WHAT CAN I DO WITH MY GUILT?

Scripture Lesson: Hebrews 10:11-18

Object: A pepper shaker and a hankerchief

Boys and Girls, If we had this pepper shaker and this handkerchief, what would the two of them combined make you think of?

Could it possibly make you think of sneezing? Pepper supposedly makes us sneeze. Of course,
we use a handkerchief when we sneeze. Now what do we say when somebody sneezes? Well,
we could say, "God Bless You." But there's a German word that we often use, don't we?
GEZUNDHEIT! "Gezundheit" is an unusual word. It means "Good Health."

Now why would you say to someone, "Good Health" when they sneeze? Well, back in the old days, before they knew about bacteria and viruses, they thought that sneezing was a way of getting rid of bad spirits. They thought bad spirits caused diseases. So, when somebody sneezed, they were getting rid of their bad spirits. Of course, we know that that's not true don't we?

We know that there are germs and viruses and that when a person sneezes, it's a reflex action. Wouldn't it be great, though, if we could sneeze out all of our bad habits? All our bad thoughts? All of our anger? All our hatred and all of our bitterness? Wouldn't it be great if somebody was acting in a way they shouldn't, all we would have to do would be to sprinkle a little bit of pepper on them and make them sneeze and they could get rid of all their bad feelings and bad thoughts? We could go off to fight wars, and carry pepper shakers with us rather than rifles, and bombs, and tanks. Of course, that's silly, isn't it? It takes more than sneezing to get rid of our bad thoughts and bad feelings. The Bible tells us that what we need to do when we're having feelings of anger, hatred, and bitterness, is to pray about them and to let Jesus take them from us. That is the best solution. Pepper and a
handkerchief and gezundheit won't do it, but prayer will. So remember that the next time you're
feeling angry and bitter toward somebody else. Have a little prayer for that person, and ask Jesus
to take your bad feelings away.