Angel

Gideon the warrior

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hello again! Today’s story is from Judges 6-8 in the Bible. Last year’s lesson can be found HERE.

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image from 
https://kelund.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/stolen-bibles-and-a-restored-marriage/

 
Today’s story is about a man named Gideon. Gideon was just a regular guy, one of the Israelites (God’s chosen people). He was living in the promised land with the other Israelites, taking care of his sheep. Now since they had moved in, the Israelites had a bad habit of following God and then forgetting and making bad choices. Then God would punish them, send them a new leader (a judge) and they would follow Him again. Over and over and over. (God is very very patient!)

After Deborah was gone, they once again started making bad choices and God let the Midianites be in charge of them for seven years. The people were scared and had to hide because the Midianites were so mean to them.

One day, an angel came and told the people to stop disobeying God! Make good choices!

Then the angel appeared to Gideon, and said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior!”

Gideon couldn’t believe the angel was talking to him. He wasn’t a mighty warrior?! “Who ME?!”

But the angel answered, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand.  I am sending you! I will be with you.” (God was with Gideon and would help him defeat the Midianites.)

Gideon asked God for THREE different signs before he believed that God had really chosen him. And God was patient enough that He did show Gideon over and over “YES! I want YOU to lead the army!”

Finally Gideon trusted! So he rounded up a big huge army and set out. But God said no. It was too many fighters. So everyone who was scared was allowed to go home. Then Gideon started off again, but God said no again. The army was still too big. He had Gideon send even more men home. God did this so that when the Israelites won, everyone would know it was GOD who had defeated the Midianites and not the army, or Gideon.

So Gideon led his tiny army to the place where the GIANT Midianite army was camped. They had over 135000 men in their army and Gideon was allowed to have 300 men. That’s like if Pluto was going to fight the sun!

So Gideon’s army split into three teams and quietly tiptoed around at night time and surrounded the Midianites. They brought breakable clay jars, trumpets, and torches (fire) with them. Then, when Gideon told them to, everyone blew their trumpets really loudly, smashed the jars and yelled. They waved the firy torches around. The noise and commotion scared the Midianites so much, that started killing each other?! Only a few of them got away but the Israelites got them and defeated every last one.

After Gideon and the men returned, the people wanted Gideon to be their king. But he said, “No. Let GOD be your king.”

 

Gideon was a good leader. Remember, God doesn’t always pick the most important people or the most popular to be the leader…God cares about what’s in your heart. Gideon was a good leader not because he was someone important, or because he was big or strong…he was a good leader because he pointed the people back to God! When you are being a leader for your friends, make sure you a good leader…who trusts and obeys God. We know God’s plan is the BEST plan and that we can always trust Him. A good leader follows God and helps other people trust Him too!

THIS VIDEO is from Teaching Kids About Jesus.

There is also a veggie tales about Gideon.

A cute snack for today’s lesson is to have bugels be the trumpets, cheese for the fire and maybe tortilla scoops to be the clay jars. The kids *could* smash them on the table if you’re really that brave :0)

Thanks again for joining us, love to you all!

 

Peter freed from jail

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Hi all! Today’s story is from Acts 12. You can see our lesson and craft from last year HERE.

This story takes place after Jesus died, rose and went back to heaven. The new church was busy teaching everyone about Jesus and King Herod arrested some of these people and he was mean to them and even killed some of them! When he saw this made the crowds happy, he put Peter in jail too. (Remember Peter was one of Jesus’ disciples and friends and he LOVED to tell people all about Jesus. So they put him in prison and put guards around to watch him.)

While Peter was kept in jail the church was praying to God for him, to keep him safe and that Herod would set him free.

The night before Herod was going to bring him out and put him on trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, and his arms were chained to the wall. All of a sudden an angel of God came. He bonked Peter in the side and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell right off Peter’s arms!

The angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Put your coat on and follow me,” the angel told him.  Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was dreaming! They passed by all the guards and came to the big iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them all by itself, and they went right through it! When they had walked just a bit further, the angel left.

Then Peter realized it WASN’T a dream and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me!”

Then he quickly went to the house where he knew a lot of people were praying for him. Peter knocked on the door and a servant came to answer the door. When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so excited she ran back without opening it and yelled, “Peter is at the door!”

“No way!” they told her.

But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were amazed! Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and he told them all about how God had brought him out of jail. He told the people at the house to let all the disciples know what had happened and that he was ok! Then he left to hide somewhere else. (The Bible does not tell us where he went…but later he would travel around to tell more people about Jesus).

In the morning, the soldiers were SO confused about where Peter was?! Herod the King was so angry he killed the guards that were supposed to be watching Peter! But everyone who loved Jesus and heard about how God had saved Peter was so happy and some of them even  became more brave to tell people about Jesus! Peter was hiding for a while, but when they saw God taking care of His people, that made them brave to go out and tell people about Jesus just like Peter had!

For our craft today we drew pictures of the story and used toothpicks to help illustrate the jail.

 

Thanks for joining us today! Love to you all!

HE IS RISEN!

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hi all!  We are doing our Easter lesson today! He is Risen!

This story can be found in the Bible in Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24 and John 20.

It was now Sunday morning. Jesus had died on the cross on Friday. The leaders who wanted Him dead were laughing and happy He was finally gone! The people who loved Jesus missed Him terribly and even though He had told them LOTS of times that He would die and be alive again 3 days later (Matt 17:22, Mark 8:31, John 2:19, Matt 12:39-40, Matt 16:21, John 10:17, 18, see also: Isaiah 53:5-12, Psalm 35:19, Psalm 69:4, Psalm 22:16, Zech 12:10, Psalm 22:1, Psalm 16:10, Psalm 49:15) …they didn’t really understand and they were very sad AND they were scared the leaders would come after them next.

After Jesus died, the soldiers and leaders remembered Jesus saying He would live again and they set up guards in front of the tomb (kind of like a cave) where Jesus’ body was put after He died. They put a HUGE stone (bigger than your dad!) in front of the tomb…it would take a LOT of people to move it. They kept watch day and night because they thought the disciples would try to come take Jesus’ body and pretend He was alive. (They didn’t believe Jesus would REALLY live again!)

That Sunday morning, a few of the women who loved Jesus went to the tomb. They were going to put oil and spices on His body and pray. But, one of God’s angels came, rolled back the stone and sat on it. The guards were so scared they fainted!

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; HE HAS RISEN, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’”

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid but SO EXCITED, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my disciples; I will see them soon.”

This is THE story of the Bible. God is all powerful. He is perfect. He made all things and is in all things. He is stronger than anything, even death. God has the power over life and death. Our sin keeps us from God and we should die forever in hell away from God. But God sent His son Jesus to die in our place so we don’t have to. We know Jesus died and lived again and because He did that for us, when we die, we will live again in heaven if we believe He died for us and make Him king of our hearts.

Jesus dying AND living again shows God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf. It proves that God has the power to raise us from the dead. It shows that those who believe in Christ will not remain dead, but will be resurrected unto forever life.

AMEN!

 

Today we made a diorama (or dino-rino as my kids called it). Basically a little theater and characters to tell the story.

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We used two pieces of green and 2 pieces of blue construction paper to make the grass and sky in our box. We cut out a sun and taped it to the ceiling with a string. We cut out a tomb and folded under the end to tape to the floor of our box. Then we crumpled up a piece of brown paper to be the stone. We also made a flat empty bed inside the tomb.

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The guards are guarding the tomb. (We drew them scared).

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The women are coming to visit the tomb.

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The angel is on the rock, inside the tomb is empty. The guards have passed out and the women are listening to the angel. Jesus is waiting to see them!

 

Thanks for joining us today. Love to you all! Happy Easter!

Heavenly Creatures

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No…this is not Harry Potter’s magical creatures…but soon we’ll be learning about putting on the armor of God so today is an intro to that. But WHY would we need armor? We need armor to battle against the evil that tries to keep us from God.

Today we’ll be learning about spiritual beings like angels and the war between good and evil…between Satan and God who are fighting for our hearts.

We drew as I talked and ended up with the images above. You could do that, or just talk about it, or cut out some shapes of angels and put one talking point on each one.

***Disclaimer: I think I overloaded my kids on info…so I’ll TRY to keep it more brief here….if you REALLY want a VERY basic intro for very small children (or to review because today’s lesson is info heavy and kind of long) i’d stick to:

1. God has made helpers called angels

2. Some of them love God and help Him

3. Some of them choose to NOT love God

4. God (and the good angels) wants to love us and have us know God

5. The bad angels want to keep us from God, so they fight with God

6. But God will always win

7. We have a choice (just like the angels)… if we will love God or not

The slightly longer version follows:

First of all, do you know what an angel is? (my kids actually said “they fly and are shiny and talk to people!” I was surprised they knew that much…so see what your kids know or think and feel free to share in the comments!)

The Bible tells us a few things about angels.

1. Who they are:

Angels are creatures made by God (Colossians 1:16)

They are not people, but like people, they can make their own choices (Jude 1:6)

They don’t know everything and are under God’s command (1 Peter 1:12, Job 1, 1 Peter 3:22, Matt 24:36, 1 Kings 8:39)

There are tens of thousands of angels! (Hebrews 12:22, Daniel 7:10, Luke 2:13, Rev 5:11)

2. What they do

Angels serve God (Psalm 103:20)

-they worship and praise Him (Revelation 5:11-14, Nehemiah 9:6, Isaiah 6:1-4)

-some share His messages (like to Mary, Jesus’ mommy, to John in Revelation, and to the disciples at the empty tomb in John chapter 20)

-some help Gods people (like Jesus in the desert (Matt 4:11) or Daniel in the lion’s den (Daniel 6:22))

-sometimes they carry out a punishment from God (2 Kings 19:2-34, Psalm 78:49)

Angels also LOVE when someone decides to follow Jesus (Luke 15:10)

3. What they look like

Some of them have wings (cherubim and seraphim) (Exodus 25:20, Ezekiel 10, Isaiah 6:2)

Sometimes they look like people (Hebrews 13:2, Mark 16:5), sometimes they shine with God’s glory…like the halos you see in pictures (Luke 2:9), and sometimes they look very strange! (Ezekiel 1)

Angels are not for us to worship, they serve God just like us (Revelation 22:9, Colossians 2:18)

Demons

1. Who they are

Since angels have a choice, some of them decided NOT to follow God. Lucifer (Satan) was one of God’s best helper angels but he decided that HE wanted to be God ….but of course only GOD can be God. He said “I can be better than YOU!” and he got a bunch of other angels to go against God too. He has been trying to mess up God’s relationship with us ever since. He wants people to follow Him, not God. (Isaiah 14)

2. What they do

Satan and the demon angels are LIARS. (Genesis 3, Matt 4:6-11, Revelation 12:9-10, Matthew 13:19) They get people to believe God is bad and they change how people read the Bible or think of God, they also remind us of all the bad choices we’ve made (even after God has forgiven us!)…anything to keep us away from Him. (Job 1:9-11, Zechariah 3:1, Psalm 91:11-12, 2 Corinthians 4:4, 1 Timothy 4:1)

When Satan first went away from God, he went to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden and lied to them about the fruit they weren’t supposed to eat. He got them to sin and be separated from God, just like he tries to do with us… BUT as soon as Adam and Eve sinned, God said “I will fix it! They should have to die for sinning, but I will send my son Jesus to die in their place, and if they accept that then they can be with me again!” (1 John 3:8, Hebrews 2:14) So when Jesus died on the cross, Satan was defeated. He can’t keep us from God if we want to be with God forever in heaven. (Colossians 2:13-15)

He and the demons still try to keep us from God, but in the end, God said he will punish Satan and the demons forever. (Matthew 25:41, 2 Peter 2:4, Revelation 20:7-10) They know God and are scared of Him because they KNOW He is better and more powerful than they are. (James 2:19, Mark 3:11)

God has promised us that He is greater than anything else in this world. (Romans 16:20) We only need to trust in Him. (James 4:7-10)

Tomorrow we’ll be learning about the armor of God, which is some ways we can fight against Satan’s lies and stay strong for God. Love to you all.