If you have ever played the game “Simon says” you know the rules. The leader tells you to do one thing after another (like pull your ear or scratch your nose or take baby steps or giant steps). The secret is to know when to do it and when not to do it. If the leader says “Simon says wave your right hand” then you can wave your right hand. But if the leader just says “Wave your right hand” you must NOT wave your right hand.
Have you ever been fooled into doing something you shouldn’t just because someone told you to do it? Sometimes a friend might pull an April Fools trick on us to get us to do something silly. When that happens we laugh together because it was all in friendly fun.
But sometimes friends (probably not our best friends) tell us to do things that could hurt us. If someone told you to put a candy bar into your pocket in a store when no one was looking, would you do it? I hope not. I hope you wouldn’t cheat on a test if someone tried to show you the answers when the teacher looked away. Or suppose some classmates were making fun of a boy or girl and wanted you to do it with them. Would you?
Just as in the game “Simon says,” there are time when you should do what another person tells you to do, but there are also times when you should not. But how can we tell? Nobody is going to say “Simon says” first so you will know it’s really okay to do it.
We learn what is good and bad by learning about Jesus and what the Bible tells us about him. We can’t learn it all in a day, but if we spend a little time every day talking to God and learning from the Bible, we will learn what Jesus would say. If we hear someone tell us to do something, we can stop and consider whether Jesus would say to do it. If we don’t think Jesus would say it, we know we shouldn’t do it.
Even Jesus had to say no to someone who wanted him to do something wrong. Read Matthew 4:1-11 with your mom or dad to learn how Jesus answered Satan.
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