Cain and Abel

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hi friends.

Today’s story is from Genesis 4. The story of Cain and Abel.

Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain was first, and then Abel. Cain grew up and worked in the fields. Abel grew up and was a shepherd (he took care of the sheep.) One day, the boys decided to bring an offering (or a present to God). Cain brought some of the food from the fields. But Abel worked hard to make sure he gave God his BEST sheep.

Back then, the first son was supposed to get all the blessings and money and honor. But God wasn’t happy with the first son. This happens a lot in the Bible. People who are supposed to be first or extra important, are not the people God picks. God doesn’t care who is first or most important, He cares about what is in someone’s heart.

God was very happy with what Abel brought. It made Him happy that Abel gave Him his best. He was not as happy with Cain. That made Cain jealous and he was angry. He was thinking angry thoughts when God said “Why are you angry, Cain? You are planning bad things, but you should not give in to sin. If you make good choices I will be pleased with you, but if you make bad choices, there will be bad consequences.”

Cain didn’t listen to God, and he tricked his brother Abel into going into the fields with  him and he killed Abel.

Later, God said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”

Cain replied “I don’t know?! How should i know?! Am i in charge of him?”

But God knew EXACTLY what Cain had done. We can not hide from God.

God said, “Because you sinned and disobeyed me, you have to leave this land. You will always be a drifter and have to work extra hard to get anything from the land.”

Cain was sad that he had to leave God, but even though he made a bad choice and had a bad consequence, God still promised to be with Cain. Even when we mess up, God still cares for us. There are consequences for our choices, but God still loves us.

For our craft, we drew a picture of Cain and Abel…Cain looks angry (we used dry spaghetti for the fields) and Abel is surrounded by his sheep (cotton balls.)

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We found these two cartoon synopsis on youtube:

This one posted by bibliatv.

And this one posted by stayathomeninja.

Thanks for joining us today. We’ll have more tomorrow! Love to you all!

The Fall of Man

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Hi again friends!

Today’s story comes from Genesis 2 and 3.

We learned yesterday about God creating EVERYTHING. And He made man just like Himself. He took some dust from the ground and breathed life into the man and He named him Adam. He made a beautiful garden called the garden of Eden and He put Adam in charge of taking care of the garden and all the animals. But He knew Adam would need a helper. So, He made a woman. They worked and lived together and everything was perfect.

In the middle of the garden were two trees. One was the tree of life and the other was called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” God told Adam and Eve (the woman) they could eat ANYTHING in the garden EXCEPT the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or else they would die.

But God has an enemy. One of God’s angels made a bad choice and decided he wanted to be better than God and became God’s enemy. His name was satan. He tries to keep us from God. He came as a snake to the garden and said to Eve “it’s ok. You can eat the fruit.”

“No i can’t. God said we will die if we eat it,” Eve replied.

“No no no,” he said. God just knows that when you eat the fruit, you’ll be smart like Him…but really it’s ok. Go ahead.”

Eve made a bad choice and she took a bite of the fruit. Then she gave some to Adam and he ate some too. This was the first time a person had sinned. (Made a choice to disobey God). Then they were ashamed and knew they had done a bad thing and they hid from God.

God called for them and they said “here we are.”

“Why are you hiding?” God asked.

Adam and Eve told God what they had done.

God was very sad. Now He knew the man and woman would have to die, instead of living with Him forever in the beautiful, perfect, garden.

God cursed the bad snake and sent Adam and Eve away from the garden and told them they would now have to work very hard to eat and live…and that one day, because of their sin, they would have to die.

God put an angel with a fiery sword in front of the garden so they couldn’t come back.

But, God did not leave Adam and Eve. Right away He had a plan to save them. One day, He would send His son, Jesus, as a little baby and He would pay the price for man’s sins so that they could once again live with God forever in the perfect place.

Some people like to be mad at Adam and Eve because they “started sin” and got kicked out the garden…but we ALL sin. We all disobey God sometimes and we ALL need Jesus’ love and forgiveness.

Click here for the 2nd part of the creation story from the Beginner Bible. This story of Adam and Eve starts at about minute 12.

We also made a craft. We started by cutting a green and a black piece of paper each in half. Then i clipped them together and traced a tree on the green one. Then the kids cut out the tree on both pieces of colored paper and we glued each to a piece of white paper, side by side.

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Next we drew some fruit on our trees. Then we drew a snake on the green side and a sad Adam and Eve on the black side.

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(And one of mine wanted to draw a sad God on top). Then we reviewed the story using our pictures.

Thanks for joining us today. Love to you all!

In the Beginning

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Hello friends!

Welcome to a new year through the Bible! This month of July, we’ll be learning the stories from Genesis and Exodus in the Bible.

This story comes from the 1st two chapters of the Bible, Genesis 1 and 2.

In the beginning…there was God.

God said “let there be light!” And there was. He separated the light from the dark and called the light “day” and the dark “night.” He saw that it was good. That was the 1st day.

On the second day, God separated the waters, so there was sky and seas. God saw that it was good. That was day 2.

On the third day, God made dry land and separated it from the seas. He made plants and trees and flowers, landscapes, and habitats. God saw that it was good. That was day 3.

On the fourth day, God placed the stars in the sky, to separate light from darkness and to distinguish day from night. God saw that it was good. That was day 4.

On the 5th day, God created birds and fish. God saw that it was good. That was day 5.

On the 6th day, God created all land animals. God saw that it was good. Then He made man in His own image…which means He made man to be like Him. He also made woman (which we’ll discuss more tomorrow) He gave them power over all the land and other creatures. God saw that it was good. That was day 6.

On the 7th day, God rested. He saw that everything He had made was good and He set that last day apart, as a day to rest.

We made 7 days of creation for our craft.

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Day 1: Light and Dark

Day 2: Water and Sky (we used cotton balls for clouds and drew on the waves of the seas)

Day 3: Land and vegetation (we glued some craft leaves and flowers)

Day 4: Stars and Heavens (We sponge painted some planets and stars and used glitter glue for some extra sparkle and shine)

Day 5: Birds and Fishes (We used tissue paper for feathers since we were out today, but certainly feathers would be a good choice. Then we made fish scales from some craft hula flowers…you could also draw scales, use goldfish crackers, or bubble wrap to paint a scale-like pattern on your fish.)

Day 6: Animals and Man (For this, we cut out pictures from magazines of people and animals….and yes, elmo)

Day 7: God rested (We put one picture of a sleeping baby and added some “z”s…and in my best Pete the Cat voice “it’s allllll good.”

Media:

Here is our song version of the days of creation.

From the Gospel Project, here’s the whole story in 4 minutes.

The Beginner Bible for Kids has this half-hour video (we only watched the 1st part because we’ll do the next part tomorrow).

Creation song from the CD “The King, the Snake, and the Promise”

And lastly, this one only has written words, but would be good to learn for a church class.

Thanks for joining us today. Be sure to “follow” to get updates of the lessons each day and thanks for joining us as we learn the Bible this year! Love to you all!

Make a Joyful Noise!

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hi again friends.

Our last topic for this month is praising God! Our verses are Colossians 3:16, Psalm 100, Romans 12:1, and John 4:24.

The Bible tells us to teach and encourage one another through our songs and poems. We can worship God with grateful hearts for ALL He has done for us. Worshipping God is not just singing though. You can worship Him in your heart, with music, with your kind words and by making good choices.

You can sing or play an instrument, write poems or stories, create art or dance…there are so many ways to praise God.

When we pray, we talk to God. Praise is just thankful prayer…telling God how wonderful He is and how muh we love Him.

There is a whole book of the Bible calls Psalms and it is songs people wrote for God.

Do you have a favorite song about God?

Take some time as a family to praise God together. If your kids are old enough, maybe you could write a song together.

All for today, join us in July as we begin journeying through the Bible again, starting in Genesis. Love to you all!

Nothing Can Separate Us!

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hi friends!

Today’s lesson comes from Romans 8:(31-35) 38-39.

Who loves you the most?

The Bible says that God loves us SO much that there is NOTHING that can keep Him from loving us. There are still consequences for our choices, but He will always love us and want us to know Him no.matter.what.

God even gave us His own son Jesus…so we can be sure that there is nothing He won’t do for us. This Bible verse in Romans 8 says “that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Isn’t that GREAT NEWS!?

We made a craft to remind us of God’s love for us.

We drew ourselves and cut them out. Then we made crosses with long arms and hearts on the end. Then we glued ourselves to the front of the cross and the arms can reach around and give us a big hug. (I will be honest…this was a bit over my 3 year olds heads. They kept asking why THEY were on the cross. So i reminded them that THEY weren’t on the cross. The cross is a picture of Jesus and how much He loves us. Jesus was the cross and He was giving them a big hug because He loves them so so much.)

Our person and the cross. The kids have 4 angles to cut out, then we used the longer pieces to extend the arms of the cross.
Our person and the cross. The kids have 4 angles to cut out, then we used the longer pieces to extend the arms of the cross.

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Giving a hug
Giving a hug

We also found this song from Citizen Way.

Thanks for joining us today. We have one day left in this month’s lessons on Living a Godly Life. Then we’ll be starting back at creation in July. Love to you all!

Listen to Authority

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hi friends.

Today’s lesson comes from Romans 13 and Ephesians 6:1.

Who are the people in charge of you? (mom and dad? grandma? someone else?) What about at school? What about at church or other activities (gymnastics, soccer etc).

The Bible tells us that God puts people in charge of us to help take care of us and to guide us. And we need to respect them and obey them.

The people who love you the most (your mom and dad) make rules for you because they want you to be safe and they want to help you grow into a great person!

The Bible tells us to listen and give honor to our President, our teachers, our mom and dad. Ephesians 6:1 says “Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”

(If you have little ones, this is good time to stop and talk about how you can obey…or to review some of the rules of your house. You might even make a family rule list if you haven’t.)

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If you have older kids, you can also discuss about when NOT to obey an adult. If a grown up ever asks you to do something you know is wrong or that would make God sad…then you don’t have to obey. Like Daniel’s friends who would’t bow down to the idol. Even though they had a negative consequence for disobeying…they honored God and that is the most important thing…AND He turned that into something GREAT for His glory. Also, the disciples healed people on the Sabbath and the leaders didn’t like it, but Jesus said they had to obey God above man.

(This can also turn into a spin off of discussing tricky people and “stranger danger” if you haven’t yet discussed those issues with your kids, or as a reminder if you have.)

It’s important to obey the people we know love us and know God has put in our lives to help us grow, but if a grown up ever asks you to do something you are not sure about or know is wrong, then find your mom or dad, or ask another grown up for help.

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Veggie tales has a story called Pistachio (like Pinocchio) about obeying. I couldn’t find the whole episode available online. But you could certainly rent it from amazon or netflix.

Also there is this song by Steve Green.

All for today. We have two lessons left and then we’ll be starting over in Genesis in July. Thanks! Love to you all!

Overcome Evil with Good

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hello friends.

Today’s lesson comes from 1 Peter 3:9 and Romans 12:17-21.

What do you do if someone is mean to you? Should you be mean back to them? What if they say bad words? Should you shout or say something even worse back to them?

No…the Bible tells us we can overcome bad things, by doing good. Paul and Peter both wrote about this saying “don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with the good.”

Have you ever heard anyone say “two wrongs don’t make a right?” That means, if you do something mean because someone else did something mean, it won’t fix anything. The only way to fix a problem, is to step up and do the right thing…even if other people aren’t making good choices.

In Romans it says, if our enemies are hungry, we should feed them. If they are thirsty, we should give them something to drink. We can be loving even if other people aren’t loving towards us.

Is that hard to do sometimes? Yes…i think so. But when we follow God’s word, it makes us more like Him and makes Him happy. The people making bad choices might even feel a little happy and may start making good choices. But…the Bible says we don’t have to worry about their choices..we have to only worry about making good choices that honor God and one great way to do that is to overcome evil with good.

For our craft today, we took a paper plate and drew an angry face on one side, and a happy face on the other side. We wrote “Don’t be overcome by evil” on the angry side, “but overcome evil with good” on the happy side. Then our kids took turns being the angry guy and the “good choices” guy.

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We also found this song by Steve Green.

Thanks for joining us today. Love to you all!

Faith

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hi friends.

Today we are talking about Faith. Do you know what Faith is? Faith is believing.

In the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, it says that faith is believing what we hope for and being certain of what we can’t see. That means, we hope to live with God in heaven forever, so we believe in His promises and that He sent His son Jesus to die for us. And even though we can’t SEE God…we are sure He is there and that He loves us.

Did you know you can see God’s power when it thunders and lightnings? You can feel God’s love when your mommy or daddy give you hugs. You can see God’s beauty in the flowers, or pretty fall leaves. We know God takes care of us, because He gives us rain and water and food.

Even though Noah had never seen rain before, he believed God when God told him to build an ark because it would rain.

And little David who went to fight Goliath believed that God would help him and He did.

And Daniel’s friends believed in God and trusted Him when they were thrown into the fire, and He protected them.

The Bible is FULL of stories of people who believed God…people who had FAITH in God. (Just start in Hebrews 11 for examples!)

We can have faith in God, because God is FAITHFUL…He never changes, we can always count on Him.

For our craft today, i traced almond and circle shapes, then the kids cut them out and glued them to make eyes and we drew pupils and eyelashes/eyebrows and put Hebrews 11:1 as our verse.

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This is a sign language version of Hebrews 11:1: from Saddleback Kids

A catchy (and a bit cheesy…but my kids love it) song about faith: by Jeff Slaughter

And this one by Jeremy Camp

That’s all for today. We are nearing the end of our lessons on living a Godly life…just a few left. In July, we’ll be starting over in Genesis so if you want to complete the whole Bible with us, July is the time to start! Thanks, Love to you all!

The B-I-B-L-E

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hi friends!

(image from foothillsbaptistchurch.org)
(image from foothillsbaptistchurch.org)

Today we will be learning about the Bible. Do you know what the Bible is?

The Bible is God’s book to us. God used different people over a long time to write down what He wanted us to know (Galatians 1:11) and then He used other people to put it altogether and even more people to write it in different languages so EVERYONE can know what God says.

The Bible is called the Word of God. (It’s His words to us). In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul says that the Bible is useful for teaching and training us and also helping us know right from wrong. (Psalm 119:9) Mostly, it reminds us of God’s power and love for us.

In Psalms, King David said that God’s word is like a lamp for our feet, or a light to show us which way to go. (You can turn off all the lights and follow a flash light around and talk about how the world can seem dark and confusing…but when we follow God’s word…it shows us which way to go…just like a flashlight.)

And every word in the Bible is true! (John 17:17, John 10:35, Psalm 19:7, Revelation 21:5) God tells us over and over again that His words are true. We know it’s true, because there are lots of things God said would happen that DID happen, and also, if we believe in Him, then we trust what He says.

And Jesus said in Matthew 4 that man can not live by bread alone…but on every word from God. That means we need God’s words in our heart JUST as much as we need food everyday. So it’s important to read God’s word often.

Can you sit down with your mom and dad and come up with a time to read the Bible each day–maybe bedtime? after lunch or supper? before school?

For smaller children, you can sing the B-I-B-L-E song.

And if you have kids a bit older, you could go into more detail like the Bible has two main parts, an old testament (everything before Jesus) and a new testament (everything after Jesus came). There are books that tell the stories of God’s people, books about prophecies (things that were going to happen and later did), and books about wisdom and songs. The new testament books are divided into telling about Jesus’ life, the early church, letters to the early church and one more book of prophecy (things that will still happen, but haven’t yet.)

**If you feel your child is old enough, you could start memorizing the books of the Bible. Also, if your child is old enough to read…do they have their own Bible yet that they can read?

All for today. Thanks again for joining us. Love to you all!

Prayer

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hello again friends.

We are continuing our lessons on the teaching of the New Testament (also referred to as “living a Godly life”). Today we’ll be talking about prayer with verses from James 4, 1 John 5, and Matthew 6.

Do you know what prayer is? Prayer is talking to God. We can talk to God anytime we want and about anything! In our house, we pray before we eat…do you do that at your house too? It’s a good time to remember to talk to God. When else do you talk to God?

God wants to hear it all. In the Bible it says if we are sad, we should tell God. If we are happy, we should sing praises to Him. If we need something, or just want to tell Him something…He is always listening and He hears us.

God is alive today and wants to hear from us. God knows everything that will happen, but the Bible also says, that He listens to us and we can motivate His heart with our prayers.

We can come to God and we don’t have to be afraid or think He’s far away. God is right here. We can hear Him talk back to us too! Sometimes through the words in the Bible…sometimes through other people and sometimes in our hearts.

Jesus even told us HOW we can pray. He said don’t pray just because you’re supposed to, or to show other people you love God…pray because you really want to. And when you pray, you should first praise God, and remember that HE is in charge. Then we can talk to Him about things we need or are thinking about and can ask Him to forgive us for any bad choices we’ve made. We can ask God to protect us and to help us follow Him.

What kinds of things would you like to thank God for? Are there ways you want to ask for help?

For our craft, we traced our praying hands. On one hand, we wrote what we are thankful for. On the other hand, we wrote some things we wanted to ask God to help us with.

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Also found these resources:

1. A “teach me to pray” hand: here

2. Free printable prayer cards from meetpenny.com: here

3. I have also seen the idea of writing prayers and praises on popsicle sticks, placing them all in a jar and then choosing a few to talk to God about at each prayer time.

Thanks for joining us today. We’ll have more soon! Love to you all!