And Jesus Said: Week #1: LOVE

We've started a new series of lessons this week, most of which are really old lessons in a new format. We're talking about the most important thing we could ever really talk about... We keep telling these kids to follow Jesus, follow Jesus, follow Jesus, and yet, we haven't really been teaching them what it is Jesus SAID. They know the basics of Jesus' life, but as for the words popping out of his mouth at every turn, we haven't gone there. So, that's what we're hitting these next few weeks.

We're taking a different word Jesus spoke about every week. On Sunday mornings, we talk about what was said, the meaning, the definition, what it looks like in our lives and what it's looked like in other people's lives. The kids are given a verse to memorize, and a story to read over the course of the week with some questions to answer. These are meant to get the kids thinking about the lesson over a longer period of time, to get the kids reading their bibles, and to get the kids and their families engaged in what's going on. The Wednesday night crew gets double the teaching... We take the same basic lesson from Sunday morning, but this time we apply it to the story that was the take home for the week... We use games, drama, movie clips, food, whatever it takes to reinforce the point. For those of you who want to get to this on your own, this week we studied Matthew 22:34-40, and the take home is the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).

In this lesson, we come across the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They are, like always, fighting! We had to understand, of course, why these two groups of people seem to always be at odds with each other. Well, the Sadducees and the Pharisees were both brands of the Jewish faith, but they were vastly different. The Sadducees believed in only the written word of God... This means that anything that was spoken ORALLY to the people by God was out of the Sadducees mindset... Think about some of these things... The kids got a few of them! One of them said "Don't kill Isaac!" which I thought was pretty funny and also very telling at the same time--what if Abraham had been a Sadducee!? Regardless, we tossed around a few ideas (Noah and the ark, Abraham and Isaac, etc, etc) before we finally hit on the big one. What about those 10 commandments we're supposed to be following? Those were definitely spoken to Moses! We talked about the Sadducees and how they lived a pretty sad life (pnemonic device! sad life, saducees!) because they didn't believe all of what God had for them. And they lived their lives in a mentality of "well if I think it should be right then it is!" which wasn't good. So those were the Sadducees, and they were always fighting with our friends the Pharisees. You see, the Pharisees took everything very literal. You know, so when the bible says "an eye for an eye", they literally thought you should pluck out someone else's eye if yours was plucked out (so they couldn't see, pnemonic device. Pharisees, couldn't see!)... So they took everything very, very seriously. So these two groups obviously didn't have much in common... But that's enough background for now.

So, the Pharisees come up to Jesus because they've heard that Jesus has basically zip-lipped the Sadducees. And hey, most of the time when someone zip-lips our enemies, we tend to think that person is on our side. So, you know. I suppose they did. Then all of a sudden, this lawyer-Pharisee (what a combination, huh?) asks Jesus, "hey, Jesus, old buddy, old pal, what's the greatest commandment?" (and you know these Pharisees are going to do so much with this info!) and Jesus basically says "Love." I mean, he says more than that. He says "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your soul." But really, it all boils down to love.

Now, I've been reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend that you do. I also recommend that you find a good time where you can be alone when you read it, and that you really take what it says to heart. I'm only on chapter five, and already I've been challenged. The book is all about how we don't love Jesus correctly. But I won't spoil it for you. Basically, the point is that before this lesson I was already thinking about this whole concept of loving Jesus. Really loving him. Full on with everything I've got. So this lesson was just another kick in the rear. But, back to the actual lesson.

We split the kids into groups after our super awesome discussion with them. In one group, we had the "mind" group. In another, the "heart". And in another, the "soul". We gave each group four markers, a piece of paper, and three to four brains (aka children). Each group had two tasks. The first was to draw a picture that answered this question: "How can I love Jesus with my whole ______?" (mind group filled in mind, soul group filled in soul, etc). Then, after they had done that, they were supposed to come up with a fun dance move to do whenever they heard the phrase "with all my ____" (mind, heart, soul). We gave them a few minutes for this activity.

We played the song "Love the Lord" by Lincoln Brewster, and had the kids jump up and do their dance as quick as possible when they heard their phrase. This was chaotic and super fun! By the end of the song, most of the kids knew the bible verse. AND if they didn't, we had moves for them to learn in the order of the bible verse. I'm interested to see how many of them retained it. We'll review it the next Sunday.

After this, each group shared their answers to the first question. We got some great answers.

• Heart : loving my neighbors, helping my friends, feeding hungry people, being like Jesus
• Soul : praising Jesus, worshiping, being happy with Jesus, praying
  
• Mind : thinking about Jesus, praying, reading my bible, doing my best in school

We had the kids each think about a way they can love Jesus this week. We ended with a game and challenged the kids to learn the Bible verse, read the Bible story (or live it, if they come Wednesday night!), and live out their calling to some crazy love. Next week will be the one parents don't want to miss... We're talking about obeying.

Hall of Faith: Week 1

This summer we'll be looking at the Hebrews Hall of Faith, which is found in Hebrews 11. Last week I gave the kids "homework" to read the first five verses of Hebrews 11 to prepare them for the lesson today. It definitely came in handy!

This week we focused on Hebrews 11:6, which has always been a verse that kind of haunts me in the things I do. "Without faith it is impossible to please God, for anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." It's chilling to think that those times when I don't have faith are the times when I'm not pleasing God. Not surprising, just chilling. Either way, it was important that the kids hear this verse, so we worked around it.

We started out playing a game of Sardines. The first game we played normal. The second game, I told the kids they would get a prize if they found the "sardine". Man! I haven't seen kids run that fast in a long time!!! We talked about how it's so much easier to really run hard after something if there's a prize involved. Both times "luck" worked in our favor as the kids found each other in about thirty seconds (in contrast to about five minutes the first time). We had the kids try and define "faith". All of our kids did a really good job. Faith is believing God, trusting God. Hoping in God even when we don't see how it can happen! We read Hebrews 11:1 which says that faith is basically confidence in things that have yet to happen and hope in things unseen. The kids accepted this definition and we went on our way.

We split the older kids from the younger kids and I brought the older kids into the library while Ms. Danielle did a similar lesson in the other room. Reading over Hebrews 11:6, we took it bit by bit. We talked about why it was impossible to please God without faith. As one of our kids pointed out, God really wants us to trust Him, and when we don't trust Him, that makes him sad. We talked about how important it is for us to have faith because we always want to please God. We talked about how silly it would be to walk up to someone and tell them they don't exist, and how that's what makes it so important that we believe God exists! It's super hard to have a relationship with someone who doesn't exist!

The last part was the trickiest. We talked about the rewards God gives us. I asked the kids if they thought God gave the same reward to everybody. At first they said, "no!" I challenged them, just to see if they would change their minds. I was so proud of them when they stuck to their answer--totally the truth!!! Last week we had talked about how God made us different and how he knows us intimately and loves us completely. We talked about how a God that knows us this well would know how to reward us best! God doesn't just give a blanket prize of gum to every student (even the ones who don't like it!). God makes sure to give us things we will really like!

This is where our morning got really amazing. I had the kids think about ways they've been "rewarded" by God. They all mentioned experiences they had--not gifts or tangible things. I thought that was really awesome, that they realized that experiences (ALL of which were experiences of being with and helping others!!) can be rewards. We talked about why those stuck out to them as being "rewards" from God, and they said because they felt really good when doing it. That they felt like they were doing the right thing and that feeling was probably a reward from God. I was really impressed with our kids and the depth of their understanding of God and how he made each of them!

Then we pulled it back around with the simple question that's not so simple to answer. "If we can't please God without having faith, where do you need to have faith even in those rewards God's given you?" This was really awesome and really got to the heart of the kids that were down there. They all expressed that they needed to have faith that what they were doing would make a difference, and that God would use them.

This was one of those Sundays that I think might have been more influential for me as a teacher than for them as "students". That fifteen minute conversation with our kids showed me that the kids at Holy Cross seem to understand that:

• God made them unique and gave them all special gifts.
• God is always looking to USE them to impact people for Him.
• God rewards them in ways that are more than tangible.
• The biggest rewards are in relationships and serving others.
• There is ALWAYS an opportunity for faith in God.

We closed with such an awareness of the ways God has blessed each one of us, and the ways we continually need to have faith in Him daily. I'm continually inspired by our kids and so thankful for the amazing reward God has given me in working with them.

Next week, the kids should have read through Hebrews 11:6-12. We'll be talking about our first big name Hall of Faith-er!

Is Jesus The Messiah: Week 14

Wow! This Easter was amazing! Our kids are just inspiring me so much and continuing to impress me with their faith in Jesus and their desire to follow Him. We had all of our kids that came downstairs in both services commit or re-commit to following Jesus as the Messiah, and that was just the coolest thing ever, hearing their voices as they accepted everything Jesus did for them and asked for God's help in their walks with Him. It was definitely one of the highlights of my life, watching these kids take off running for Jesus.

We've been working off a puzzle for the past however many weeks, and when we started Sunday's lesson, this is what our puzzle had finally dwelled down to. As you can see, there's a big white gap in the middle of what seems to be a pretty solid puzzle. We read in 1 Corinthians 15:14 that if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, all of our faith and all of our teaching is useless. If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, it doesn't matter that all of the other pieces of the puzzle are complete because there's one that isn't. And since we know God doesn't lie, we know that puzzle piece has to fit. So we were determined to find it! Along the way we read in both Hosea 6:2 and Psalm 16:10 and found three things that have to happen for us to earn that last puzzle piece. Jesus has to be missing from the grave/tomb, we have to be able to live in his presence, and on the third day, He has to rise. We decided to take great efforts to ensure that these three things are true. If this is the last piece of the puzzle, it could change our entire lives, so we wanted to be POSITIVE.

So we decided that instead of JUST looking at the bible for the answers to our question, we were going to explore a little bit around the bible. We asked the kids where the first place they look for something is... After a bit of help, we got to the real answer, which is "the last place I saw it!" So, we reasoned that if Jesus really did rise from the dead, we should check the last place we saw Him! If He's there, we know he didn't really rise. If He's not there, well, we can still think that maybe he did. So here's the evidence that we found that Jesus did in fact, rise from the dead:

• The whole movement of Christianity STARTED in the place where Jesus died and rose from the dead. It's kind of like if I went up to one of you and said, "hey did you see that awesome new amusement park right by the Walmart?" Every one of you would be able to tell me that I'm pulling your leg. Why? Because you pass by that every time you come to church and you've never seen it! Same thing with an empty tomb. These people wouldn't have just taken a disciple's word for it... and it wasn't something they heard about from a distant land. These were people who had SEEN the empty tomb and believed it! So we know there was some validity to what they said.
• Historically speaking, the burial and crucifixion accounts are accurate. This means that historians have said, "hey! that really happened the way he said it!" We can assume that since the same guy wrote the burial, crucifixion, and resurrection accounts of Jesus, that the third is just as accurate as the first two.
• People who aren't Christians, people who DESPISED Jesus, confirmed he wasn't in the tomb... Now, why would they do that unless it was ABSOLUTELY TRUE? This was their chance to really disprove the disciples once and for all. But they had no ammunition to go on. They saw the empty tomb.
• Really, really important people and prophets all had shrines where their bones lay. This dates back thousands of years ago... Yet, there's no shrine for who was considered the GREATEST and MOST IMPORTANT person in History... That tells us that perhaps they couldn't find his bones to build a shrine near... Hmm... No bones, no body!
• Paul says so.

So we looked at all that ammunition that says YES ITS TRUE. But then we decided we wanted to know the other part of the story. So many people don't believe Jesus is the Messiah because they don't think He rose from the dead... There's no dispute that the tomb is empty, but if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, how did He get out of that tomb? We looked at the two big conspiracies people say. And debunked them.

• Some people argue that the disciples stole Jesus' body - Okay first of all, this is totally inconsistent with the disciples' characters. Second of all, we know that 10 out of the 12 disciples (excluding Judas and John) died brutal, awful martyrs deaths for this cause they believed. They died because they believed Jesus died and rose again. If they had stolen the body of Jesus, they would have known that He didn't rise again. Who in their right mind would die for something that they KNEW was a lie? We won't even go to time-out for a lie, let alone die! And then you have to think, lastly... You know, the disciples had just watched their leader get hacked up and thrown on a cross... And people hated them. And they had been so afraid they had literally fled the scene and scattered.... And now we're thinking they risked being seen to go and move a two ton rock out of the way and steal a dead body wrapped in linen? Yeah, uh huh. Not to mention the guards in front of the tomb weren't about to let this body go stolen--that would have been their heads on a platter. So I think we can safely say this conspiracy is just that.
• Some people believe Jesus just got up and walked out - Okay, really? Let's think about this. Jesus is fully human. What happened to Jesus right before he was put in the tomb? He was beaten to the point where he had organs coming out of his body, he was scourged, he had a crown of thorns placed into his forehead, he carried a huge cross up a hill on the same back that was scourged and skinless, was attached with nails to it, hung on that very cross for six hours straining to breathe, had professional executioners announce him dead, and was pierced in the side by a sword so all his blood shot out... THEN on top of that, he was wrapped in 100 pounds of linen (we would liken this to a middle schooler), and he laid in a dark, cold tomb with no water or food for three days... And then, miraculously on the third day he just bolted right out of that linen and pushed that same two ton stone up a hill and appeared to his disciples and they said "HEY! ITS THE CONQUEROR OF LIFE!" Yeah, no. If he had managed to do that, I'm pretty sure the first thing the disciples would have said was "uhh, lets get you to a hospital buddy." I think we can safely assume this conspiracy is pretty much all fabrication... After all, I twist my ankle and I don't want to get up and walk around on it for a few days... Jesus had it much worse, and yet we expect him to just bolt out of the grave. No sense.

So, we can safely assume from all this that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead. Check one. So next we're going to look at how it said Jesus came down to live in our presence... HMM. Well, aside from us going up to Heaven to be with him, (Today you'll be with me in paradise, hmm hmm)... We know that Jesus appeared to his disciples AFTER the resurrection. In fact, there's even that instance where Jesus says to Thomas, "hey, come feel the holes in my hand and touch my side where I was pierced"... So we know that he appeared to Thomas AFTER death because he showed Thomas the markings of his death... And the disciples were there when Jesus ascended into heaven... So he definitely appeared after the death... But, those are all Christian sources... Maybe they had an agenda... So let's look at non-Christian sources and see what they say. Yep, even the regular, historical sources that don't believe in Jesus and don't buy into this Christianity thing said that Jesus did in fact appear to people after he died.... Okay. I'm convinced. Check.

So the last one... That it would happen on the third day. Well, this is where we read Luke 24:50:52 and Luke 24:1-7.... Yep, that says third day. Then we counted on our fingers.... What day is Good Friday? Friday. Saturday. What day is Easter Sunday? Sunday. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Three days. Check.

We put the last piece of the puzzle on the board until finally we were left with this. As Ben and Sam show you, the final puzzle piece is there and now we know without a doubt that Jesus is the Messiah! The one that saves us! YES! We had a huge cheer go up as soon as the puzzle was finished! All of the kids were so excited, and it was so awesome watching them get so thrilled about the end result!

We didn't just leave it there, though. We try to inspire faith with action in our kids, and so we asked the kids what we should do, now that everything we thought has been confirmed to us. What do we do with this knowledge that Jesus is the Messiah? We talked about how the Messiah is the person that saves us from our sins and that helps us live a good life and a life that honors God. So we all decided that since God had done what he promised and sent Jesus, and since Jesus had done what he promised and died for us (AND ROSE AGAIN!), we could trust God to lead us for the rest of our lives. So we put our faith in Jesus, and we prayed that He would cleanse us from our sins and help us lead a holy life. It was definitely really amazing watching as our entire children's ministry committed to following Jesus--I can't wait to see the fruit of it all!

Here are a few more pictures of the puzzle we worked on:

Here's a picture of the whole backboard the puzzle was created on. In the upper left corner was where we put the puzzle pieces with the "clues" on them (we played the whole thing up as a "GUESS WHO" kind of deal, with the Messiah being the answer... All of the prophecies God gave us were "clues" to help us figure out who it was).

Then below that is a timeline of when the Old Testament books were written, to help with showing the kids how much time passed between what God said was gonna happen and what actually did. Then the upper right corner has a checklist (enlarged to the left) of the various prophecies/clues we looked at (but not all of them that are out there!) and then below that is a timeline of Jesus' ministry, so the kids could see how it all played out. The puzzle pieces were attached with velcro, and you can't see it now, but originally there was just a big purple question mark. Each of the puzzle pieces had the old Testament verse and the New Testament fulfillment written on them, and the New Testament verse velcroed on top of the Old Testament verse that was written on the backboard. It was all very cool and the kids loved it, and Ms. Amanda, Ms. Danielle and I loved teaching it! We're looking forward to our next series of lessons, which will be teaching the kids HOW to follow the Messiah. I can't wait!

To see the full list of the prophecies with the verses, click here.

Is Jesus The Messiah?: Week 12

We've got two puzzle pieces left on our puzzle, which means this coming up week is make it or break it for Jesus. He's got to do something pretty powerful for us to be convinced he's the messiah, and as the kids reminded me this week, if that last puzzle piece doesn't fit, Jesus ain't our man. We're all hoping he is--we've started to really like this guy!

So this week we looked at the prophecy that says the Messiah will be betrayed by a close friend. In addition, the prophecy said that the price for the Messiah's body will be thirty silver coins, that the coins will be given to the potter and thrown to the temple, and that Israel and Judea will be scattered as a result.

The first part we looked at was whether Jesus was betrayed by a close friend. We talked about how Jesus' closest friends were the disciples, and how we knew Judas was one of his disciples. They went to church together, broke bread together.... And Judas was in charge of the money and the scheduling of the whole operation. Judas was of course secretly a thief. But, alas, it was Judas that betrayed Jesus. Check.

We talked about the thirty coins... When Zechariah wrote about the thirty coins, they were worth a lot more. In fact, the thirty coins were the price of a single slave. As time passed, the value of the coins went down, but the price stayed the same. By the time Jesus was betrayed for thirty coins, it was equivalent to about 25 bucks in today's time. You couldn't even buy a Wii game with that! Check.

Judas was so overcome with grief and remorse that he'd betrayed Jesus that he threw the coins into the temple. (CHECK). However, Jewish law prohibited money being put into the temple that had been come by illegally. So, the people gathered up all of the money and sold it to buy a potter's field (money to the potter, check).

As a result of Jesus' crucifixion, there was a huge fight between Israel and Rome. Because of this, one section of Israel stayed with Israel, and the other section joined what is now Palestine... In this way, Judea and Israel were scattered. (check).

Next week is Easter, and we're all so excited to see if Jesus is who he says he is! I'm thinking he is!!!

A break in the schedule...

My totally awesome brother filled in for me and miss Amanda and miss Danielle this weekend, as all three of us were unable to be at church. So, instead of updating you on a lesson plan, I'll update you on where I was this weekend. I saw God move in some really awesome ways!

My senior year of high school God called me and some of my friends to start an Anglican youth retreat for the diocese. This was an incredibly awesome and challenging experience and tested my faith in many ways. However, it was one of the single most growing things God has ever called me to, and I'm so thankful for it. The retreat occurs twice a year, and now, three years later, we're heading onto #8 in December. #7 was this past weekend, and I attended the church service that occurs for the community of believers in the diocese. There's a story that was told that blew me away, brought tears to my eyes, and still leaves me in awe of how much God loves me, and how resourceful He is. The fruit of obedience lasts for longer than a few seasons and is impacting people even today.

There was a young senior who is 18 years old at this weekend. He had been raised actively pagan, and had only become a Christian two months before. His friends signed him up for Dynamos and he went. On Saturday night, they were having a prayer section. As the kids filed out, Father Andrew offered to anoint each one of them and seal the healing work of the prayer session. This young man said okay, but then asked Father Andrew, "actually, can you baptize me tomorrow? Is there a service we can do it at, or something?" Father Andrew started to say yes, but then he decided they would baptize him that night. So they went down to the Suwannee River, filled a cooler with muddy river water, and started a bonfire. Now, normally during a baptism, a parent or someone presents the candidate and offers to help him/her in his spiritual walk. However, nobody was here for this kid. So the entire retreat filled with candidates and team members stood up, and as a community presented this kid for baptism. They dunked his head in the cooler of muddy water and baptized him in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I heard him tell this story at the closing service, and was in awe. His face glowed, and you could tell he was just alive with the Spirit. It was so incredible to see the change in this kid!

The spirit is alive and moving in our community and in the hearts of our kids. Dynamos is a wonderful reminder to me that what God says He's going to do, God does. That when we say "yes" to God, God continually says "yes" to the fruit that pours out of what we're doing. I would never have thought this retreat would be the catalyst for a baptism, but the work I did three years ago, and the obedience I had then is impacting people today. It's my prayer and hope that we can all live into this and start saying "yes" to God more often because it impacts more than just our current situation. I hope that we can instill in our kids the way of living a life that says YES to God. Reckless abandonment of our own lives for His purposes.

Also, Congratulations to the Strickland family :) So great to have another kid in our Ministry to pour into!

Is Jesus The Messiah?: Week 11

Before I go on, let me just give a shoutout to my pal Ava who's been reading these things! HEY AVA!

Alright, so this week we talked about a whole set of prophecies. I gave each of the kids a notecard. The notecard had one of three questions:

• How do these verses show Jesus' purpose?
• What do these verses tell us about Jesus' death?
• What do these verses tell us about what happened after Jesus' death?

There were about 4-5 sets of verses in each category. Each one had an Old Testament Verse on the back and a New Testament verse below it. Each of the verses showed part of what we've been studying about Jesus being the Messiah. Here's a good list:

• He came as a ransom for our sins.
• He died on a tree.
• There were nails in his hands and feet.
• No bones were broken on his body.
• They cast lots for His clothes
• He divided the spoil (criminals) with the strong (himself)
• He didn't speak
• Prayed for his accusers
• Marked among transgressors
• Rejected by everyone
• Spat on and struck

The kids got in groups according to their questions, then answered the question with their particular cards in front of everyone. We went over the crucifixion, the beatings of Jesus, and everything Jesus went through for us. We added about 12 pieces to the puzzle, which is awesome. The kids are starting to guess what the picture is. We even had one kid say she didn't need to know anymore, she was convinced. AWESOME.

Is Jesus the Messiah?: Week Nine

We were planning on splitting the kids to learn two different really important prophecies this Sunday, but instead we ended up keeping them all together to learn one. Thus, we're relying on a bit of "homework" (but is the bible really homework?) so the kids can learn as many of these awesome puzzle piece prophecies as possible. We won't hit all 200, but we're going to hit a good number of them!

I gave all of the kids a take home card with three bible verses/stories underlined. The old testament verse is Psalm 78:2. It basically said that the Messiah was going to speak in parables. Parables are pretty simply stories that describe or teach. Here's what I didn't know about parables before planning this lesson: A ton of people spoke in parables, it wasn't just Jesus. So this prophecy seemed so common to these people, and it made the future Messiah seem like a real king or teacher--only high end people did this. But here's the really cool part. Jesus spoke in his own form of parable. If you think of it like a group of categories, there are a category of parables that ONLY Jesus told! This is just plain awesome to me!

The parables can be split up into a few categories, but all of them before Jesus had one common thing. They were all told to explain things that were already written in the Old Testament. There was no new information! It reminded me of the story of the boy who called wolf... It's just a story on a truth we all already know--don't lie! No new information, just a new story to present it. That's the old way of doing parables. Now let's look at Jesus' new category!

Jesus basically spoke in four different types of parables. If you were to break them down, you'd categorize them as nature, discovery, contrast, and trustworthiness. The common thing between all of these was that Jesus ALWAYS spoke in parables about God's kingdom. Other parables were about the law and religious things, but Jesus spoke straight to the kingdom and the face of God. Take the parable of the mustard seed--it shows how vast God's kingdom is, and how small it starts but how great it will become.... Then the parable of the hidden treasure--it shows that we can happily abandon EVERYTHING to follow Jesus... Then the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector--it shows us how much God loves the lost and wants them back (in addition to the "unlost", whoever they are)... Then the persistent widow--it shows us God's trustworthiness no matter what is going on in our lives.

Jesus' parables were different because they didn't focus on explaining what God had already said. They focused on explaining WHO God is and HOW God acts! Jesus' parables couldn't be told with authority by anyone... except HIM. Who better to tell about God's kingdom and God's face and God's character than God himself! What I think is so AWESOME is that God wants us to know about him SO MUCH that he came down to earth not just to die for us, but to TELL US about his love and his awesomeness. Now, that's a God that loves his people!

If you look at the New Testament example in Matthew 7:24-27, you see an awesome parable about the foolish and wise men who built their houses on various foundations. Jesus is awesome in this parable. The basic point is listen to God! Don't build your house on anything that will fade away, but build it on the rock, the only thing that will stand. The parables prove to us that Jesus knows God better than anyone else--nobody else can talk about him the way Jesus can! So, we should build our houses on the foundation of God, because God doesn't shake! God stands strong!

Then read Matthew 13:34-35. We see in this that Jesus fulfilled the promise! Not just because the gospel writers wrote that he did, but we all see countless times in scripture where parables are how Jesus chooses to communicate. In fact 1/3 of the Gospels is filled with Jesus' parables and Jesus explaining God to us! NOW THAT'S COOL.

So, that's the homework for the week... Here's what we actually talked about yesterday morning:

We read Isaiah 35:5-6 and talked about what the verse was basically saying. Basically, God's saying that we're going to know the Messiah because he's going to be making lame walk and blind see and all of that fun stuff. AKA MIRACLES! We defined a miracle as something impossible that God makes impossible. These miracles show God's love not only to the quarantined person ('cause people had to be out of the town when they were sick) but also to the family because it reunited them! It's awesome. Ask your kids about it, they'll probably talk about how Molly was quarantined and then we got her back.