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It was Saturday morning. A big box had arrived, addressed to Father . Ken and Amy were wondering what was in it. "It sure looks interesting," said . " had to go to the store, but he will be back soon."

arrived soon. and could hardly wait until he unpacked the box.

Soon opened the box, and in it was a beautiful clock . wound the and placed it on the shelf.

had never seen a like this before. He could not take his eyes off of it. saw how was looking at the and said to him, "Do not play with the . You might break it."

Later went to play golf with a friend. Mother and went shopping. was left alone for a while. What was thinking about? He was thinking about the ! Soon was playing with the , thinking, "I will not break it. I just want to see how it works."

was enjoying playing with the , when he heard a strange noise from inside the . It stopped working. tried and tried to make it work again, but he could not. The was broken! was miserable.

Soon came back. Right away he noticed that the was not working. He asked , "Did you play with my ? "

hung his head and answered, "Yes, , I did, and I broke your , but I did not mean to."

"I know you did not mean to break it," said , "but you disobeyed me. You cannot go outside and play. Instead, I want you to go to your room and stay there until I call you."

was not happy at all. He knew that his was not pleased with him. He also knew that the Lord Jesus was not pleased with him because he had disobeyed his .

thought about what he had learned from the Bible . He knew that the tells us that when we do something wrong, we need to tell the Lord about it and ask Him to forgive us. So he bowed his head and prayed, "Lord , I know that I did wrong when I disobeyed my . I am really sorry. Please forgive me."

Meanwhile, was not happy either. He loved his son, but had sinned when he disobeyed, and he had to be punished.

fixed the himself. Then he went up to Ken's room. As soon as saw his , he started crying and said, "Dad, I am so sorry that I disobeyed you and broke your . I wish I could fix it, but I don't know how. Please forgive me."

took into his arms, hugged and kissed him. Then he said, "Yes, I forgive you. I fixed the myself. You can come out now."

Soon the whole family was sitting around the table. "Children," said , "I want to explain something to you. When disobeyed me, he was still my son, and I still loved him. But his disobedience came between us, and both of us were unhappy.

"This is what happens when we disobey our heavenly Father. We are still His child, and He still loves us. But our sin comes between God and us. is not pleased, and we are unhappy.

" tells us in the that we need to confess our sins to Him. This means that we must be sorry for the wrong we did. And we must be sorry enough that we do not want to do it again. We should confess our sin to as soon as we know that we did wrong.

" loves to forgive us, but there is something that pleases him even more. It is loving His Son, the Lord , and doing the things that He tells us to do. In the tells us what is right and what is wrong in His sight."

"I knew that I was doing wrong when I disobeyed you, Dad, because the says, 'Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.' But what about things that are not mentioned in the ?"

answered, "The way to decide about these things is to ask yourself, in each situation, 'Would like to see me do this ?' If you think He would like to see you do it, then you can do it. But if you think would not like to see you do it, DO NOT DO IT!"

"We must remember," added , "that if we have taken as our Savior, He is living in our heart. If we really love the Lord , we will want to please Him at all times."

"And it will make us happy, too," said .

"That is correct," said . "The Lord says in the , 'If you know these things, happy are you if you do them.'"

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Learn this verse so you can say it:

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