This booklet, Friends with God, explains God’s plan for mankind: God created us to have a relationship Him. God created us to be His friend.
If you are NOT already friends with God, hopefully this book will explain to you how you can become friends with God.
If you ARE already in a saving relationship with God, hopefully you will learn how to tell someone else how he or she can become friends with God.
You can download a copy of this booklet (one page printed on two sides). And dress it up with a pretty cover. Here are instructions for how to put it together. As you read through and explain the different points in this booklet, you will need to write a word or image in the booklet as you explain the Gospel story. A different verse is found on each page to help you understand that this story comes from the Bible. So being friends with God is God’s idea. It would be best to memorize the verses included in this booklet, as well as the main points on each page. By the end of the year, the goal is for you to be able to explain the Gospel story, page by page, using the Friends with God booklet.
So let’s get started!
The following video is a demonstration of a student reciting pages 1 to 4 of the Friends with God booklet. Proves it can be done!
Page 1:
Our story begins with God. God has always existed, even before we could imagine. And we learn from the Bible that God is the Creator of everything we see and everything we can’t.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1
He is absolutely loving and perfectly good. He is just, which means he is always fair. And He is also holy. {Write “holy” in the gray area.} Being holy means not only that He is without sin and is perfect, but also that He is not like anyone or anything else in the world. 
Page 2:
God created everything in the world in a perfect way. The Bible tells us that God created the first people, too.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:27
Their names were Adam and Eve and they had a wonderful relationship with God. They were friends with God. {Draw inside the gray area the stick figure of Adam, and write “friends” on the line above the people and God.} 
Page 3:
God gave them so many things to enjoy, but he also gave them one command: not to eat from one tree in the garden. They did it anyway. And this disobedience is called sin. {Write “=” between disobedience and sin in the gray area.}
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
and that it was a delight to the eyes,
and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,
she took of its fruit and ate,
and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
Genesis 3:6
Adam’s and Eve’s sin made a relationship with God impossible because He is holy. Sin got in the way of their friendship. {Write “SIN” in the gray area between Adam & Eve and God.} 
Page 4:
We are also sinful because we disobey God. Our sin separates us from God. The Bible says in the book of Romans:
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Romans 3:23
That means we ALL (not just some of us) fall short of God’s standard of perfection. {Draw a stick figure in the gray area to the left of “SIN”, and label it “us”.}
BUT GOD loved the world so much and wanted to have a relationship with us, the people He created. {Draw a heart in the gray area between God and the people.} God sent His Son, Jesus, to earth to make a way for us to be friends with Him.
Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 14:6
{Write “Jesus” in the gray space in the sentence.}
Page 6:
Because God is holy and just, He requires a punishment for the sin in our lives. When Jesus died on the cross He paid took that punishment for us.
For Christ also suffered once for sins,
the righteous for the unrighteous,
that he might bring us to God.
1 Peter 3:18
{Write “Jesus” in the gray area in the middle of the cross.} Three days after Jesus died, He rose from the grave. Because He did this, He defeated sin and death for us. Even though our bodies may die on earth, we can have eternal life with Him in heaven.
Page 7:
If we turn {Write “turn” in the gray space in the sentence.} from our sin and follow Jesus with our lives in faith, He will save us. {Draw an arrow in the gray area around “faith”, and pointing toward Jesus.} We are no longer an enemy of God. Instead, we can be His friend again.
For if, while we were God’s enemies,
we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son,
how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
Romans 5:10
This verse is a great reminder to us that God provides us everything we need for salvation. We turn away from our sin in obedience and turn toward Him in faith!
Page 8:
And if we turn to Him in faith, we will live with Him forever in Heaven. The sin that once corrupted us and this world will be wiped away and we will have eternal joy in His presence!
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fulness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Psalm 16:11
{Draw a stick figure in the gray area worshiping God and write the word “forever” at the end of the sentence.} 
“God, may multitudes come to know you as friend.”
