All About Your House

Written Especially for Small Children

Where do you live? Do you live in a small town? Or in a large city? Or maybe you don’t live in a town at all. Do you live on a farm, where there are cows or chickens? No? But you just might have a dog or a cat, or you could have some goldfish! Why, that’s a part of growing up! Every kid ought to have goldfish! Of course you can’t take them out of the fishbowl and pet them! But they’re lots of fun to watch as they swim around. We’ll talk about them later. Don’t let me forget!
Where do you live? Do you live in a mobile home, or maybe in an apartment? Do you live in a house? Can you name the rooms? Do you have a kitchen? Yes! That’s where you eat! Do you have a den or living room? Is that where you play games and watch T.V.? Do you have a bedroom? Is it your very own? Or do you share it with a brother or sister? Let’s see; what else. Oh, yes! the bathroom! That’s where we wash our hands before eating: where we take our bath! You do like to take a bath, don’t you?
I almost forgot about the goldfish! He lives in your house, too! But he has his own special house. It doesn’t have rooms like the place where you live. He doesn’t have a kitchen, he doesn’t have a living room or den or family room, he doesn’t have a bedroom: why, he doesn’t even have a bathroom where he can wash his fins or take a bath! That’s silly, isn’t it!
What does the goldfish do? He just moves his mouth and his fins and swims and swims.
What happens in the kitchen? Mom gets the food she’s going to fix out of the refrigerator or the cabinet. She gets the pots and pans, plates, bowls, silverware. Finally, dinner is ready and she calls you to the table. “Did you wash your hands? Don’t come to this table ‘til you have washed your hands!” After dinner, plates must be scraped, all the dirty dishes must be washed, and, Oh yes! Somebody has to take out the garbage!
What about the goldfish? He has no kitchen; he doesn’t cook his meals; he doesn’t do dishes. He waits for you to sprinkle some fish food in his bowl. But if he doesn’t eat it all; if there are any leftovers: well he for sure, can’t take out the garbage. And the garbage is not in a trash bag. It’s not just in his kitchen either! It’s in his whole house!
Well, what does the goldfish do? He just moves his mouth - and his fins - and swims and swims.
You hear your Mom call again: “It’s time for your bath!” You do love to take baths, don’t you!? Off come the dirty clothes. Oh, do you know what? She washes your clothes in the washer; she washes the sheets that are on your bed, too. And she washes you - but not in the washing machine - - in the bathtub! You get out of the bathtub and dry off. Mom drains the dirty bathwater out of the tub. She puts your pajamas on and you are ready for bed. You are ready for bed, aren’t you?
But, what about your goldfish? He can’t take his dirty clothes off: his mother doesn' t have a washing machine to wash them: he doesn’t even have a bed, so she can’t wash his sheets! Well, he does have a bed - sort of. Do you know what it is? Its a waterbed!
He doesn’t have a bathtub to bathe in. He can’t get out of his bathwater. Do you know what? He has to live in his bathwater. Poor fish! His little one room house is his kitchen, it is his garbage can; it is his washroom; it is his bathwater!
Your Mom can clean the house; she can sweep the floors, but your little fish can’t sweep; he can’t clean house. His house gets dirtier and dirtier: and, you know what? He can get very sick - even die! We wouldn’t want that to happen! So - somebody has to dump out the old water and put in clean water. That will make him happy and keep him healthy!
One time Jesus was talking to His disciples. He told them that their hearts could get dirty, but He would clean them. Do you know how Jesus can clean a person’s heart? He told them, “Now ye are clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you.
If I want to have a clean heart for Jesus to live in, then I need to listen to Bible stories and to my Sunday School teachers and the preacher and other helpers. I need to learn all I can about Jesus and the Bible.
Do you know that you are sort of like the goldfish: your body is like the fishbowl and you are the fish inside. Your heart is like the water, the inside of your house.
What would you feed your fish? Hot dogs or potato chips or pizza? Of course not! He needs the fish food that was made for him to eat. Jesus said that the Bible, His Word, is like bread. It can feed that little fish that lives inside you.
Jesus wants to keep His house clean. He does that by “the washing of water by the Word” Eph.5:26. We are like the fish’s house: the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom, the bathroom, are all together. If one is dirty, then they all are dirty. And Jesus can wash us and clean our house with His Word.