Leader Guide

Marble Game

We have been discussing how Jesus prayed to God in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus called God’s will a “cup of suffering.” That cup represented all that Jesus was about to go through to fulfill God’s plan for His life. By this plan, God poured out His love on us. That is what this game is about!

Divide the class into two teams that stand facing each other with about 4–6 feet between them. Each team forms a line with their players standing shoulder to shoulder but not touching each other. Place the bucket at the end of both lines, where the last player of each team can reach it. Hand the first player of each team the cup containing marbles. Hand an empty cup to the second player of each team — next to the player with the marbles. The first player must pour the marbles from the cup into the second player’s empty cup. The first player then hands the empty cup to the third player. The second player pours the cup of marbles into the third player’s empty cup and hands the empty cup to the fourth player. Both teams continue in this fashion until all players have played and the last player pours all the marbles into the bucket.

You are all winners! That’s because Jesus pours His love into our hearts. Luke tells us this about Jesus’ last meal with the disciples. Read Luke 22:20: 

After supper He took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and His people—an agreement confirmed with My blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.”

God pours His love into us; and Jesus willingly sacrificed His life so that our sins could be forgiven and we could live with Him for eternity—this was God’s plan of salvation! Let me read to you what the Bible says about this. Read Romans 5:5–8:

Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Those are powerful words, aren’t they? Did you hear the part that said,

The love of God has been poured out in our hearts?

Yes, God loves us more than we can ever understand; so much that He sent His only Son to die for us. That was God’s plan that Jesus fulfilled!