3:16.

For God so loved the world He gave his only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

I thought, wow that’s going to be a long one. I read the different styles. Some use gestures like sign language, other methods are using color book to describe key words. I thought, il do the color one because the hand movement was more challenging.

So that morning, I got gold paper, red paper, blue paper, and white paper. Then, I got glue and several round cylinders used for creams. Fortunate for me I had about 5 of those.  So I cut the colored paper and asked Joshua to help me paste them on the cylinder tops.  And here we got the following:

1. GOLD – this represents GOD. Joshua placed eyes because God sees everything. Gold is glory and also reminds us that Heaven’s streets are gold.  

2. RED – This represents LOVE. It also reminds us of what Jesus has done was shed his blood on the cross because of His great love for us.

3. BLUE – This represents “the world”

 
4. CROSS – This represents Jesus and to tell us God gave Jesus. This part is “He gave Jesus”

5. Happy face – This represents the person who believes. Joshua says this is him.  The key word is BELIEVE. 

So I say: “so whoever …”
Then Joshua says: “Believes” 
I say: “in Jesus will not…”
then Joshua says: “die”
I say “but have eternal…”
Joshua says: “life”.
 

So we did this again and again… Soon to my surprise, Joshua can say the memory verse by using the illustration. I am amazed that my two year old can memorize this verse!  When verses like these are remembered, these become foundations to my little one’s mind and heart. He will remember that God loves him and his faith in Jesus gives him eternal life! That is a fundamental truth that will guard his heart from many lies. God is love and He loves us!