Prophecy

 Prophecy 

 

A message from God spoken by a person 

 

“We’re meeting at the big tree at break. Pass it on!” If someone said that to you, you’d be getting a special message. And when you passed it on, you’d be the messenger, the one giving the message. 

God gave special messages that were called prophecies, and He picked certain people to become His prophets, or His messengers. These people would speak God’s words to the rest of the people. 

God reminded them, “I rescued you from slavery and made you My own special people. Don’t you remember?” The Israelites had been acting like they’d forgotten all about God! They disobeyed Him all the time. 

Has your teacher ever warned you that you’d get a punishment if you kept breaking a rule? That’s kind of like what God was doing. He wanted to help the Israelites change. “Your sin will bring you trouble,” God said. “But if you stop disobeying Me, I’ll forgive you, and we can be close again.”

Some of the prophecies were about the future. “Just wait,” a prophet would say, “someday God will send a mighty King who will rescue people from their sins.”

The prophet Micah said, “This new king will be born in Bethlehem.” Do you remember where Jesus was born? Bethlehem!

The prophet Isaiah said, “This Saviour will die right next to criminals.” And Jesus did that too. 

After Jesus died and came back to life, He met with His followers and explained “what all the prophets had said about him.” (Lk 24.27) It had all happened exactly as they’d said it would. 

 

 

Isaiah 35, Luke 7.21-22

 

The prophet Isaiah told people that the coming Saviour would do miracles – awesome things that showed God’s power. These miracles wouldn’t only amaze people – they’d also help them. Isaiah said, “He will make blind people see again and deaf people hear again. He will make people who normally can’t walk jump like deer. He will make people who normally can’t talk shout with joy.” Hundreds of years later, Jesus did all of those things!

 

 

God still uses people to share His messages today. You can pass along God’s messages from the Bible to others. Write out a Bible verse on a note card. (say, Ephesians 4.32) Then give that note card to a friend. 

 

 

God, thank You for showing us Your love by speaking to us. 

Psalm

 Psalm

 

A song or poem that is a prayer to God 

 

If you could pick an emoji, or a little drawing of a face, to show how you have felt today, which one would you pick? Happy or sad? Excited or tired? Maybe you’ve even felt all of those – and more – at different times today!

Everybody has lots of feelings day after day, and there’s a book in the Bible that proves we can share all those feelings with God. That book is called Psalms, and it’s made up of a bunch of poems and songs – 150 of them. Many people say it’s their favourite book in the Bible because there are psalms that fit with just about any feeling you can imagine having.

 God’s people used these poems and songs to share their hearts with God and worship Him, and we can too! They are examples for us to follow.

 King David wrote about half of the prayers in the book of Psalms. He talked to God about everything. Sometimes he would look up to the hills and cry out to God by saying, “I need help!” Other times he would say, “I’m scared!” or “I messed up!” Sometimes he’d cry and say, “God, I feel sadder than ever right now.”

Other times David was exploding with joy. He’d shout, “God, You are awesome!” He’d play his harp and sing, “Thank You for everything!” Or he’d whisper, “I love You more than anything, God.” 

You know what? God wants you to do the same thing. He loves hearing you talk and sing to Him — about anything and everything! 

 

Psalm 91

 

We don’t know who wrote Psalm 91, but it sounds like they were in a dangerous situation – maybe a soldier about to go into battle. He wrote, “Being with God is like finding a safe place, a shelter where I can rest.” When he was with God, he felt like he was in a strong tower where nothing could hurt him. He said, “God will protect me, like a bird covering her babies with her wing.” Can you imagine how baby birds feel when they’re all snuggled up to their mummy? God wants us to feel like that with Him. So just like the psalmist, we can say, “God, I trust in You. Keep me safe and close to You!”

 

Come up with your own poem or song you can use as a prayer. Talk to God about anything on your mind or anything you love about Him. Or instead, just pick a worship song and sing it to God at bedtime.

 

God, I’m so glad I can tell You anything. I praise You for being so wonderful! 

 

 

The sequel day4

 Q: How many of the disciples’ sermons are recorded in the Gospels? A: None.

Jesus preached, but they didn’t — at least not as far as we know. Acts 2 is the first record of the first sermon delivered by one of Jesus’ followers. Of course, it’s Peter, and he is amazingly bold!

Remember, he’s in Jerusalem, and he’s telling people about Jesus. He says, “God made Jesus — you remember Him, the guy you killed a few weeks back — God made Him both Lord and Messiah” (Ac 2.36).

What kind of reaction do you suppose he and the other disciples were expecting with an opener like that?

The response was overwhelming. “They were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ’Brothers, what shall we do?’ Peter replied, ’Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ’” (Ac 2.37-38).

Baptism wasn’t a simple ceremony for them, it was a statement of a new identity. It meant being cut off from family and synagogue. It meant persecution and harassment — possibly even death. It was their way of saying, “I’m all in!”

Peter says, “Jesus is Lord and Saviour.”

They say, “What do we do now?”

Peter says, “Repent and be baptised. Bet the farm on Jesus.”

And 3,000 people did.

Jesus said, “You’ll be My witnesses in Jerusalem.”

We read, “So the word of God spread and the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly” (Ac 6.7).

Jesus said, “You’ll be my witnesses in Judea and Samaria.”

We read, “Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers” (Ac 9.31).

Jesus said, “You’ll be my witnesses to the ends of the earth.”

We read, “In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power” (Ac 19.20).

They were living out this incredible sequel and no one could stop them. The authorities tried, but we read, “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realised that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Ac 4.13).

Jesus said, “You will be my witnesses.”

They had no strategic plan. No resources. No building. No staff. But they found out that if you can talk to people about Jesus — in open and honest language they can understand — things start happening. They found out that if you do the kinds of things Jesus did, you get similar results.

That’s what the Church is called to be and do in every generation. Talk about Jesus. Obey and love and follow Jesus as closely as we can. Bet the farm on Jesus and His crazy plan to turn the world right side up.

Do what He did, and see what happens.

 

Prayer

 

God of glory, majesty and dominion, You have graciously accepted me as a living member of the Body of Christ, and You have implanted me in the communion of saints that will forever endure. Now that I have received a new identity in Jesus as a holy and beloved part of Your glorious and eternal plan, may I live out that new identity in my thinking, my speech and my actions. Empower me to be Your ambassador, Your witness of the transforming life that is found in Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. May I love and obey Him and stake everything I have on Him without reservations or conditions. Empower me to live during this brief earthly sojourn in light of Your return and to treasure this as a unique time of opportunity that I will never have again. For it is only on this earth that I can share the gospel and serve people in need

In Jesus’s name, Amen 

Tabernacle

 Tabernacle 

 

A beautiful tent for God to live in

 

Have you ever gone camping before? Who were you with? Maybe you got to play in the woods and make up stories around the campfire. At night you could use your torch in the dark and snuggle up in your sleeping bag. Best of all, you didn’t even have to say goodbye to the people camping with you! It was an ‘outdoor sleepover’, so you got to stay together. 

Well, God did something like that with the Israelites. He made it so they’d never have to say goodbye to Him, even when they were living in tents in the wilderness and travelling a lot. God said, “Build a special tent just for Me, and I’ll stay with you – wherever you go.” This new tent would be called the tabernacle. 

The Israelites couldn’t run to the store to pick up supplies to build the tabernacle. So instead, they looked through their own belongings to see what they could give. They even gave up their fanciest – shiny gold objects, pretty cloths, and sparkly jewels! They wanted to help make the tabernacle really beautiful. 

Once the tabernacle was built, only the priests, or the worship helpers, could go inside and meet with God. But when all the people saw the tabernacle, they’d think, God is right here with us!

Today we don’t need a tabernacle or any other place for God to live in. Why? Because God sent the Holy Spirit to live inside our hearts! That means God is with us all the time. 

 

 

Exodus 35.31-35, 36.1, 39.32

 

Bazalel and Oholiab were great at making things and could handle any tricky task. When it was time to build the tabernacle, they said, “We’re ready to work!” Other people said, “We want to help, but we don’t know how to carve wood, sew, or cut designs in stone.” Bazalel and Oholiab said, “No problem! We’ll show you how.” Everyone worked hard for months. When the tabernacle was finally done, they were so proud of what they had built together. 

 

 

Set up your own tent or den using a camping tent or blankets and furniture. Put things that are special to you inside it. Then make it a meeting place where you can talk with someone you love – maybe your parent or best friend – about important things. This is a bit like how the tabernacle was. It was a special place to meet with someone you love. 

 

 

God, thank You for wanting to be close to Your people and close to me. 

Sacrifice

 Sacrifice 

 

Something given up and offered as a gift 

 

Have you ever given up something important to you just to make someone smile? Maybe there was a time when you gave your brother or sister the biggest piece of cake, even though you really wanted it. 

That would be a sacrifice. The Israelites offered sacrifices to God to show their love for Him and to become closer to Him. They gave up some of their nicest things – their best bread and animals – as gifts for God. He had, after all, provided everything they had. This was a way to say, “Thank You, God!”

The Israelites set up an altar fire, which was kind of like a cooking grill. They’d put their gifts on the altar fire, and those gifts would become a smoke that floated up to the sky. God would receive them like sweet-smelling presents. Just think how happy someone is when you give them a present. The Israelites presents for God made Him happy too!

There were also special sacrifices to deal with sin. The punishment for sin was death, but God didn’t want that for His people. So He let the blood of animal ‘cross over’ the sin. The animal died in the place of the people who sinned.

These sacrifices didn’t completely solve the problem of sin. They were a little bit like sticky plasters – they covered over sins but didn’t take them away. They fixed the sin problem for the moment, but a better sacrifice would come later that would fix it forever – when Jesus died for our sins. What He did on the cross really does take away our sins. 

 

 

Leviticus 9

 

The first time the Israelites made sacrifices, everyone brought animals and grains to Aaron. He was a priest, which meant he was the leader for sacrifices. When he put the people‘a offerings in the altar fire, something surprising happened. God sent fire from the sky and completely burned up all the offerings on the altar. This showed that He accepted their gifts! The people shouted with joy and bowed down in worship. 

 

 

We don’t need to offer the same kind of sacrifice the Israelites did, but we still want to give God gifts. If you have any money, you could put it in the offering at church. Or you could give a favourite to someone who doesn’t have many. God says that giving gifts to people who need them is just like giving gifts to Him. 

 

 

God, I want to make sacrifices to show You my love. 

The sequel day3

  

 

He told them He was coming back from the dead, but they weren’t waiting for Him at His resurrection. They weren’t hanging out near the tomb with banners that read WELCOME BACK, JESUS!

He came back and they didn’t believe it was really Him until they saw the scars.

He came back with no fanfare in the quiet hours of a still Sunday morning. No one was around at the time — a few guards nodding off at their post, suddenly bowled over by whatever it was that rolled the stone away. None of the people who said they believed in Him so much that they would follow Him through the gates of hell were even there.

He said He was coming back, and they went fishing.

Then He reminded them about all the things He had taught them. He showed them the scars and convinced hundreds that He could conquer death. He revealed His true nature by serving and teaching and sending them out into the world.

And then He told them He was coming back.

Will we be waiting for Him at His appearance? We’re not talking about selling everything and moving en masse to some mountaintop where we’ll sit in a meadow stringing garlands of wildflowers and singing “Kumbaya” until He returns.

He has given us a task. He has told us plainly that our responsibility is to go out into the wide world (not retreat from it) and make disciples of people from every nation on earth. We’re to baptise and teach and be salt and light. We’re to help and feed and clothe. We’re to do the kinds of things He did.

We’re to be the Body of Christ.

But make no mistake about it, He’s coming back.

And so we pray with the saints throughout the centuries.  Maranatha! Lord, come quickly!

But there are people who aren’t ready for Him to return. If He were to return today, they would be faced with the prospect of entering a Christless eternity. For their sakes, as badly as we want Him to return, we also want Him to wait awhile longer.

We’re torn. We long for His appearing, but we relish the patience He is currently demonstrating. And until He does return, we should be about the business He has given us. And we should value the time we have. Jesus did not spend time treading water until it was time to die and return to the Father. Neither should we.

 

Prayer 

 

Dear Lord, when I reflect on the greatest Story ever told — the Story of the creation, the fall, Your redemptive plan to restore what was lost in the fall and the glorious consummation to come — I marvel at its scope, its genius and its majesty. Your sovereign power is so great that You can use even the vilest acts for a greater good, and You most decisively demonstrated this in the death and resurrection of Your Son. Jesus the Messiah, the Passover Lamb, the fulfilment of the prophets, the Sin-bearer and Redeemer of the world, will return in glory, majesty, might, dominion and authority, and every knee will bow to Him. Until that great day, You have given Your Body, the Church, a precious time of opportunity to manifest Your life, light and love in this world. As a member of that living Body, may I be Your faithful witness in my time.

In Jesus’s name, Amen 

 

Sabbath

 Sabbath 

 

God’s special day of rest

 

If you spent a week at camp playing wildly in the sun, how would you feel by Friday evening when the stars came out? Pretty tired, huh? You’d be ready for a good night’s sleep and maybe a nap on Saturday. 

God set up a special rest day for the Israelites called the Sabbath – but it wasn’t because they had a crazy week at camp. 

God created the Sabbath because He had taken a rest day after He created the world. And He wanted the Israelites to do something like that. So they’d work for six days and then take a break on the seventh day, just like He did. It’s kind of like how you take a break during the school day.

The Sabbath also reminded the Israelites that someday God would give them a resting place, a place called the promised land. Did you know we have a promised land too? We’re not there yet, but someday we’ll be in heaven with God. So for us, the Sabbath is a special time to look forward to heaven!

Christians today set aside a day each week to worship God at church and to be with people we love. This special day brings us closer to Him and makes us strong for whatever the following week brings. 

 

 

Exodus 16

 

Imagine that your stomach starts to grumble and you see something falling outside your window. Is it rain? No – it’s hamburgers! Too crazy to believe? Well, something like that happened to the Israelites. When the Israelites were in the desert, God provided them with manna – bread that fell like rain from the sky. The people would gather it in baskets and then bake or boil it. It stayed good for only one day, except for the sixth day of every week. God sent extra that day and none at all the seventh day. That way the people could prepare enough food for two days and rest on the seventh day. They could just sit back, relax, spend time with God, and eat their delicious manna!

 

 

Collect fourteen rocks, and paint two of them a bright colour. Make a line of rocks with six unpainted rocks in a row and a coloured rock at the end. Then make another row just like it underneath. The pattern is clear, isn’t it? The coloured rocks are like Sabbath days, which create a pattern for our lives week after week. 

 

 

God, thank You for giving me rest. 

The sequel day2

 It probably wasn’t what they were expecting.

They may have assumed that they would get to continue sitting on the front row, watching the greatest Man who ever lived do what God sent Him here to do. But Jesus instead told them, “No more sitting on the front row watching. Get up there on stage. Get out there in the game and do what you’ve seen Me do. Tag! You’re it!”

And then He left.

They must have wondered if He was joking. “Us? But we don’t know what we’re doing! We’re messed up. We’re unstable and dysfunctional. We’re in need of remedial help.”

But Jesus just left. And the disciples stood there for a while looking into the sky where He’d gone. “He’ll be back in just a minute. He’s messing with us. There’s no way He’s leaving us in charge.”

Eventually two angels had to come and shoo them away. “You heard what He said. Go on. Get out there!”

Why in the world would Jesus have left things like this? Why them? Why would Luke write a whole book about their adventures? Why would God see fit to preserve that book for us today? Here’s why, God — who is far wiser than any of us — has a plan, and His plan to rescue the world is the Church. That’s His plan. Not a corporation or a university, not a nation or an economic strategy. It’s the followers He left behind, and now it’s us. The Church.

He still comes to His Church and says, “You’ll be My witnesses, and your main assignment is to come to know Me and love Me and follow My Spirit and help others do the same.” That’s the plan. Any questions?

The earliest followers bet the farm on it. Many of them ended up dying for it. They endured persecution and humiliation and even martyrdom for it.

Why would they do such a thing?

Because they remembered when their lives weren’t spent doing anything permanent. And one day this Jesus showed up and said, “I want to give you a bigger purpose — a bigger mission than just catching a few fish or collecting some taxes. How would you like to partner with God in the greatest mission ever conceived? It’s not merely the restoration of Israel. It’s the redemption of the entire world and the human race.” They said, “What do we have to do?”

He said, “Go be My witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Rome, Paris, London, New York, Cardiff, Aberdeen, Cork, Guernsey, Dover, Peterborough, Leeds. . . .”

And the crazy thing is that it actually started to work.

 

Prayer 

 

Lord Jesus, You have called me to Yourself and made me a member of the Church, which is Your Body. Now I am a part of Your Bride, a living stone in a living temple, indwelt by the Holy Spirit and empowered to be Your vital agency in the world. As a member of Your Body, You have gifted me to do what I could never have done before—be an instrument through whom You mediate Your presence and love in this bent and broken world. Just as the lives of the disciples were radically and permanently transformed by Your resurrection and by Your Spirit, so I desire that transformation in my life. You have invited me to become a part of a greater purpose and a greater mission than I could have created for myself. As an agent of Your life and authority in this world, may I give my life away to others and be faithful until Your return.

In Jesus’s name, Amen 

 

Idol

 Idol

 

Anything or anyone we treat as more important than God 

 

“Football is my favourite! It’s all I ever want to do.”

“Sophie is my best friend. I pretty much do whatever she does.”

Maybe you’ve said something like that before. It’s great to have favourite activities and best friends! But the Bible says we have to be careful to never love anything or anyone more than we love God. If we do, we’re actually worshiping something other than Him. 

When God was first teaching the Israelites how to live, they were surrounded by people who worshipped idols – fake gods. Sometimes the idols were gold statues. God said, “Never worship fake gods.” Why? “Because,” He said, “I am the one true God.”

God is more powerful than anyone else. He is the One who created everything. He loves people, listens to them, and takes care of them. Could an idol do any of that? No way!

Idols look different these days. They’re things we spend a lot of time thinking about or doing. They could be the stuff we have (like toys), activities (like games, TV, sports, or music), or people (like friends or famous people). If we ever act like something is more important than God, we're treating it like an idol. For example, maybe we want to skip church to play football, or maybe we make fun of someone just because our friends are doing it.

If we say God is the most important, then we won't let anything stop us from showing Him love. After all, nobody else is God. He is the one true God!

 

 

1Kings 18

 

Once, when the Israelites were worshipping idols, Elijah said to the king, “Let’s have a contest – your idol against my God.” The king agreed. On a mountaintop, Elijah and the king's men built altars, or special places to offer gifts to their gods. Then they took turns praying for their gods to send fire. When the king's men went first, nothing happened. When Elijah prayed, God threw down so much fire from heaven that it burned up Elijah’s altar and everything around it! Everybody could see that God is the one true God. 

 

 

Pour some juice in a glass. Then pour some water in a second glass and add some food colouring so it looks like the juice. Have someone blindfold you. Then take a sip from each glass. Even though they look similar, you can taste the difference right away! That coloured water is ‘fake juice’, just like idols are fake gods. 

 

 

God, I want to worship only You, the one true God. 

Law

 Law

 

The rules God gave Israel to make the Israelites righteous and loving 

 

Have you ever heard of the Golden Rule? It came from something Jesus said, “Do for other people the same things you want them to do for you.” (Mt 7.12) It’s called golden because it’s such a good rule. It helps people know how to be kind. 

God gave the Israelites good rules called the law. All the rules showed how wise and righteous God is. They also showed people the best way to live to have a good and peaceful life. 

God’s people struggled to follow the law. The most famous rules of the law were the Ten Commandments. But there weren’t just ten rules – there were more than six hundred! We read about them in the first five books of the Bible, along with a bunch of stories about the Israelites not following the rules. It’s like if you were playing football and you kept picking up the ball over and over again. You kept fouling. The Israelites kept failing to trust and obey God.

When Jesus came to earth, He ‘fulfilled’ the law, which means He followed God’s commands when no one else could. Jesus also said the whole point of the law is really about two important commands. To love God and to love people. When we love like Jesus did, we fulfill the law too. 

 

 

Exodus 19-20,24

 

Have you ever wondered what God’s handwriting looks like? God wrote part of the law – the Ten Commandments – on stone tablets! Not long after Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses walked up a mountain, lightning flashed, and the ground shook. There God gave the Ten Commandments, “Worship God and no one else. Show Him respect. Have a day of rest. Obey your parents. Keep your promises. Don’t be jealous or hurt anyone. Don’t lie or steal.” Then God gave Moses two stone tablets with the commands written on them to share with the Israelites. God’s handwriting was probably really neat, but Moses would know for sure!

 

The next time you’re in a car, ask the driver to name some driving rules. Then watch and try to spot each rule the driver is following. Is he stopping at stop signs? Waiting on another car before she turns? What would happen if they forgot those rules? Yikes! Someone could get hurt. They’re following good rules that protect and take care of people. God’s rules are like that too. 

 

 

God, thank You for helping me to live Your way. 

The sequel day 1

 ACTS 1:1-11

 

For three years, they watched the greatest story of all time unfold before their very eyes. More than just passive observers, they were actually characters in the story. It was amazing, truly the adventure of a lifetime.

They watched this enigmatic man teach and live. He was confusing and challenging and always loving, even when He scolded them sometimes or sent them out to do hard things. He was the smartest and most amazing Man they had ever known. They didn’t even know a life like His was possible until they saw it for themselves.

But then the unimaginable happened. He died. They saw Him betrayed and tried on trumped-up charges. They saw the flogging (or at least heard the awful details about it). Then they saw Him dead.

What do you suppose they thought?

We would understand if they thought that was the end. We would understand if they wondered what they were supposed to do next. We would understand if they decided to just go home, just go back to fishing. They must have been absolutely devastated.

But then the greatest ending to the greatest story ever told took place, the resurrection. What was Jesus going to do next? How do you follow a resurrection? What’s the sequel to that?

There was only one thing they could think of that would top the resurrection, so they asked Him, “Are You going to finally kick the Romans out, seize the throne and make Israel once more the envy of all the other nations?”

Jesus had spent the last three years trying to impress on them the idea that the kingdom of God was not a political thing. But they still didn’t understand. So He said, “It would be best if you hung around Jerusalem for a few days after I’m gone. The Holy Spirit will come and explain this stuff to you. Maybe He’ll have better luck than I’ve had.”

Jesus didn’t say that last part — I kind of added it in.

They wanted to know what was coming next, so Jesus got really explicit with them. He said, “No one knows for sure when God is going to bring all this to a grand finale. So in the meantime, you just go around and be witnesses, just tell people what you saw and experienced.”

In other words, Jesus said, “Tag! You’re it! You’re the sequel. Now go.”

 

Prayer 

 

Lord, I give thanks to You for the new life You have given me in Jesus. When I reflect on His life as portrayed in the Gospels, I see an entirely new quality of life, a new way of being, of thinking and of acting. And though He was fully God—still the second Person of the Divine Trinity—He was the most fully human being the world has ever seen. I ask that, as I learn more about Him through the renewal of my mind with the Word, I would also know Him more in an experiential way so that I will become more like Him. And now that I am in Christ, You have given me the holy commissioning to spread the gospel of the Kingdom in my time and through my arena of influence. May I be faithful to this heavenly calling so that I would go into the world where You have sovereignly placed me and be His witness in word and in deed.

In Jesus’s name, Amen

Covenant

 Covenant 

 

An agreement of promises 

 

Imagine your dad says, “We need to work on keeping your room cleaner. Let’s make a deal. Every Saturday, if it’s clean, I’ll take you to the ice-cream shop.” You shake hands and both say, “I promise!”

God made promises with people called covenants. He promised to give them good things and have a close friendship with them. In return, they promised to obey and love God. 

In His covenant with Abraham, God promised to bless him and everyone in the world through him. 

In His covenant with the Israelites,He gave them rules for living. If they lived God’s way, they’d show His goodness to the world. 

In His covenant with David, God said someone in David’s family would bring God’s kingdom of peace to the world. 

Do you think God did what He promised? Yes, always! Do you think the people did? Nope, they didn’t. Imagine if you didn’t do your part in the deal with your dad, and your room was always a mess of stinky clothes and toys. “Pee-yoo!” your dad would say every Saturday. “No ice-cream shop today.”

God saw that His people needed help, so He made a new covenant. This time Jesus would come and do what everyone before Him couldn’t He obeyed God perfectly!

Can we do what Jesus did? No, we mess up all the time. But if our faith is in Jesus, we can receive good things from God and have a close friendship with Him. 

God does something else amazing through the new covenant, He changes our hearts. He helps us love what He loves and want to do what He says is good!

 

 

Genesis 15,17

 

One of the first covenants God made was with Abraham. God promised to give Abraham a big family, even though Abraham and his wife, Sarah, were old and had no children. Abraham must have thought, How can that happen? But he kept listening. God said, “Can you count all the stars in the sky? No! Your family will get really big, and like the stars, there will be too many to count.” Sure enough, later Sarah had a baby, who was the start of a big, new family. 

 

 

Get on a see-saw with a friend. Notice how you both have to do your part for it to work? It’s the same way with covenants. Both God and the people promised to do their parts for God to bless the people. 

 

God, thank You for always keeping Your promises. 

Reconciliation

 Reconciliation 

 

The act of bringing together two people whose friendship is broken

 

“I’m sorry,” your friend says. After hurting each other’s feelings, you two had stopped playing together. “I’m sorry too,” you say as you give each other a high five. Now you’re ready to play tag and ride your bikes together again. 

Reconciliation means coming back together after fighting. When you and your friend were fighting, you couldn’t talk and laugh together like normal. Your friendship had a problem. You after you apologised, you ‘fixed’ your broken relationship. You were reconciled, which means you were friends again.  

God created people to be close to Him. He wants us to feel His happiness and love, like He’s giving us hugs and making us laugh. But God hates sin, so when we sinned, we became God’s enemies. Sin broke our relationship with Him. 

Sin also messed up the whole world. It brought in all the sad and painful parts of life, like fighting with friends or getting sick with a fever. 

This all made God very sad, so He made a way to fix everything sin messed up. And He did it through Jesus. 

Colossians 1 says, “God decided to bring all things back to himself again. . . At one time you were separated from God. You were God’s enemies. . . because the evil deeds you did were against God. But now Christ has made you God’s friends again.” (.20-22)

Even though we’re the ones who had messed up and hurt Him, God made a way to fix our friendship. That’s how amazing He is!

 

 

Genesis 25,27,33

 

Jacob and Esau were twin brothers who didn’t get along. As the firstborn son, Esau was supposed to get their family’s land and special blessings, but Jacob stole them. Esau was so angry that he wanted to hurt Jacob, so Jacob ran away. Years later, Jacob returned and bowed down before Esau as a way to say, “I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?” Esau hugged and kissed Jacob as a way to say, “I forgive you!” These two brothers fixed their relationship. They were reconciled!

 

 

Get three Lego blocks and connect two of them by playing the other block on top of them. Imagine those two blocks on the bottom are like you and God. Now imagine that you sin so you are now separated from God. Remove the block on top so that the two bottom pieces (you and God) are separated. Put that top block back on them, and this time think of it like Jesus bringing you back to God. 

 

God, thank You for sending Jesus so that we can be friends again!

Resurrection day4

 For some reason, people did not immediately recognise Jesus after His resurrection. One reason is surely because He was the last person they expected to meet, walking around like a, well, like a living person again. As we said earlier, dead people didn’t tend to do anything but stay dead back then. Just like now.

But there was another reason they didn’t recognise Him. There was something about His physical appearance that was different. His body had changed somehow. His closest friends recognised His voice, but they were skeptical about His identity until He offered some proof.

The proof He offered came in the form of His scars. (Lk 24.39)

Interesting, isn’t it, that God brought Jesus back to life, supplying Him with a new kind of body but choosing to retain the scars from His former life (and death)?

Apparently, the resurrected life — which is one that all followers of Christ are expected to participate in — is not identified by its accomplishments, possessions or honorary degrees. Rather, the resurrected life is known by its scars. After all, we are not only called to participate in His resurrection, we are called to join Him in His death. (Mt 16.24-25)

Jesus’ life after His resurrection looked an awful lot like His life before His crucifixion. We see Jesus, after He has come back from the dead, serving others,(Jn 21) telling people about the kingdom of God,(Ac 1.3) and preparing and commissioning others to continue the work He had begun. (Ac 1.4-8)

And now He calls us to live as He did — to serve others in love, to tell people about the availability of His kingdom, to prepare others and commission them to continue the work He began and continues to do in and among and through us. We will encounter hardship, but we will endure it with gladness. We will bear in our bodies the scars of our own crucifixion so that the ongoing, everlasting life of Jesus may be seen in us as well. (2 Cor 4.10)

We will live in the shadow of the cross and in the light of the empty tomb. We will live as those who have been crucified with Christ, raised with Him and sent back to this earth on a temporary mission.

 

Prayer 

 

Father, I know that if the earthly tent that is my bodily house is torn down, I will have a building from You, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. And while I am in this body, I groan for the new body You are preparing for me, which is no longer perishable but imperishable, no longer earthly but heavenly, no longer weak but glorious in resurrected power. For I know that my true citizenship is in heaven, and that my humble and decaying body will be transformed into conformity with the body of Christ’s resurrected glory. And I know that in that day, I will see how the sorrows, suffering and scars of this life will be fully redeemed by that glory. Seeing this, I pray that I will be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in Your work, knowing that my toil is not in vain in the Lord.

In Jesus’s name, Amen 

Sin

  Sin

 An action that God says is wrong 

 Crash! A ball you threw hits your mum's flower vase. When she walks in the room, you point to your brother and say, “He broke it!” 

Even if you don't get in trouble with Mum, you’ve lied, which God says is a sin.

 The Bible teaches us what is right and wrong by giving us commands. Don't lie, steal, or hurt people. Love God and love others. Keep your promises. A sin is anything we do that is not pure or good or that goes against what God says is best for us. 

 Sin hurts the people around us, and it hurts our own hearts. But most of all, it becomes a big problem in our relationship with God. It's like if you had a friend who kept stealing your things. That would become a problem in your relationship, wouldn't it? 

God is holy and pure, so sin separates us from Him. He is also just – He keeps things right and fair – and His justice says there has to be a consequence for sin. What is that consequence? Well the Bible says, “The payment for sin is death.” (Rom. 6.23) Everyone has sinned, so the whole world is in this bad situation. 

 But guess what! God loves us so much. His love for us is as big as the universe. He doesn't want us to be separated from Him, even though we've sinned. That's why God sent Jesus to earth. He wanted to save us! Jesus made a way for us to be forgiven – not punished-and to become close with God again. 

 GENESIS 3 

 Do you remember where the first sin happened in the Bible? lt was in the garden of Eden. God told Adam and Eve not to eat fruit from one tree. Later the fruit from that tree seemed so delicious that they went ahead and bit into it anyway. Their Sin made God so sad. It meant that they had to move away from the garden – and farther away from Him. 

 Pour some water in a clear cup. Add colour to it – either by stirring a marker in it or by adding a drop of food colouring. Now add some oil (any kind) to the cup and stir it. Can you see how the oil and water stay separate? That's like how God and sin are – God is always separate from sin. 

 God, thank You for showing us what is right and wrong. I believe that what You say is right for me.

Worship

 Worship

 

Giving praise and showing honour.

 

What something you own that's important to you? Think about how you treat it do you bury it under clothes and ignore it? Do you step on it? No! You are careful with it and put it in a special place, like on the shelf in your room. When anyone walks in, They’ll see how special it is.

 God can see how important He is to us by the way we treat Him. If He has a special place in our lives, then we can show Him how much we love Him by worshipping Him. When we worship, we are saying, “You're the most amazing and the most important!”

 How do we worship?

By singing songs to God and praying, by reading the Bible and obeying, and by loving and helping others. Worship is anything we do to show God that he deserves our time, attention, and hard work.

Why should we worship God?

Because He's wonderful! He's perfect and powerful. He made us and takes care of us. We don't worship Him to get a reward. We do it out of love for Him. It's just like why you give someone a hug – you do it because you love them.

Worship is what happens at church on Sunday, but it's also anything you do during the week to honour God, like saying a prayer or sharing with a friend. Our worship not only honours God –  it also shows others how awesome He is. It's like we're putting a giant spotlight on Him and His greatness.

 

Daniel 6

 

Daniel worshipped God everyday. He prayed, memorised God’s word, under page God. When he moved to a country where almost no one else worshipped God, Daniel thought, ‘I won't quit. I'll still worship God.’ When a new law said he wasn't allowed to pray to God, Daniel thought, ‘that won't stop me!’ Daniel was put in a lions’ den as punishment for praying to God, but God kept him safe. The king of the land said, “Everyone must now respect Daniel’s God – the one true God!”

 

Look at the worship activities below. Try to do one activity a day for a week. it's not about being perfect. it's about showing God you love him by trying.

1 Singing a song about how good God is

2 Praying

3 Reading the Bible

4 Obeying

5 Showing love to someone

6 Helping someone

7 Giving to someone in need

 

 

God, I want to worship you everyday. I think you're amazing!

Resurrection day3

 Think back to the very first meal in the Bible. Eve found a piece of fruit that looked good to her. She took a bite and gave it to her husband, Adam.

That’s how it all went wrong.

It was the wrong fruit from the wrong tree, and from then until now we’ve been regretting that very first meal.

One of the greatest things about Jesus was how He ate. The idea of sharing a meal with someone in Jesus’ time involved more than just ingesting nourishment, it implied acceptance of the other person. Jesus got in trouble with people because He was willing to eat with just about anyone, the poor, the unimpressive, the despised — the bottom of the social barrel.

It was during mealtime that Jesus revealed His true character and nature.

He shared that last meal with His friends before He was betrayed and crucified, giving them new insight into His identity and mission. After His resurrection, He shared meals with them again. After encountering a pair of them on the road to a village called Emmaus, He stopped to eat with them. They didn’t even realise it was Him until He took the bread, gave thanks for it and began to distribute it.

There’s something about Jesus and mealtimes. That’s when we come to know Him.

Since the very beginning, God’s great desire has been to share in a relationship with these humans He created. They would walk together and talk without fear or hesitation. There was no shame, there was just fellowship — communion.

You can think of that companionship being symbolised by a table.

But then sin entered the world, rupturing the relationship. And where sin is present, death is always close at hand. Because Adam and Eve sinned and realised their nakedness, animals died that day, giving their lives to cover the humans’ shame.

Sin and death, sin and death, century after century of sin and death. Death of relationship. Death of friendliness. Death of companionship.

You can think of that sin and death being symbolised by an altar.

Year after year, animals were sacrificed on the altar so people could live without the guilt and shame brought about by their sinfulness. All the animals, all the sacrifices, all the altars pointed forward to one central event, the crucifixion of Jesus. That was the ultimate altar upon which the ultimate sacrifice would ultimately be made.

But it can’t end there. We must not stop with the altar. We must move beyond it to the table that has been restored because of this altar.

This is why we gather together around the table, to remember and celebrate the fellowship that has been restored, the communion that is now ours to share. We gather to commemorate the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, not merely as a meditation on the sacrificial death of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, but also as a celebration of the restored community we enjoy as a result of His victorious and vindicating resurrection.

 

Prayer

 

Dear Lord, from the beginning of history, You have desired to have communion with Your people and have delighted in those who passionately wanted to walk with You. I thank You for the imagery of table fellowship that runs from Genesis to Revelation and portrays Your acceptance and communion with Your people. I thank You for the God-Man who ate and drank with His followers during the years of His ministry, just before His death and after His resurrection. And I thank You for the great celebration to come, when we will share in the marriage supper of the Lamb. And as we celebrate through the communion elements of bread and wine our salvation and fellowship with You and with the restored community of faith, may we rejoice in all You have done and in all You will do in the ages to come.

In Jesus’s name, Amen 

Holy

 Holy

 

Pure and set apart

 

Would you ever use your toothbrush to scrub the floor and then put it in your mouth? Ugh!, no! You always make sure your toothbrush is clean, right? That way it's set apart for a special activity.

God wants His people to be set apart for a special activity too for worshiping Him. And just like we need to use a clean toothbrush to brush our teeth, we need to be clean from sin to worship God.

You see, God is holy, which means He’s pure and there's no sin in Him. But people are sinful, which means they don't always do what's right. God wanted a special group of people, the Israelites, to be set apart from everyone else. He said, "You must be holy because am holy" (Lev 19.2).

God gave the Israelites rules that helped them to do good and love one another.

It's like if you went to a friend's house covered in mud. You left dark footprints in every room, and at snack time, glops of mud fell from your sleeve into your friend's bowl! Afterward, your mum made a rule, always take a shower before playdates.

When the Israelites did what God said, they'd be holy. They could worship Him and show the world how good He is.

Nowadays anyone who follows Jesus can be one of God's holy people too. Colossians 3 says, "God has chosen you and made you his holy people. He loves you. So always...be kind, humble, gentle, and patient.... Forgive each other...Love each other" (.12-14). When we do those things, we worship God and show the world how good He is!

 

 

Exodus 3:1-6

One day Moses was taking care of some sheep when he saw a burning bush. He walked up to it to see what was going on, God called Moses name from the bush and said, "Don't come closer. Take off your sandals. You're standing on holy ground." Moses obeyed because he knew how pure, important, and powerful God is. He covered his face to show respect. Moses knew that any place where God is becomes a special and holy place.

 

The next time you put on pyjamas, think about how they are clothes set apart for bedtime. This is just like how we’re set apart for obeying God so that we can be pure and loving like Him.

 

God, I want to be holy like You. Help me do what is pure, good, and loving.

Resurrection day2

 If there’s no resurrection, nothing else makes sense. The demands of holiness, the call to turn the other cheek, the yearning for something greater than this life has to offer — none of it makes any sense. The sinless life, astonishing teaching, unbelievable miracles, gruesome death — none of it makes any sense.

We’re open to debate about Jesus. Was He a wise and moral teacher or one of many prophets sent from God? Was He a lunatic or criminally insane? Was He consumed with a messiah complex? Everyone can have an opinion, and everyone’s opinion is equally valid.

Unless there’s a resurrection.

In fact, if there’s no resurrection, the earliest disciples had it right. Go home. Go fishing. Go back to doing whatever it was you were doing before. Let’s call it a day. Close the book. Mourn for a little while the dream you had of things being different. Then eat, drink and be merry. Go ahead and slap your boss if he’s bothering you. Run your credit card debt up as high as they’ll let you. Steal something. Give in to every whim and indulge every desire.

Unless there’s a resurrection.

Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, today’s most famous trio of atheists, are or were right. Religion ought to be outlawed. It’s nothing but a source of misery and ignorance. We’re either the most lame-brained gullible fools, or we’re the victims of the most carefully guarded conspiracy theory ever concocted. They’re right in saying religious people have something desperately wrong with us, we’re sick and ought to be either cured or eradicated altogether.

Unless there’s a resurrection.

All the promises, all the laws, all the waiting, all the discipline — it’s all a bunch of nonsense, they’re all just silly manmade rituals designed to keep people in their place. Keeping clean, maintaining your purity, abstinence, fasting, self-control — these are just some humanly devised method of preserving order in society.

Unless there’s a resurrection.

If there’s no resurrection, what in the world are we doing? We’re the most nitwitted people on the planet. Life is what you make it. It’s every man for himself. It’s dog-eat-dog out there. You get what you deserve, and you better do unto others before they have a chance to do unto you. Be nice to those who will repay you. Forgive with strings attached. Take care of Numero Uno, and climb that corporate ladder by hook or by crook, stepping on whomever you have to in order to get that brass ring (whatever that is). Whoever dies with the most toys wins.

Unless there’s a resurrection.

Let’s be clear about this. We’re not talking about a metaphorical, allegorical, symbolic resurrection here. We’re talking a real-life, flesh-and-blood body that used to be dead but is now upright and walking and talking and conscious. Resurrection.

Without that, the life of Jesus doesn’t make any sense. And neither does yours. It may be an interesting read for a while, but the ending will be terrible. You die. That’s all. Your existence was nothing in the grand scheme of things. You will eventually be forgotten by history. Life is utterly meaningless.

Unless there’s a resurrection.

 

Prayer 

 

Lord Jesus, Your death and resurrection are the foundation of my faith, the source of my meaning, hope and purpose, the wellspring of my salvation, the assurance of Your truth and the basis of my eternal life with You. Life without the resurrection would be a brief episode between nonexistence and oblivion. There would be no long-term, abiding, transcendent hope. Human life and history would be a tragedy of epic proportions. Without Your resurrection, Your life would have been a terrible waste of extraordinary human potential. We would still be in our sins and there would be no real hope as we hurtle toward bodily decay and death. But thanks be to God that You were declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead through the power of the Holy Spirit.

In Jesus’s name, Amen