Gospel Pictures for Preschoolers

I was staring deep into the pale blue eyes of my rascal four-year-old son. He’s a personality and a half, bringing our family so much joy, and always keeping us all on our toes.

At that moment, we were in the middle of another conversation about his sinful behavior when I faced a dilemma. On the one hand, he’s old enough to start learning the gospel, but on the other hand, how can a preschooler understand some of the bigger gospel truths necessary for salvation (e.g., sin, justification, atonement, etc.)?

His real problem is heart-deep, not surface-level. Only God can rescue him by changing his sinful heart. I asked myself: How can I teach him what the real problem is (his sinful heart) and how God alone can solve this problem (salvation) without going way over his head?

The Spirit of God brought to mind several “gospel pictures”—illustrations the Bible itself uses to portray the life-changing truths of the gospel message. “That’s it!”, I thought. Using the Bible’s own inspired gospel pictures, I could share gospel truths with my preschool son. These pictures packaged the truth in ways he could grasp, teaching him the truth about his heart and the power of Jesus to save.

Here are four gospel pictures that I have found helpful in sharing gospel truth clearly and effectively for my preschool-aged children. Each picture comes straight from the Bible and draws on a deeper doctrinal truth.

Your heart is sick, but Jesus can heal it.

Children understand being sick; they know what it’s like to not feel well. When they are sick, they take medicine or go to the doctor.

In the same way, their heart is sick, as Jeremiah 17:9 says:

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

But this is not like having a cold. Their hearts won’t get better with a couple days of sleep and medicine! No, the heart is desperately sick, beyond cure. Only Jesus can heal sick hearts (Mark 2:17), and he does this when a person puts their faith in Jesus as their only Savior.

Your heart is dirty, but Jesus can clean it.

For several years, we had a large sandbox in the backyard. Our boys love to dig in the sand, and one boy especially enjoys pouring water into it to create a “mudbox”. After he finishes playing in the sand, he needs to get clean, usually by washing the dirt off in the bath.

The Bible says that sin makes our hearts dirty. Isaiah 64:6 says,

“We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.” Even our best deeds are still defiled by sin.

Our hearts need spiritual cleansing, which comes through the blood of Jesus (1 John 1:7). This “spiritual bath” takes place at salvation, when the Holy Spirit washes away the sins from a person’s heart (Titus 3:5).

Your heart is broken, but Jesus can fix it.

Our boys enjoy building Legos, and with three of them building and playing, inevitably their set breaks. Pieces fall off (or are confiscated) and often they need Mom or Dad to help fix the set. Many times a toy or piece of equipment will break, and Dad has to try to fix it.

Sin has damaged our hearts so badly that we prefer to rebel against God rather than run to God. Paul expressed this frustrating reality in Romans 7, saying, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (15) Why is he unable to do what he wants? He explains a couple verses later: “So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.” (17)

Sin has made our hearts like a bicycle without a wheel—unable to do what is good and right, preferring the evil. Who can heal the broken heart? Jesus (Ps. 147:3). Who can deliver a person from the power of sin? Jesus (Rom. 7:24–25). Who can fix the mess that sin has caused in the world and in our hearts? Jesus, only Jesus (Eph. 1:10).

Your heart is hard, but Jesus can soften it.

Our family loves ice cream, especially in the summer. When we pull the ice cream out of the deep freezer, it takes a few minutes to soften before we dig into it. Thankfully, a little heat and a little patience results in a bowl of ice cream.

Sin has hardened our hearts and made them like concrete. The prophet Ezekiel described the coming day when God would take hard hearts and make them tender.

“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

This heart transplant takes place through faith in Jesus, since his death on the cross brought about this New Covenant between God and sinners (Matt. 26:28). When a person receives Jesus as Savior, they receive a new heart with new desires to please God.

Final Thoughts

The power of these illustrations is that they teach the child what the problem is (sin) and what the solution for that problem is (Jesus). These pictures communicate love to them by talking about the root cause of their failures instead of simply correcting their behavior.

These pictures are not “magic pills” or “silver bullets” that automatically lead to conversion, but they can shape your little one’s heart if you use them consistently over time.

It’s one of a parent’s greatest privileges to teach their children the gospel, and I hope these gospel pictures give you talking points to use with your preschool-aged children.