life after Jesus

Peter Saved From Jail

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Today’s story is from Acts 12.

Peter had been telling all the people about Jesus and the leaders put him in jail. They put a LOT of guards around him and then locked the door. After Peter went to bed that night, he was woken up by an angel.

The angel said “Peter, get up!” Peter thought he was dreaming, but he got up and followed the angel. The chains on his hands and feet fell off, the doors opened, no one stopped them and they walked right out of that jail! The gates opened for them and then when they got into the street, the angel left him and Peter suddenly knew it was NOT a dream! God had sent a real angel and he was really free!

He went to a house where he knew some  other believers were and knocked on the door. The servant there was SO excited to see Peter that she ran back into the house to tell everyone and didn’t even let Peter in! Ha! They let him in and then he told them ALL what had happened.

The next day the guards were all VERY confused and the leaders were very angry that they let Peter get away.

Sometimes, even when we follow God, sad things happen to us. BUT, we can trust that God is always in control and that NOTHING is too scary or too hard for God. There is nothing impossible when God is on your side.

For our craft, we drew Peter and the angel and made gates from pipe cleaners.

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More from Acts soon. Love to you all!

Peter Visits Cornelius

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Hello again!

The story today can be found in Acts 10.

There was a guard in  who loved God, named Cornelius. He was not Jewish, but he loved and God and God was pleased with him. God told him one day to send for Peter, so he sent his servants to find Peter and bring him to his house.

The next day, Peter went up to his roof to pray and he had a vision (like a dream). He was a giant blanket come down from heaven and it had all kinds of animals on it. A voice said “Peter, get up and eat” but Peter said “No! I only eat the food God told us we can eat! This food is dirty”

But the voice replied, “Do not say anything is dirty if God made it!”

He saw this three times and then Peter sat there confused…trying to figure out what the dream meant.

Then the servants came and asked for Peter. God told Peter not to be afraid and to go with the servants…so he did.

When they got to Cornelius’ house, Peter told him (everyone he had invited–it was a LOT of people) all about Jesus. And THEN Peter understood…Jesus dying on the cross wasn’t just for God’s people…it was for ALL people. God made ALL people and He loves EVERYONE!

Everyone there believed in Jesus and the Jewish people were amazed that God would give His gifts to even these people!

We can remember that God made everyone and He loves everyone and He wants EVERYONE to know Him!

(You can be any color, any height, any disability, even any bad choice! and God will STILL love you and He STILL wants you to know Him!)

Galatians 3:26-29 says:  “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

And Romans 2:9-11 says “There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism.”

For this story, we acted it out with my kids’ toys. I had two toys be Peter and Cornelius and i took a small blanket with some of their plastic animals so we could act out the story.

Then we cut out pictures from magazines of all different kinds of people and made a page to remind us that God loves EVERYONE!

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We will continue in Acts next time. Love to you all!

Saul Follows Jesus

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Our story today is from Acts 9.

In our last Bible story we learned about Saul. He was one of the leaders and he did NOT like Jesus or His followers. He was even happy when Stephen was killed for telling people about Jesus.

One day, Saul was on his way to Damascus to capture more of Jesus’ followers and put them in jail. As he was waking, all of a sudden a very bright light shone down and said “Saul! Why are you hurting me?!”

Saul said “who is this!?”

The voice answered, “It is Jesus! The one you are being mean to! Now get up and go to the city.”

So Saul stood up, but he realized he couldn’t see anything! Scales, almost like a fishes scales, we’re covering his eyes! So some of the men traveling with him helped him up and took him to the city.

When they got there, God sent one of His helpers to Saul. He put his hands on Saul and the scales fell off his eyes and he was able to see! Immediately God filled him with His Holy Spirit and Saul (who also got a new name, Paul), began to learn from the disciples and then he too told everybody about Jesus!

All the people were amazed that this guy who once HATED Jesus was now telling everybody about Him!

God can change anyone’s heart and He has big plans for us if we will let Him use us. Isn’t it wonderful to know that even the people who make the worst choices can still be loved by God?

The next few stories will be about Peter and Paul’s various missions.

For our craft we traced a bowl to be Saul’s head and then we put some tissue paper scales over his eyes.

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Thanks for reading, love to you all.

Ananias and Sapphira

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Hello again. Today we’ll be covering a story from Acts 5–about Ananias and Sapphira.

So during the early days just after Jesus had gone back to heaven and the people had received God’s Holy Spirit…all the people who followed Jesus, gathered together and lived together, worked together and shared everything. They shared their money, their houses, their food…everything. Some people even sold some of their things so they would have extra money to help take care of the disciples who were telling people about Jesus.

One man and woman, Ananias and Sapphira were some of these believers. They sold some of their land to help pay for the disciples’ food and clothes. But then, they made a bad choice. (Everybody makes bad choices sometimes…even people who love Jesus..even grownups.)

Ananias went to Peter and the other leaders and he took the money they had gotten from selling their house and land and he hid some of it (maybe behind his back or in his pocket). And he said “Here’s all the money from our land!”

But God told Peter that Ananias was lying. Peter said “Is that really ALL the money you got?”

Ananias said “yes…this is all of it.”

Peter said, “How could you lie to us? This land was all yours, the money was all yours…there’s no need to lie about how much money you got?! But since you did lie to us and to God!”

And then…Ananias fell down DEAD.

Then, a little bit later, Sapphira came in and Peter said “Is that ALL the money you got from selling your land?”

She said “yes, it is” (even though she knew they were hiding some.)

Peter said “How could you also lie to us and to God?!” And then right there, she died too.

This story is important because it shows us that God always wants us to be honest (to tell the truth) and that there is no tricking God. God knows everything.

Isn’t is wonderful to know that even when we make bad choices that God still loves us? He does! But He also wants us to come to Him and tell Him the truth. And He wants us to obey. Just because Jesus died on the cross for our sins (bad choices) doesn’t mean we can sin all the time or anytime we want! We still need to do our best to obey God and to always tell Him the truth.

Our craft was a picture of this story (we used aluminum foil for the money)

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Next time we’ll cover the story of Stephen.

Love to you all!

3 Examples of God’s Power

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Hi all, today we will be learning the story of Acts 3-4 where we will see 3 examples of God’s power and protection for His people.

1. After Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came to be with the disciples, Jesus’ followers went out to tell everyone about Jesus and His sacrifice for us. Two of these followers (Peter and John) were walking one day when the found a man who couldn’t walk. He was asking for money (since he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t work and had no way to buy food). Peter said “we don’t have any money to give you, but we do have the power of Jesus…get up!” and instantly the man was able to get up and walk. It wasn’t by Peter’s strength or John’s ability–it was the power of God that helped fix the man’s legs.

2. The people were amazed by this miracle but Peter said “why are you surprised?” The whole Bible has been telling us about Jesus who would come and save us. He is God’s son and has all the power to do this. He died on the cross, but
He lived again! Now, it’s time to turn to God and believe in His son, Jesus. God worked in the people’s hearts and many of them believed that day.

3. But, the leaders did not like this message. They didn’t want the people to believe Jesus was alive. So, they put Peter and John in jail. But God gave Peter the strength and the right words to talk to the leaders. He told them the ONLY way to be saved is to believe in Jesus, that He died for our sins, and that He lives again. The leaders were shocked by Peter’s courage. They told Peter and John not to talk about Jesus anymore but they said no. They would have to obey God and tell everyone about Him. The leaders let them go. God gave them the strength they needed to tell people about Him and He provided for them.

If God asks us to do something, He will help us accomplish it. If we believe in Him, then we have His spirit in us too and He can give us power, peace and courage to know what to say and how to help others.

For our craft, we made a 3 piece window wheel. In the 1st section, we drew the man with ouchy legs. In the 2nd part, we drew the disciples boldly telling the people about Jesus. In the 3rd part, we drew the disciples in jail. Then we turned the wheels around to tell the story about the 3 times God helped the disciples know how to help and tell other about Jesus.

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Later in the week, we’ll talk about Ananias and Sapphira. I’d love to see what you all make, please share in the comments.

Love to you all.

The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost

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Happy May! This month we’ll be learning about the Bible stories after Jesus went back to heaven.

This story is from Acts 2.

After Jesus went back to heaven to be with God, the disciples and other people who loved Jesus remembered Jesus’ words that they were to go! and make disciples of all the people. But they had to wait for Jesus’ spirit to come back to them.

During a big celebration called the feast of weeks, the disciples were all gathered together in a house when a big wind came and what looked like tongues of fire came and rested near each of them and they were able to each speak new languages.

They started telling all the people who had come for the celebration about Jesus and everyone could understand them. They were so confused and said “how do these guys know how speak so many languages?! have they gone crazy?”

Then Peter stood up and said “no! these guys aren’t crazy! This is just what Jesus said would happen! Even from the beginning of the Bible, it was said that a savior would come and that He would die for us. Jesus is that messiah. He came and loved us and died for us, and now His spirit, His power has come to us. Believe in Jesus, tell Him you are sorry for your bad choices and you TOO can have Jesus live in your hearts like He has come to live in ours.”

Lots of people believed that day and became followers of Jesus. They all lived together and studied the Bible together. They shared what they had and did just what Jesus said…they told everyone about Him and made disciples of all the nations.

If we too choose to believe in Jesus and ask Him to forgive our bad choices, then He will forgive us and live in our hearts too.

For our activity, we drew some of the disciples and then added tongues of fire (tissue paper). We talked about how when the Holy Spirit comes to live in our hearts, we probably won’t see real fire, but we will be given the same power that helped the disciples know how to talk to all the people. We might not be gifted to speak in different languages, but that power of God is in us (if we believe and repent) and He will help us do what we need to do to tell others about Him.

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Disclaimer: I am a big proponent of child-produced art (minimal cut outs and directives), so our pictures always look child-like and often between our two children, the results vary. It is most important to me that they understand the story and as they work on their projects, we discuss the story again.

 

Love to you all.