Living a Godly life

The Golden Rule

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hi all! Welcome to March! This month we will be learning about the things Jesus taught us and later in the month, Easter.

 

Today’s story comes from Luke 6: 27-36. (Also found in Matthew 7)

Jesus was teaching one day and He told the people something very important. He said “Love your enemies, and be nice to people, even if they are not nice to you. If someone is mean to you, pray for them. If someone hurts you, don’t hurt them back. If anyone asks you for something and you have it, then give it to them.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

This is called the “golden rule.”

Jesus said “It’s easy to love people who are nice to you…everybody can do that!?  But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Merciful means forgiving or compassionate).

God always forgives us and gives us good things…even if we make bad choices and sin, He still forgives us and still loves us. And that’s how we should be with other people. If they are mean to us or hurt us, we can pray for them and forgive them.

We can treat people the way we want to be treated. Does that mean if you are nice, everyone else will be too?

No…probably not. Sometimes even if you are very very nice, other people will still make bad choices. But that’s when we remember ALL that God has given us and done for us and how much He loves us…then we can show that same kind of love to other people.

For our craft today we made hats to wear around to help memorize our verse of the day.

We cut a circle out of paper plates and wrote the verse on a heart which we taped to the hat. (If you have a pipe cleaner you should probably tape that on the back of the heart and onto the hat. We didn’t and it made out hearts very floppy).

Our text reads: Do to others as you would have them do to you. Luke 6:31

 

This video is from Steve Green’s “Hide ’em in your heart Vol 1.”

Thanks for joining us today! Love to you all!

Make a Joyful Noise!

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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!

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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!

Little Guys Can Do Big Things Too!

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hi again. So…i may have ripped off the title from a veggie tales song…but it’s so appropriate for our lesson today! All this month we are talking about living a Godly life and today’s verse is 1 Timothy 4:12.

Paul wrote a letter and here he was talking to Timothy…one of Jesus’ followers. Timothy was a grown up, but still a pretty young grown up…not one of the big important leaders. Paul told him “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believes, in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.”

Do you know that God LOVES kids?! And when Jesus was here some kids came to see Him while He was talking and the disciples said “not now?! Jesus is talking!?” But Jesus said “no! Let the kids come to me!” God LOVES children and He knows YOU can do big things. God has BIG plans for you!

God used David when he was still young to fight Goliath! And He used Joseph, Samuel, Salome, Ruth and even Jesus when He was young!

This verse for Timothy is also for you! Did you know that even grown ups make mistakes sometimes? If you love God, you can be a good example for your friends and even for grown ups!

It says we can be a good example by what we say, by the choices we make, by how we love other people, by our faith in God and by our purity–which means having a clean mind and thinking about good things…and taking good care of and protecting our bodies.

No matter how big or little you are, God can use YOU.

For our craft today, i drew each of my kids. Then we circled and talked about the lips (for speech), the brain (for our choices), the heart (for love), the cross (for faith) and my kids said purity was like taking a bath…so we drew some bubbles and sparkles and they circled those.

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Here are some songs for this lesson:

Here is our song for this lesson.

This one posted by seeds family worship.

And this one from NewSpring Church (which is quite catchy).

That’s all for today. We’ll have more soon! Thanks… Love to you all!

Servanthood

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Hello. Today’s lesson about living a Godly life is all about servant hood. A servant is someone who takes care of another person. They work for that person.

The Bible tells us in the book of Philippians chapter 2 that Jesus came not as a very important puffed up famous person…but as a servant…to do what God wanted and to help others. He even obeyed God and served us to the point of death on the cross.

We should also be willing to obey God and serve others. The world does not need more important famous people…it needs people like Jesus who will serve and help others.

Jesus told a lesson in Luke 14. He said, when you go to a party, don’t pick the most important seat…because the person in charge might tell you you don’t belong there…instead…you should be humble. Then they might ask you to move to an important seat. Being humble means knowing you are not the most important. Being humble also means serving others and putting their needs before yours.

When we humble ourselves (or think of what other people are feeling or might need) then we are acting like God.

In Matthew 20, Jesus said “the first will be last and the last will be first.” That means whoever thinks he is very important, when he gets to heaven with God will be the least. And whoever is humble here and serving others…when he gets to heaven, he will be honored by God.

We told the story of the party using some of our toys. And we took turns sitting in what we called “the most important seat.” Then we took turns having the characters instead ask “how can I help you? How can I help you?”

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What are some ways you can think about other people? How can you serve others?

Thanks for joining us today. Love to you all.