Johnson Kevin Walter - The Amazing Bible Adventure for Kids

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible , New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189 USA. All rights reserved.

Verses marked GODS WORD are taken from GODS WORD. GODS WORD is a copyrighted work of Gods Word to the Nations. Quotations are used by permission. Copyright 1995 by Gods Word to the Nations. All rights reserved.

Verses marked NCV are taken from The Holy Bible, New Century Version , Copyright 1987, 1988, 1991 by Word Publishing, Nashville, TN 37214. Used by permission.

Cover by Left Coast Design, Portland, Oregon

THE AMAZING BIBLE ADVENTURE FOR KIDS

Copyright 2006, 2012 by Josh McDowell Ministry and Kevin Johnson

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

ISBN 978-0-7369-2877-9 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-4229-4 (eBook)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 / BP-SK / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Your Map to the Worlds
Most Awesome Treasure: God!

i magine if you heard that a whole bunch of your best friends were coming over any minute to celebrate your birthdayand that each friend was pushing a shopping cart full of presents just for you.

Or suppose someone promised that if you closed your eyes and held out your hands you would get a big surprisemaybe a snuggly new puppy!

Or maybe you received a letter saying that tomorrow your family would fly away on a dream vacationa month packed with beautiful beaches, thrilling theme parks, and star-packed pro ball games.

How would you react to any one of these nice bits of news?

You would get pretty excited. You probably would jump up and down. Maybe youd even let loose a squeal of happiness!

But you might get even more noisy and excited if you knew beyond any doubt that there was a vast treasure buried in your yarda treasure big enough to buy hundreds of toy stores or millions of puppies or send you and your family on vacation for the rest of your lives.

If you knew that your yard held such an awesome treasure, you would run outside and start digging with your bare hands. By day, you would search even in the hot sun or snowy cold. By night, you would light up your work with blazing spotlights.

You might never experience a totally huge birthday bashor have a new puppy land in your lapor fly away on an incredible vacation. And theres not much chance that you will ever find a buried treasure in your yard.

Yet you can find a treasure far bigger and better than anything you can imagine! Its a treasure as real as the book you hold in your hands. Its as near as your next heartbeat. And its something you dont have to dream aboutit can be yours for sure.

This treasure is so totally perfect that it will always supply your most important needs. It will guarantee you more happiness than owning stores stuffed with toys or houses wiggling with puppies. It will offer you a plan for your whole life that is more exciting than a trip around the world.

This treasure isnt just something that makes you giggle and smile for a little while. It makes you happy forever and ever.

Do you want to know what this awesome treasure is? This treasure is God.

God is a one-of-a-kind treasure. When you find him, you can live as best friends with the king of the whole universe. Hes a friend bigger than a friend. Hes the one who can say, I am the LORD, and there is no other. There is no other God besides me (Isaiah 45:5 GODS WORD ). He created the earth and the whole universe. He has the power to calm huge storms and make blind people see. Hes the one who cares for our every need. And when Jesus died for our sins, he showed us a love greater than any other.

Gods love for you is so enormous that you can spend the rest of your life trying to grasp it. In fact, you can spend all of eternity learning about Gods love and living in ityet theres always more to enjoy! The greatest treasure you can ever possess is having the power to understand, as all Gods people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is (Ephesians 3:18).

For every real treasure, theres a mapa piece of paper that tells you exactly how to get to the good stuff.

Heres the amazing part: You probably already have a copy of the treasure map that points you to God. This map that points you straight to him probably sits on your bookshelf or by your bed. The step-by-step directions you need to find the greatest treasure ever are contained in a book that you probably already own. This book is the Bible.

A map wont do you any good if its parked on your bed stand or stuffed in your back pocket. After all, its not enough just to have a map. You need to open it up, figure it out, and follow it.

Think about it: If you had a map showing the location of buried jewels and gold, you would work hard to figure out how the map could lead you to that treasure. You would press your nose up close to the map and move your eyes from corner to corner to corner to corner. You would study the map. No, not exactly the kind of studying you do at school, but the intense attention you give to things you love and enjoy.

When you poke your nose into Gods map, the Bible, and study it, you will come to understand its biggest pointthat you can know Jesus as your Savior and friend and enjoy the great life he has planned for you.

Its not enough, however, just to understand what a treasure map shows. You need to be sure the map is real. You dont want to start out following a map scribbled in purple crayon by your little brother or dug out of a box of breakfast cereal. You need to be able to trust the map.

Its good to know why you can trust the Bible. In later chapters, well look at exactly why you can be certain that the Bible is true. Youll see why you can trust the Bible to be the one map that wont lead you on a wild goose chase. You will find that it will truly point you to God.

Theres one more thing: A map cant get you to a treasure if you wont move from where youre sitting now. To get to the good stuff, you need to get up and follow the map. Its the same with the Bible. You need to know how to put the Bibles instructions into action.

God is the greatest treasure you can ever find, and hes given you a map to get to himan exciting map that you need to understand, trust, and follow. Do you want to find the really good stuff? Then lets go on a treasure hunt!