The Armor of God

June 12, 2015June 12, 2015 ~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hi all!

So last time we talked about God and His good angels, and about Satan and the angels that chose to follow him INSTEAD of God. Satan and the demons are always trying to keep us from God. The Bible tells us in Ephesians 6:10-18 that we can fight against their evil and lies and stay strong for God. We can put on some armor to protect ourselves.

Do you know what armor is? Soldiers and knights wear armor to keep themselves safe when they fight. We can practice everyday putting on “armor” to keep us safe and strong in God. It’s not real armor…it’s things we can do to keep our minds focused on God.

For this lesson, as we talked about each piece of armor, i “armed” my children and we dressed up in the armor of God. After the lesson, we drew a little guy and added armor to him (for something we could hang up as a visual reminder).

The Bible tells us that in order to stand strong in God, we can wear the belt of truth. We can memorize Bible verses so when someone says something like “God doesn’t really love us” you can say “Yes He does! John 3:16 says He loves us so much He gave up His own son in our place!” When you have the TRUTH of God’s word, satan’s lies can’t keep you from God.

Next, you can put on the breastplate of righteousness. A breastplate is kind of like a vest that covers your heart. Our hearts are sinful, but when we trust Jesus, He makes us righteous (or RIGHT with God). Our hearts can not be turned from God if we wear HIS righteousness. We aren’t strong by anything WE’VE done…we stay strong in our hearts by remembering what HE has done for us.

Next, you can put on the shoes of the gospel of peace. God didn’t ever want to be apart from us. So He didn’t send His son Jesus to remind us of all our bad choices. He came to give us peace. To bring us back to Him. We can also be at peace with other people, knowing that God is in control.

We also need a shield…a big cover. The Bible says we have the shield of faith which will get rid of any arrows from the enemy. Satan and the evil things in this world will try to get to us. They will try to tell you God isn’t real, or God doesn’t love you. They will try to get you to make bad choices. But you can hold up your shield and say “NO! I have FAITH, i believe that God loves me and knows what is best for me. I follow HIM!” In James 4, the Bible says that if we resist satan, he will run away from us. When we choose God’s way…satan has to run away! (Remember…he’s afraid of God!)

We can wear a helmet of salvation. We know God saved us. A helmet protects our head, and our eyes (we see people with God’s love). It protects our ears (we choose to listen to good words, good music and Godly advice and teachings. We also choose to NOT listen to lies about ourselves or about God.) It protects our mouth (when we remember that we are God’s and He saved us, then the words we speak are words that praise God and make Him happy.)

The Bible says our weapon against evil is the sword of the Spirit. God’s Holy Spirit comes to live in our hearts when we trust in Him. HE will fight for us. God Himself fights for us!! Isn’t it funny that the only weapon we have isn’t even anything WE do? We can’t win against satan…but God can…and He already has.

The Bible also reminds us to pray. To talk to God about everything…big or small, when we’re happy or sad. When we talk to someone, we feel close to them. When we focus on talking to God, there’s less time to think about bad things or make bad choices. We should always try to focus on God.

Thanks for reading today. Love to you all!

Heavenly Creatures

June 10, 2015June 10, 2015 ~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

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.

Taming the Tongue

June 7, 2015June 7, 2015 ~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hello again!

As a reminder for the month of June we are studying the teachings of the New Testament in the Bible. These are things that Jesus’ disciples and followers wrote down after listening to God and He would tell them what to say. Some of these come from letters that they wrote to different people and churches.

So today we’ll be learning about “taming the tongue.”

What does that mean?! We use our tongues and our mouths to talk to people all day long. We can use our tongues to say nice things and encourage other people, or we can use our tongues to tell lies, or to be mean to other people. We have to learn to use our tongues in a way that makes God happy…that’s called “taming your tongue” or teaching it to be used for good.

In Proverbs (18:21) the Bible says that the tongue has the power of life or death. That means that with our words, we can bring hope and happiness to others, or we can make their hearts sad. We can use our words to tell other people about Jesus and that REALLY can bring new life!

In James 3 it reminds us that one tiny part of the boat can steer the whole thing! And one small spark or match can set a whole forest on fire. Just like that, our tongues can control everything we do and can affect a lot of other people too! When we control our tongues we stop before we yell. And we stop before we say something mean about somebody else. When we tame our tongue we ALWAYS thank God and tell others we love them.

James tells us that its impossible to always control our tongues. No one can do it perfectly!? But we should try!!

In the book called Colossians (4:6), Paul said “Let your conversation be full of grace and seasoned with salt.” Seasoned with salt??? Well, when you want to eat tasty food, sometimes your mom or dad can put some salt on it to make it taste good. Proverbs tell us that sweet words are yummy to our souls. When we speak to other people, we should use nice words, and gentleness.

Because, in Matthew (12:34) Jesus said “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” That means whatever is in your heart, is what you will say. If you have a happy heart that loves God, then you will use your tongue for good. If you have an angry heart, or you only think about what’s good for YOU, then your words will be yucky and NOT help other people.

Proverbs 21:23 says that whoever can control what he says, will keep himself out of trouble! And lastly, in the book of Ephesians (4:29), it says to let no yucky talk come out of your mount, but only say things that help other people and that praise God.

There are a LOT of verses about using nice words, aren’t there? That must mean God thinks it’s REALLY important!

What are some things you say that are NOT good?

What are some things you can say that will make other people feel happy?

*You can ask your child “What does mommy..or daddy..etc say that makes you feel happy? What does mommy say that makes you feel sad?” (If the answer is “no” you can remind them that it’s because you love them that you say no sometimes…to keep them safe or healthy. Then maybe share with your kids some of the things they say that make you happy or sad. Pray together to do a better job controlling your tongues.

For our craft, we drew a face and glued on a giant foam tongue.

We also found this music video which is pretty cute from Psalm 34:13

(posted by NewSpringChurch):

Watch it here!

That’s all for today. More soon. Love to you all!

Fruit of the Spirit

June 6, 2015June 5, 2020 ~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hi there.

This month we are studying the teachings of the new testament (or, how to live a Godly life). Today’s lesson comes from Galatians 5:22-23.

Did you know that apples grow on trees? And bananas too! Lots of fruit grows on trees. One way you can tell if a fruit tree is healthy and strong is that will provide a LOT of GOOD fruit.

The Bible tells us that just like trees, there are some ways we can tell if someone is strong and living for God. These are called “fruits” of the Spirit (because God’s Spirit lives in us and helps us when we believe in Him.)

(We did our craft AS we covered each item) I drew a tree on each child’s paper and cut out the circles as i talked with them. Then they drew the illustration on each circle. (Bear in mind, my kids are 3…so some of these drawings may look a bit rudimentary. You could draw the outline and have your child color it in, or you could find some clip art if you wanted a more polished look.)

The first way people will know that we love God, is that we will be loving. The kids drew a heart on this circle. (We talked about love just the other day, so it was a great chance to go over again all the things that Love is! See 1 Corinthians 13)

The second way people will know we love and serve God is that we will be joyful. That means that we can be happy, even if something sad happens, because we know God cares for us and will help us. It’s ok to be sad. Even Jesus was sad sometimes, but even when you’re sad, you can know in your heart that God will always be there for you. For this one, we drew a smiley face.

The 3rd way we can show people that we love God, is that we will have peace. Do you know what that means? It means calm. We don’t have to worry about things that might happen, because God is taking care of us. We know we will live with Him forever and that He is always there for us. We drew a dove for this one (with *some* help from mom).

(You could also talk about the dove during Jesus baptism, how that was a sign of God sending His son in peace and not wrath towards humanity. Also, the dove with Noah…that God had been angry and washed all the sin away, but promised He would still find a way to be with us and that He loves us forever.)

The next “fruit” we will have in our lives is patience. That means waiting with a good attitude. It can be very hard to be patient. When you love God, though, and you know He has everything under control, it can be a little bit easier sometimes. For this one, we drew a clock.

We will also be kind. Kindness can be helping a friend, giving hugs or listening to them. There are SO many ways to show kindness to others. This time, we traced our “giving” hands. (We also remembered our lesson on giving from earlier in the week).

When we love God, we will make good choices. We try to do the right thing. Sometimes, when no one is looking, it can be easy to do the wrong thing, but if we really love God, we will try to always do what is right. For this one, we drew a crown.

People will also know we love Jesus by our faithfulness. Faithfulness means not giving up. Loyal. It can also mean trusting. We can be loyal to those we love and we can be loyal to God. We spend time talking to Him and reading the Bible. We can also trust Him forever and forever. And the Bible also says that God is faithful too. He is faithful and will love us forever. We drew a cross and remembered God’s faithfulness to us, even when we do bad things, He still loves us and sent His son Jesus to die in our place. THAT’S how committed He is to us.

When we love God, we will also show gentleness. (This was an easy one for our kiddos to understand). We drew a soft lamb.

The last way we can show people we have God in our lives, is by our self control. That means that we control our emotions and our choices. You can have self control by not yelling or hitting. You can show self control by not eating too much candy. You can show self control by being a good listener. What are some other ways we can show self-control?

For this last one, we drew some pieces of candy.

If your kids believe in God, you can talk with them about which ones they might struggle with. Being open and sharing what is hard for you can be a great tool for your kids too.

Altogether, our trees looked like this:

Here is our song for this lesson.

I would LOVE to see your finished creations. Feel free to share them. Thanks, love to you all.

Giving Generously

June 3, 2015June 3, 2015 ~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hello again!

As part of our month of June “Living a Godly life” series, today we’ll be learning about giving generously. Our verses are 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, James 2:14-17 and 1 John 3:16.

stock-footage-child-counting-money — (*Not my child, just a stock photo i found…but isn’t she precious?!)

The Bible tells us that it is important to give generously. That means to give a lot and with a happy heart.

The best example of giving is when God gave up His son Jesus to die for us. Jesus came to earth to die for us and to serve us, He gave us everything He had and God loves to take care of us and give us everything we need.

These verses also tell us that it’s important to not just WANT to give, but to actually do it. If you see somebody who needs food, or clothes, or a hug…and you can help them, then you should! It doesn’t help anyone to say “i hope you find some food! I hope you get some clothes.” YOU can be the one to help. When you help, you serve them and love them like God does.

It doesn’t matter how little you have. God says in the Bible that if someone has a LOT of money and someone a little, if they both give all they have, then He is happy with both of them! Whatever God has given you, if you share it the best you can, then God will be happy and you will be sharing His love. Whatever talents or special abilities God has given you, if you share those with others with a happy heart, you will be giving generously. And God LOVES a cheerful giver.

You can help people in need, but you can also help people in your family. You can give your mom a hug, or your brother the last cookie. What are some ways YOU think you can give?

There was no craft today. Instead, we took some muffins to the people working on our new house, and dropped off some things for the local women’s shelter as they had just advertised some needs in the local paper. We talked about giving those items to mommies and kids who needed them, but didn’t have any money for them.

**The most important thing to remember when teaching kids about generous giving (as with most values and Biblical teachings) is that YOU as the parent have to be a living example. If you donate one time when your kid is a preschooler, but are stingy with your giving the rest of the time, it will not stick with them. A constant example of generosity speaks much louder than any small Bible lesson. So, let’s all try to be good stewards of what God has shared with us, and set the example for our kids.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Please share in the comments below!

Next time, we’ll start on the fruits of the spirit. Love to you all.

What is love?

June 2, 2015June 2, 2015 ~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hello again! Today we’re talking about love. The Bible says God is love. It also says that God loved us so much that He gave up His only son, Jesus, to die for us.

Our study today comes from 1 Corinthians 13.

It tells us that love is the most important thing. But what is love? These verses tell us that love is kind and patient. When you love someone you don’t try to sound better than them, and you are not rude. Real love doesn’t remember the bad choices people make, but forgives them. Love is not happy when bad things happen, but it protects and keeps safe. Love trusts and hopes and never gives up.

Do you know anybody who loves you like that? Maybe your mom or dad or grandparents? They are patient and use nice words, they keep you safe and never give up on you.

God is love too.

These verses also say that if even we could talk in a bunch of languages or use really big words to tell people about Jesus, but we don’t do it in love, then it’s just a bunch of noise. Even if we know everything in the whole world, it means nothing if we don’t love.

There are lots of things people do, but the only one that matters is love. How can you show love? How can you show love to your mom? What can you do to show your dad you love him? How can you love your brother/sister? How can we love people we just met?

For our craft, we cut out hearts and glued heart type things to them. Then I asked my kids what “love is” and let them answer. (It took *some* examples, but they caught on.) Here are our finished products.

Here are links to two videos we found cute and helpful to reinforce these verses.

And https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=36p-y8VyNJg

Next time we’ll be learning about generous giving.

Love to you all.

The Body of Christ

June 1, 2015 ~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Welcome to June! This month we’ll be studying the teachings of the new testament (romans-jude), essentially “living a Godly life.”

Our first lesson comes from passages in 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Peter 4, and Romans 12.

The Body of Christ:

Your body has many different parts. You have eyes, ears, a nose, a belly, feet, a tummy, a heart, some hair, a mouth and more! All of the parts of your body do different things! Can your eyes touch things like your fingers? Can your belly hear? Can your feet smell your supper? No no, of course not! God made each part of your body with a special talent (a special thing it was made to do!)

The Bible tells us that all the people who love Jesus Christ work together to serve Him and love others, just like the different parts of a body! Sometimes we are all called “the body of Christ” and God has given each of us some special ways in which we can serve Him and others.

Maybe you are the hands. You can use your hands to give food to people who don’t have any food. Maybe your mommy is a mouth. She loves to sing about God. Maybe your daddy is a heart…he is always caring for other people. Maybe you know some “feet”…or people who are willing to GO to faraway places and tell people about Jesus.

It doesn’t matter what part you are, or how you serve God. The Bible says every part is important. And that means every person who loves God is important and has an important job to do. If God has given you the ability to paint pretty pictures, then do that for Him! If God has made you really good at listening to other people, then listen to them when they are sad. That will help them feel better.

God made you just the way He wanted you to be. And He says you are important. It doesn’t matter how little or how big you are, God wants you to use the things you are good at to worship Him and to love others, everyone works together.

For our craft, we drew a body (you could trace your own child if you had a big enough piece of paper. Hobby Lobby sells paper rolls for $5 that are great for that kind of project, or you could tape a few pieces together, then have your child lie down on the paper while you trace their outline.)

Then we talked about the different parts of our bodies and how we could use them to serve God and others.

Here are our results (lots of pictures today)

I’d love to see what your creations looked like. Feel free to share in the comments. Next time we’ll be talking about acting in love.

Love to you all!

He Bids Them Come

A place of encouragement to help teach your little ones about Jesus and His word

Living a Godly life