Sabbath School 2019

January 2019

Sabbath, January 5th - Ecclesiastes 12:13 - Our Whole Duty

Sabbath, January 26th - Psalm 56:3 - Trusting God

February

Sabbath, February 2nd - Psalm 119:98 - Being a Productive Servant

Sabbath, February 9th - John 8:36 - Free Indeed

Sabbath, February 25th - Psalm 18:2 - God Can Save Us

March
Sabbath, March 2nd - 2 Timothy 4:5 - Endure!

Sabbath, March 9th - No planned sabbath school.

Sabbath, March 16th - .no sabbath class

Sabbath, March 23rd - Psalm 32:5 - Made Clean

Sabbath, March 30th - Mark 9:24 - Floating Paperclips - Trusting God

April
Sabbath, April 6th - no sabbath class

Sabbath, April 13th - Proverbs 13:20 - Influences

Sabbath, April 20th - Colossians 3:9 - Clean Hands

Sunday, April 21st - Isaiah 59:2 - Sin Separates Us From God

Sabbath, April 27th - no scheduled sabbath class

May

Sabbath, May 4th and 11th - no children's class - families ill/traveling

Sabbath, May 18th - Ecclesiastes 9:10 - With Your Might

Sabbath, May 25th - Matthew 7:14 - The Way is Hard

June
Sabbath, June 1st - Proverbs 3:9 - Honor God First

Sabbath, June 8th and Pentecost, June 9th - James 1:17 No Shadow of Change; Every Good and Perfect Gift

Sabbath, June 15th - 1 Corinthians 13:1 - A Din, A Racket, Noise

Sabbath, June 22nd - Deuteronomy 8:17 - A Sound Cannon

Sabbath, June 29th - Proverbs 21:23 - The Law of Unexpected Consequences

July
Sabbath, July 6th - Psalm 150:4 - Praise God Always!

Sabbath, July 13th - Ephesians 5:19 - Making Melody With Your Heart

Sabbath, July 20th - Psalm 105:2 - Sing to Him

Sabbath, July 27th - Proverbs 8:7 - Get Away!

August
Sabbath, August 3rd - 1 Chronicles 16:11 - Seek God Always!

Sabbath, August 10th - 1 Peter 1:5 - Power You Can't See

Sabbath, August 17th - 2 Corinthians 4:17 - All Things

Sabbath, August 24th - Psalm 147:5 - Great is our Lord

Sabbath, August 31st - Matthew 10:29 - Feathers

September
Sabbath, September 7th - no youth classes

Sabbath, September 14th - Psalm 111:7 - God's Laws Are Trustworthy

Sabbath, September 21st - Psalm 68:10b - Trees

Sabbath, September 28th - Proverbs 18:15b - What Do You Want to Hear

Trumpets, September 30th - 1 John 3:2b - We Will See Him

October
Atonement, Wednesday, October 9th - Psalm 147:3 - Atonement

Sabbath, October 12th - Matthew 15:10 Hear and Understand

Sabbath, October 26th - Matthew 10:8b - Walking Water - Share

November
Sabbath, November 2nd - Psalm 19:8a - God's Laws Don't Change

Sabbath, November 9th - Hebrews 10:24 - Stir Up One Another

Sabbath, November 16th -Genesis 9:13 - God's Promises

Sabbath, November 23rd - no sabbath school

Sabbath, November 30th - Genesis 22:17a - Blessed!

December
Sabbath, December 7th
Proverbs 26:20 (NIV) - Remove Yourself From the Situation

Sabbath, December 14th
2 Corinthians 6:17 - Be Separate

Sabbath, December 21st
Ecclesiastes 4:9 - Working Together

Sabbath, December 28th
. . . A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Ecclesiastes 4:12b

Sabbath, January 5, 2019
Our Whole Duty
The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. Ecclesiastes 12:13

Materials: blank cards - on one side write “fear” on the other write “obey”

Can you think of anything that comes in twos? Two eyes. Two ears. Two hands. Two feet. Two shoes. Two legs. A husband and wife makes two people. A mom and a dad makes two parents. There are twos everywhere we look. Well, here’s another very important “two.”

Two things. The wisest man ever (outside of Jesus Christ) said that we must do two things. That’s it. We are to fear God and keep His commandments.

The second one we understand. We need to obey God. He tells us to conduct ourselves in certain ways - no lying, no stealing, considering others more highly than ourselves, etc. We need to listen to God. We need to obey what He says. That’s keeping his commandments.

But the word “keep” also means to value God’s commandments, to treasure them, to see them as important. We’re not just obeying God because we are afraid of the consequences; we obey God because we see the good in His commandments.

The first thing Solomon tells us to do is to fear God. This word “fear” can mean to be afraid, but it can also mean “to be in awe of, to respect, to reverence.” Perhaps you can understand what this word “fear” means by thinking of your own dad. You respect and honor him. He loves you and takes care of you. You trust that he wants the very best for you. So you show honor to him by doing what he says.

So you fear your dad in the sense that you respect and honor him, but you also fear him. You’re a little afraid of him - because you know if you don’t do what he says, you’re going to get punished. When I was a kid, that meant a whooping, a spanking, a paddling, the belt.

God is very much the same way. You should honor and respect Him because He is worthy! He is so good. He is so great! You trust God because you know He will never lie. He always wants the very best for you. He has already given you so much!! And yet, you also fear God because He will punish those who break His law. Hebrews says it’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

So when you know that God wants you to do something, do it!

There’s just two things that Solomon says we must do. It’s our duty! It’s the task that is set before us: fear God. Honor, respect, reverence, and trust Him. But be very aware that He expects us to obey Him. So we do our very best to keep His commandments, treasuring them as God’s way to live.

Sabbath, January 26th
Trusting God
When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. Psalm 56: 3

Materials: water, a cup, card stock, transparency film, plastic lid, wash basin, towels

What would you say if I offered to turn a full cup of water upside down over your head? Maybe if you were outside, on a hot summer day, you might say yes. But otherwise, you’re likely to turn me down. Would you trust me if I said I could keep you from getting wet?

What if I offered to turn the full cup of water upside down over your head with a piece of card stock over the cup? Would that make any difference? Would you trust me then? Or do you think you’d get wet?

The interesting thing is that the atmospheric force overcomes the gravitational pull, keeping the water inside the cup - at least until the paper becomes soaked and allows air into the cup. Once air can rush in, the water will rush out all over your head.

So maybe we should use a piece of plastic. Would a piece of transparency film keep you from getting wet? It wouldn’t get soaked like the card stock. But surprisingly, it doesn’t work well at all. It looks like it would work, but it’s too flexible.

Another option, then, might be a plastic lid. If I filled the cup with water, put a plastic lid over it, and turned it upside down, would you trust me to put it over your head? Would you believe me if I said you wouldn’t get wet?

There are so many times in our lives when we’re afraid something bad is going to happen to us. In the analogy with the cup of water, we know we’re going to get wet. So we look around for something that can prevent the bad thing from happening. We might look to family or friends. We may look for an organization or the government. But even if they mean well, all of these people and organization are not perfect. They can still fail at times (or all the time).

The only One you can trust to make everything work out for your good is God. Does that mean that nothing bad will ever happen to you? No, sometimes God does allow us to suffer. But when we trust in Him, we know it’s all going to work out for our good in the end. That means we trust that He’s working in all the good and all the bad in our lives to make sure that we are in His kingdom with Him. So in our analogy, the water falling on your head would be analogous to you not being in God’s kingdom. You can trust God that, if you love Him and belong to Him, He will work out all things for your good.

Sabbath, February 2, 2019
Being a Productive Servant
Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are always with me. Psalm 119:98

Materials: 3 cups, 3 table knives, a Bible or additional cup

God gives each of a job to do. Then He gives us time, opportunity, and abilities or talents to complete that task. We need three other elements in order to be successful: work ethic, Godly wisdom, and faith.

Here’s how that works. Set out the three cups in an equilateral triangle with a table knife making up each of the sides of the triangle. The knives don’t touch any of the cups. The cups represent three things that God has given to us: abilities or talents, time, and opportunity. How can we use our work ethic, combined with Godly wisdom and faith to accomplish the goal? The goal here is represented by elevating an object (cup or Bible) above the three cups - just using the knives. The cups don’t move.

The knives are placed with the end of the handle on a cup. The tips of the knives meet in the center of the triangle. Each knife is place so that its tip is over the tip of the first knife and under the tip of the second knife. They form an interlocking support for one another. Gravity and the weight of the knives allows the knives to transfer the load to the cups. Once the knives are placed in the proper place, an object can be placed on their intersection - even a heavy Bible!

Reaching the goal of accomplishing the task that God has set before us requires us to utilize all three things:
faith - We must believe that God is and that He is a rewarder of them who diligently seek Him;
work ethic - We must have the willingness to do God’s will and the determination to persevere despite obstacles or adversity.
Godly wisdom - We must utilize Godly wisdom - which is available to us from several sources: prayer and meditation, Bible study, Godly counsel from people who love the Lord, and direction from the Holy Spirit.

Only having one or two of these things will not allow us to be successful in reaching our goal of being a productive servant for our Lord. God’s given us a job to do, and He expects it to be done. We have to use all the tools that we have in order to serve Him with all of our heart and to be successful in completing the task.

Sabbath, February 9th
Free Indeed
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36

Materials: Cut a strip of leather 2 inches wide and 7 inches long. Lengthwise, cut two 3.5-inch slits one-fourth inch apart towards one end of the leather. At the other end, make a hole one-fourth inch in diameter. Thread a heavy string through the slit and then through the hole. Tie a big button on the each end of the string.

There are times in our life when we feel stuck. Things are not going well. We’re in a bad situation and we don’t know how in the world we’re going to get out of the mess we’re in. That’s much like trying to get the buttons detached from the leather (without cutting the leather).

We work and work at our problems. We try to force something to happen. It doesn’t work. Similarly, trying to force the huge buttons through those tiny holes doesn’t work no matter how long and how hard we try.

But when we turn to God, repent of our sinfulness, turn our lives over to Him and ask Him for help, God can rescue us.

It’s as simple as pushing the leather slit through the hole. Then the buttons can easily be pushed through the slit and freed from the leather.

God can set us free from our sin. God can set us free from the situations that look so hopeless. God can set us free from the pulls of this world and the things that would draw us away from Him.

Are you thinking of a problem that you can’t solve? Take it to God and let Him set you free.

Sabbath, February 23rd
God Keeps Us Safe
The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. . . Psalm 18:2

Materials: jar, water, unpeeled orange

What does the psalmist mean when he says that God is my rock? God is solid. He never changes. You can trust Him completely. He is the sure foundation. Like the foundation you build your house on so that it won’t fall down, God is completely dependable.

What does the psalmist mean when he says that God is my deliverer? God can rescue us from any difficulty. He is our Savior. Like a life guard who rescues a drowning person, Jesus saves us from our sin and can save us from bad situations, even when we don’t know we’re about to encounter one.

But what is a fortress? And what does it mean that God is my fortress? A fortress was a wall of protection - protection from enemies, bad weather, high winds, wild animals. A fortress was a place of protection and security. We have lots of physical examples of protection: band-aids protect us from getting dirt in our cuts; gloves protect our hands from something that would cut or burn them - or protect them from the cold; sunscreen protects us from getting a sunburn. But have you ever thought about how an orange shows protection?

An amazing thing happens when you place an orange, unpeeled, into a jar of water. It floats! Maybe you don’t think that’s amazing. But consider what happens when you peel it. Now the same orange sinks.

Have you ever found yourself being overwhelmed by a flood of difficulties and problems? Does it seem like you’ve a choice of sinking or swimming and you feel like you’re going to sink like a rock?

If you belong to God, if you love Him with all of your heart and if you diligently seek Him, He has promised that He’ll never leave you (Hebrews 13:5). He has promised that He won’t give you more than you can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13). He is sovereign. He is mighty to save. He is our rock and our fortress and our deliverer.

Does that mean that we won’t ever experience troubles? No. The orange was in the water. The orange, then, symbolically, was in a life-threatening situation. But God can save us. God can keep us safe in the midst of a whelming flood!

You can trust Him. He is good all the time.

modified from: http://flamecreativekids.blogspot.com/search/label/God%20keeps%20us%20safe

Sabbath, March 2nd
Endure!
. . . always be sober-minded, endure suffering . . . 2 Timothy 4:5

Materials needed: raw egg, hard-boiled egg, raw carrot, cooked carrot, ground coffee, cup of coffee

The ESV says, “always be sober-minded.” Does that mean we can’t ever laugh? Should we live our lives always being serious and not having any fun? The NIV translates this verse a little differently. It says, “keep your head in all situations.” What does that mean? I take my head with me everywhere I go!

Both of these phrases, I think, exhort us to remember that we belong to Jesus Christ. We can’t become distracted or discouraged by the things (or the people) around us. We are going to face opposition more and more in this world. People in the world aren’t going to agree with what we believe. Events in this world are increasingly in conflict with God’s laws and ways. We have to stand firm, doing the job that God has given us, holding fast to the faith that He’s given us.

So what does that look like?

Suppose you are like a carrot. You are firm and steadfast. That’s good.

Suppose you are like an egg. You have a tough exterior, but a soft heart. That’s also good. You want to stand firm, not be wishy-washy, but you also want to have compassion for people around you.

Suppose you are like coffee. You have an aroma about you that draws others to you. That’s also good.

But what happens when you are faced with persecution, difficulties, trials, and problems? In this case, the troubles are symbolized by boiling water. How do you react? If you are a carrot, you become mush. You completely lose your firmness. You give in to the pressures around you. And you are no longer standing firm in your faith. That’s not good.

If you are an egg that is faced when trouble, you lose your soft heart. You become hard-hearted towards others. You no longer care about the pain and trouble they’re going through because you’re only thinking about yourself.

What happens when coffee is subjected to boiling water? It changes the water around it. In a similar way, when you experience trouble, your job is to be a position influence on the people around you. And that means you have to endure, persevere, continue to do good and to follow God’s ways.

God gave us all a job to do - remaining steadfast in doing what pleases Him no matter what trouble, persecution, and problems come our way. Set your minds on that!

https://momof3darlings.wordpress.com/tag/object-lesson/

Sabbath, March 23rd
Made Clean
. . .I did not cover my iniquity . . . Psalm 32:5

Materials: dirty pennies, vinegar, salt, paper towels

God tells us that He’ll remove our sins from us as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).

God tells us that the blood of Jesus Christ will pay for our sins (1 Corinthians 6:20; Hebrews 9:12-14).

God tells us that He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).

But.

There’s one thing we have to do first. We have to recognize that we have sinned. Just like these pennies are dirty, we have to realize that we are unclean because of our sins. These pennies can’t clean themselves up. And we can’t make ourselves clean either. We can make better choices. We can become better people. But we know that all our good stuff is still as filthy rags before God (Isaiah 64:6).

So we need God to make us clean. Just like the pennies need the vinegar and salt to cleanse them, we need the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

But there’s one more thing. If we don’t intentionally put these pennies into the solution, they’re not going to be cleaned. How do the pennies make it from your hand into the solution? You have to ask the one who holds the solution to put the penny in to clean it up. In the same way, if we don’t ask for God to forgive us, He won’t. You have to ask for forgiveness. You have to ask to be cleansed by God.

What’s the opposite of asking to be cleansed? It’s trying to hide your sinfulness from God. It’s refusing to see that you have anything to be sorry for. It’s failing to see that your sins are making you dirty and are separating you from God.

Think about these pennies. If I have a dirty, dingy penny and a bright, shiny penny, which one would you rather have? The bright one, of course. It’s the same way in our lives. If we are cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, then we become useful to Him in attracting other people to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then! Our lives glorify God - and that’s the whole purpose of our existence!

Don’t cover your sinfulness! Repent! Ask for forgiveness! Get cleaned up!!

Sabbath, March 30th
Floating Paperclip - Trust in God
. . . I believe; help my unbelief! Mark 9:24

Materials: paperclips, clear bowl of water, towel (Float the clips on the surface of the water. You can’t place a clip on the surface with just the clip. You have to make a helping clip by bending a paper clip into an L. Then you can gently place the clip on the surface of the water without breaking the surface tension - most of the time.)

The Bible records some pretty amazing events where people had to trust God!

Do you remember how Daniel trusted God? When he was thrown into the lions’ den, God shut the mouths of the hungry lions so they wouldn’t eat him. (Daniel 6)
Do you remember how Noah trusted God? When God told Noah to build an ark, that there was going to be a flood, Noah spent many years building that ark. He collected all the food and the animals to go onto the ark. (Genesis 6-7)
Do you remember how David trusted God? He faced the giant Goliath with a sling and a stone! (1 Samuel 17)
Do you remember how Abraham trusted God? When God told him to go to a place God would show him, Abraham left his home and his father’s house, and obeyed God. (Genesis 12)

There was another time when someone had to trust God. When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water, Peter called out to him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” (Matthew 14:28) Jesus told Peter to come and Peter stepped out of the boat. He trusted Jesus - at least at the beginning,

There’s one other story I want to remind you of. There was a man whose son had an unclean spirit (Mark 9). The man took his son to Jesus for healing because the evil spirit would not allow the boy to speak, caused him to go into convulsions, and would throw him into the fire or the water, trying to kill him. Jesus told the father that all things are possible for one who believes. I love what the father said back to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

Sometimes we encounter things in our lives that we know we can’t do on our own. But we know God can do mighty and powerful things. We know He is able to save us. We know He controls the winds and the waves. We know He is our Healer. We need to trust Him. And even if we trust, but we’re still afraid, we can be like this father who said, “I believe; help my unbelief.”

There’s one other thing to consider when you’re trusting God. Do you remember how Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego trusted God? They refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzer’s golden idol. They believed God could save them, but even if God didn’t, they were still going to do the right thing. (Daniel 3) You have to trust that, even if God doesn’t work things out like you think he should, even if you sink, you still have to obey Him. You still have to do what you know pleases your God, even if it means you have to go through something very difficult.

resource: https://biblelessonstuff.com/object-lesson-on-faith-walk-on-water/

Sabbath, April 13th
Influences
Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. Proverbs 13:20

Materials: cooked egg noodles, dishes, water, food coloring (As you talk through the points of the lesson, put different food coloring in the different bowls of water. Add an uncolored, cooked piece of noodle. Watch what happens the longer the noodle stays in the colored water.)

It’s really amazing how one of the proclivities of humans is to pick up the behaviors, attitudes, habits, and speech patterns of the people around us. You may know that a behavior is wrong, but if you continue to spend time with people who engage in that wrong behavior, pretty soon you’ll find yourself right in the middle of what you didn’t want to do. That’s why you have to make sure you get a rotten apple (or potato or orange) out of close proximity to the rest of them. You know the saying: one bad apple spoils the barrel.

It works that way with what we say too. If you spend much time around someone with an accent, pretty soon you’ll have picked up some of the sounds. Or if someone takes God’s name in vain and you spend a lot of time around them, pretty soon you’ll find yourself fighting really hard against it slipping into your speech patterns as well.

That’s why your parents are so adamant about what tv shows you watch, what music you listen to, and who your friends are. Whatever you spend your time around will influence you. That influence can be good or it can be bad, but you will be influenced.

That’s where Proverbs 13:20 comes in. If you spend your time with people who are wise, you will become wise. You pick up their habits. You begin following their thinking habits. Most importantly, if they are truly wise, they’ll be looking to God for direction - and you’ll learn to make God an integral part of everything you do.

On the flip side, Proverbs 13:20 says that the companion of fools will suffer harm. So someone who spends time with people who are foolish - they make bad choices, they don’t seek God’s ways, they are silly and arrogant - if you spend enough time with foolish people, you will regret it because you will get hurt.

Think about the things you do. Think about the places you go and the people you spend time with. You have the ability to make things go well and you have the power to end up in a world of hurt. But rest assured, God is not mocked: You can’t spend your time making poor choices without it coming back to hurt you. Just like the noodles absorb the color the longer they stay in the coloring, you will make bad choices into habits - and it will not be a good thing in the end. OR You can make Godly choices and avoid a lot of unnecessary pain. This is a good time of year to look at what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with. God gives us a yearly reminder to examine ourselves, to judge ourselves, before He has to.

Sabbath, April 20th
Clean Hands
Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices. Colossians 3:9

Materials: chocolate syrup, paper towels, wet wash cloth

Have you ever been tempted to lie? Most of us have. When you think you’re going to be in trouble, or when you don’t want someone to think badly of you and what you’ve done, you may be very tempted to lie. But it can make a big mess. (Put a towel under each child’s hand. Then pour some chocolate syrup into their hands. Tell them they can’t let it drip out of their hands.)

It’s kind of fun to have syrup on your hands - at least at first. If you lick it off, it tastes yummy. And that’s how lies are - at first. Initially, you might think that the lie was a good thing. It kept someone from finding out what you really did or didn’t do.

So here’s another question: do you like to work hard? There’s hard work that makes you feel really good. But then there’s hard work that just makes you sick and tired - like the hard work that comes when you lie. Once you’ve told one lie, you have to cover it up with another lie. (Pour some more syrup into their hands.) It’s really hard to keep those lies from messing up your life - just as it’s very hard to keep the syrup from messing up your clothes and the table!!

So what do you do once you’ve told a lie? Telling another lie, and another lie, and another lie isn’t going to solve the problem. What do you do?

You have to go to Jesus Christ and ask for forgiveness. That’s one of the pictures of Passover - that the shed blood of Jesus Christ will pay the penalty for your sin and that you will be cleansed by His blood.

And really, it doesn’t matter whether it’s lies or some other sin which you have done. The hands are a symbol of what you do. So having dirty hands is like saying that you have sinned. And just like washing the chocolate syrup off your hands, Jesus can make your hands (and all of you) clean again through the power of His blood, His death and resurrection.

There’s something absolutely wonderful about having your hands washed cleaned again!

Adapted from: https://oneshetwoshe.com/lies/

First Day of Unleavened Bread
Sin Separates Us From God
but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. Isaiah 59:2

Materials: cup of water, three nickels, eye dropper, rubber band, single-ply tissue

We very much want to be close to God. We very much want Him to hear our prayers. The cup represents being in fellowship with God.

Sometimes we sin. The memory verse today highlights the fact that our sin separates us from God. (Put a single-ply piece of tissue over the top of the glass and put a rubber band around the top of the glass to secure it. Then put the nickels on the tissue.) Whether it’s a little lie, being disrespectful to your parents, shop-lifting at a store, or any other sin, our sin separates us from God. This is not a good thing. God provides for us. God heals us. God protects us. We want to be able to go to God with our daily needs. This verse tells us that God doesn’t hear our prayers because of our sins. That’s not good when we really need God’s involvement in our lives! But more importantly, we want to live with God forever. There is no way that we can live with God forever until the sin is dealt with because our sin separates us from God.

When we repent, telling God that we truly are sorry, and then we go to God and ask for forgiveness, He has promised to forgive us. Not only are our sins covered by the blood of Jesus, we are washed clean by His death and resurrection. (Just like the eye dropper dripping water over the nickels, we are washed clean again.)

Being forgiven by God is very important. But Jesus’ death and resurrection does something more: it reconciles us to the Father. It’s more than just forgiveness - where we no longer have to pay the penalty for our sin (death). It’s no longer being separated from God! That’s BIG!! That’s life!! (At some point in the discussion, the tissue will have become weak enough to allow the nickels to drop into the glass.)

We never want to do anything that will intentionally separate us from God. But if we do, and if we are truly sorry, God has made a way for us to be reconciled to Him: Jesus Christ our Lord.

Sabbath, May 18th
With All Your Might
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might . . . Ecclesiastes 9:10

Materials: bubble solution, straws, cookie sheets, towels
Bubble solution: 3 c. water; 1/2 c. dish soap; 1/2 T. glycerin

You can make some pretty big bubbles if you have a good bubble solution and a large place to blow the bubble (like a classroom floor 😀). One of the things you have to remember, however, is this: don’t suck in when you put your straw into the bubble solution. It doesn’t taste very well. If you’re careful, you blow slowly, and if you put some effort into it, you can make an amazingly huge bubble.

However, school custodians don’t like this science experiment very much. With all the soap and water all over the floor, it makes a huge mess. Hmm. So do you think Solomon meant everything when he said, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might”?

Like many verses in the Bible, if you pick it out and don’t apply the rest of the Bible, you might end up thinking that Solomon thinks it’s okay to be a bank robber - as long as you are the best bank robber you can possibly be. Or you could think that Solomon believes it’s okay to lie - as long as you make up the best fabrication possible. But this is not what Solomon is saying, and we know this is not what he’s saying because of how he ends the book: Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

So think about what Solomon is telling us! God is going to judge everything you do. You’re not getting away with anything - even if you think it’s hidden. So logically, find what is right in God’s sight - and then do it to the best of your ability. That means reading your Bible so you know what pleases God.

If you choose poorly, you can find yourself having spent all your energy on something that didn’t really matter. And in the end, it pops like a bubble, or, in King Solomon’s terminology, it was just a chasing after the wind.

Sabbath, May 25th
The Way is Hard
For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Matthew 7:14

Materials: ping pong balls, cup, big container

Would you be more likely to bounce a ping pong ball into a cup or into a big container? A big container, obviously, would be easier because there’s more room for error. If you have a big enough container, you could even close your eyes and still bounce the ball into it.

How is bouncing a ball into the cup like the life of a Christian? Make no mistake: Salvation is a free gift from Jesus Christ. But discipleship is costly. It is hard. It requires a life of being wholly devoted to God. It means making mistakes, repenting and trying again to do what pleases God. The life of a follower of the Messiah is not easy. It demands that you bring every thought into submission to Jesus Christ. It requires that you become a living sacrifice to God.

Just like you have to practice bouncing the ball to get it into the cup, you have to keep working at living your life in a way that accurately reflects God and His ways to the people around you.

When you don’t make the ping pong ball into the cup the first time, you don’t give up. And when you sin (transgress or break God’s laws), you don’t give up. You repent and try again.

If several people compete at the same time, they can interfere with each other’s efforts. Similarly, Christians can run into conflicts with each other. So you apologize and figure out how to work together to serve God.

When you try to bounce the ball into the cup, you’re competing with other people to see who can get the most balls in the cup the most quickly - so they can be the winner and get the glory and honor. But when you’re a Christian, you’re not competing with other Christians to see who can be best and lord it over one another. We want to help one another so that everyone wins and God gets the glory and honor through the way we live our lives.

It’s a very scary thing for Jesus to have told us that the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Let’s work together and be among those few who find life in Jesus Christ.

Sabbath, June 1, 2019
Honor God First
Honor the LORD with your wealth . . .Proverbs 3:9

Materials: banana, napkin, knife

All good gifts come from God (James 1:17). Can you think of some wonderful gifts God has given to you? Life, health, a great family, plenty to eat, a pet, an answered prayer - many different things could fall into that category of being a wonderful gift from God!!

So what is your response to having been given a gift? First, you should always say, “Thank you!” We do that in our prayers at each meal - thanking God for the food. But are we diligent to say “thank you” when God gives us good things? I sure hope so!

But we should go one step further than simply saying “thank you.” We need to demonstrate that we are grateful to God by honoring Him first with whatever it is that we have.

A banana is a gift - you can tell because it’s gift-wrapped. 😀 When you open a banana, you get to decide what to do with it. Most people eat it one bite at a time. Even if you cut it in half and put it in a banana split, you still end up eating it one bite at a time. What if we used this banana to talk about how we should honor God first with the gifts that He’s given us?

Here’s the easiest analogy. I really want to give my husband a bite of the banana, but each person in the room wants a bite. And I find that the banana is all gone before I get to my husband. There’s nothing left for him.

Or what if each bite represented the time I have in each day? I only have 24 hours. Let’s pretend that I get to sleep 7 hours. I might spend 5 hours cooking, eating a meal, and cleaning up the kitchen. (Wow, that’s half of my day already!! No wonder it’s hard to get everything done.) Maybe I spend an hour doing paperwork and taking care of emails, although that could easily be two hours every day. Then I spend four hours teaching and checking homework. I spend one hour walking the dogs, feeding them, and getting them clean water. I spend another two hours cleaning the house, sweeping the floor, opening the curtains first thing in the morning, closing them at night, and watering the plants. If I have errands to run, that will easily eat up three hours because it takes 30 minutes to get anywhere and then get home again. I can be at the end of the day, ready to brush my teeth and fall exhausted into bed and there’s no time left to pray to God, to read His word and to think about His ways (meditation).

Have you ever heard the saying, “Give to God what’s right, not what’s left”? There’s a lot of truth to that! If we don’t make it a priority to give God the first chunk of our day, we can find ourselves at the end of the day with no day left to give. And that’s not good. That sends a message that He is less important than all the rest of the things in our day. And that’s not true! God is the most important part of our day. And our days will flow a whole lot smoother if God is first, if we start each day with Him, honoring Him, praising Him, and thanking Him for the gift that He has given to us.

Time is one of the gifts that God gives us. But it’s not the only gift. You can apply the banana analogy to any of the gifts that God has given to you. Make sure you say “thank you” to God for the gift He’s given by honoring Him first!

Sabbath, June 8th
No Shadow of Turning
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. James 1:17

Materials needed: book of hand shadows (The Classic Art of Hand Shadows, Algrove Publishing), light source, candle, match

As long as there have been films, slides, or projectors used, there have been kids trying to make recognizable animal shadows with their hands. There are some very cool ones. With some practice, it’s a lot of fun to see if people can guess what you’re making as the light hits your hand and casts a shadow.

So what happens when a candle is lit? Does the candle cast a shadow? Yes, of course. But does the flame? No, it doesn’t. Why? It’s light! Light shining on light doesn’t make a shadow.

Romans 1:20 says, For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. So what is it that we learn about God when we’re looking at shadows and light?

First of all, when God shines in our life, we cast a shadow of God’s interaction with us. We need to be very careful to be as accurate as we can about who He is. And we need to give Him the glory. Whatever we accomplish or achieve is because of His grace in our lives, not because we are so mighty and wise.

Secondly, God never changes. He doesn’t turn from Who He is - thereby casting a shadow of something different from what He is now. Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” What He says, He means. What He says, He will do. His laws are not here today, gone tomorrow. His laws reflect who He is, and they do not change.

I can move my hands in the light and get a different shadow. I can move the light and get a different shadow. But the light stays the same. How very comforting it is to know that God is good and that doesn’t change.

**I didn't get to do this at church because we had no little ones, but since I was using the same verse both days, I can't go back and repeat it again.

Sunday, Pentecost, June 9th
**Every Good and Perfect Gift
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. James 1:17

Materials: Small gifts

We all like receiving gifts. Something new, something useful, something beautiful, something that lets us know how much someone likes us - there are many good reasons for liking gifts.

On the day of Pentecost, the first Pentecost after Jesus Christ had been crucified and then resurrected from the dead, God gave His believers a gift: the Holy Spirit was poured out. What an incredible gift!!

It was something new - or at least, it makes us into something new. The Holy Spirit guides us into all truth. John 16:13 says, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” I like knowing that, for those who believe in God, the Holy Spirit helps us make the right choices.

The Holy Spirit also helps us pray to God. When we don’t know what to say, the Spirit intercedes for us. Romans 8:26, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” It’s very nice to know that we don’t have to have exactly the right words - that the Holy Spirit goes before us in God’s presence.

The Holy Spirit gives us hope. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13

And hope is just one of the fruit of the Holy Spirit! Having the Holy Spirit working in your life means that as you grow closer to God the more you will exhibit the fruit of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

And the Holy Spirit is called the Comforter. We are in this world where we will have trouble, but the Holy Spirit gives us hope, shows us God’s love, helps us make good decisions, and the Holy Spirit within us assures us that we are God’s children. (Romans 8:16 - The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,)

What a good and perfect gift God poured out on the believers on that first Pentecost in Jerusalem!!!

Note: I had the parents pick out the gifts to give to the children, just as the Father gives us gifts; we don't choose.

Sabbath, June 15th
A Din, a Racket, Noise
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 1 Corinthians 13:1

Materials: balloon, rubber bands, squeaky toys, scissors, ruler, pens

Have you ever noticed that there’s a lot of noise in our world? And there are so many fun ways to make noise too! We can make a myriad of noise with just our bodies - and we won’t enumerate all of those here. If you haven’t found them all yet, I’m sure you will by the time you are eighteen. Claps, pops, whistles, raspberries, etc. But we can also make noise with objects. We can use whistles or the squeaky thing from inside dog toys, but we can also make noise with things that we don’t normally think of as noise makers. For instance, you can pluck rubber bands. The more tension you put on them, the higher the twang. And occasionally, when they break, you get another noise like “ouch.” We can place a ruler on the edge of the table and hold it securely at the table end. If we bend the other end and release it, it vibrates and makes a delightful noise. And again, depending on how much of the ruler is allowed to vibrate, the d frequency changes. We can click ball point pens - until everyone around us is totally annoyed. We can open and close scissors - which makes a perfectly wonderful slicing sound. But one of the most annoying, obnoxious sounds we can make with a simple thing that people don’t normally associate with a din, a racket, a horrible noise is the high-pitched whine as we slowly allow air to escape from a balloon. Of course, we could just pop it too, but that’s not nearly as satisfying to the noise enthusiast.

However, 1 Corinthians 13:1 isn’t talking about trying to make noise just to make noise and be obnoxious. Rather, the point is this: even if you are trying to talk in such a way that people are uplifted and inspired, or if you are singing like a beautiful musician, if you don’t speak or sing with love, then it’s just noise.

You can give a powerful speech. You can say beautiful words to your friends and family. You can sing well enough to win all kinds of awards. But if it’s not done with love, then it’s really just noise.

Noise is okay - in its place. I love to hear the rain gently falling and the hummingbird buzzing and squeaking by my window. But make it your goal that you are loving to everyone around you first - then whatever you do won’t be just so much noise.

Sabbath, June 22nd
A Sound Cannon
Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ Deuteronomy 8:17

Materials: candle, candle holder, matches, cardboard tube, plastic wrap, tape

Have you ever made a sound cannon? You tape plastic wrap tightly over both ends of a plastic tube. Then you make a tiny hole in the middle of one piece of the plastic wrap. When you hit the other end, it creates a drum effect. A tiny puff of air will come out the other end, just strong enough to blow out a candle. Just a little tiny puff of air is enough.

But what would happen if you had a big flame, a campfire, or a forest fire? The tiny puff of air wouldn’t affect a raging fire in the least.

So think about how we produce words: We breathe in air and when we speak, we push air out of our lungs through our vocal cords which vibrate because of the moving air, causing our voice. We can see the effect of our words on the people around us. We can make them smile or we can make them really angry - with just a little word or two. That’s kind of like the cannon putting out the candle. We have just a little power in comparison to the power of God.

But we’re told in Psalm 33:9 that God spoke the world into existence. He said, “Let there be light” and there was! He said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens” and we had the sun, the moon, and all the stars! That’s the kind of power that God has with His words!

We may think that our power and the might of our hands has gotten for us the things that we have. But we need to realize that what we have is a blessing from God. We could do nothing without God’s blessing. We have so very little power, really, compared with our great God.

Some day, however, we [God’s people - the ones who love Him and who are called by His name] are going to be given a great deal of power as we rule in God’s kingdom with Him. (Revelation 20:6) We’d better learn how to control our words now when we have just a little power - like enough to blow out a candle. Someday God may give us a great deal of power and we’d better know how to use it for good.

God, in His mercy, allows us to start small. We learn to say nice things to people. We learn to build up, instead of tearing down. We learn to compliment and constructively criticize. We don’t denigrate and demoralize. We learn the incredible power of words - giving us just a glimpse of the power God may grant to us in the future.

Sabbath, June 29th
The Law of Unexpected Consequences
Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble. Proverbs 21:23

Materials: six marbles

If I line marbles up in a crack on the table and then flick the one on the end, what will happen? The energy will transfer through each of the marbles and the last one will move. It’s actually very cool how energy will transfer through objects.

It’s what happens when we say something to someone else. I tell Christopher good morning and happy sabbath, he gets up. He says good morning to his dad, his dad smiles and says good morning back to him. Jonathan hears the good mornings going around and thinks he’d better get moving too. Soon both boys are ready to go to church and come ask me if they can help get everything in the van. All because I said good morning to Christopher, the day moves forward in a positive manner. This is much like flicking the first marble with my finger and the last marble moving. Right? Isn’t that how it happens in your house? Well, not exactly. O.K. Maybe only in my dreams.

What happens in reality is like the line of marbles on the table, without benefit of the crack to keep them going the way I want them to. Now when I flick the first marble, who knows where they’re going to go. The energy is transferred to the next marble in line, but without the constraints of the crack, they go in all directions. Furthermore, if I were to recapture all of them, line them up again, and flick the first one again, it’s more likely that they’ll go different directions the second time than it is that they’ll repeat the earlier path.

That’s what happens with our words. I can tell Christopher good morning and happy sabbath. That doesn’t mean he wants to hear good morning and happy sabbath. He might have wanted me to let him sleep an hour longer. It’s hard having a summer job. Or depending on how I say good morning, Christopher may say good morning or he may feel like he’s just been hit by a mack truck of sunshine and happiness.

Or let’s say that Christopher does say good morning and gets out of bed. Just because I said good morning doesn’t mean that that’s what he’s going to say to his dad. And Jonathan’s reaction to the noise could be positive. But he could also be thinking about working 40 hours this past week and wondering how soon he can go back to college.

I am fictitiously using my family as an example of how my words can have consequences that I would never imagine. But all levity aside, we need to be very careful about the words we use. We can’t erase or delete. Once they’re said, they’re out there - whether they produce good things or cause hurt and chaos.

It’s a good idea to be very careful about the words we use. If you can keep or control your mouth and tongue, you can keep yourself out of a lot of trouble.

Sabbath, July 6, 2019
Praise God Always
Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Psalm 150:4

Materials: recorder (flute-like musical instrument), glass, water

Psalm 150 makes it quite plain that we’re to praise God: singing, dancing, musical instruments. We’re to praise Him everywhere: in church and outside. We’re to praise Him because of who He is and what He’s done. Everything and everyone is commanded to praise God! All of these instances of “praise” is in the imperative sense; you must praise God.

You know what? It’s easy to praise God when things are going well. It’s easy to praise God when you have enough to eat, when you’re getting along with your family and friends. It’s easy to praise God when you feel well and when you’re not worried about anything.

It’s kind of like the recorder. It makes a nice mellow, upbeat sound. It sounds good.

But what happens when you put it into the water? It changes the pitch of some of the notes. Uh oh! What was sounding really nice and pleasant and joyful, now doesn’t sound so nice. What happened? The water impacted the amount of air that could resonate within the recorder. The result is a sound that isn’t so nice.

The whelming flood - too much water - is often symbolic in the Bible of trouble. So what happens within you when you have too much water in your life? What happens within your heart when things don’t go the way you want them to? When you get hurt, when you don’t feel well, when you’re fighting with family or friends, when you’re tired and hungry - how well do you resonate praise within your heart?

It’s really easy to become grumpy. It’s easy to neglect praising God. But, if you notice, this psalm doesn’t say anywhere that feeling good, being content, having everything you want will come first before you praise God. It just tells us to praise Him.

And if you notice, in so many of the psalms, the author starts by singing about the trouble in his life. But it almost always ends by praising God for who He is and what He has done. The psalms almost always end by talking about our Great God and praising Him.

It’s a good thing to remember. We need to praise God - no matter what and always!!

Sabbath, July 13th
Making Melody With Your Heart
addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, Ephesians 5:19

Materials: glasses, water at different levels, spoon

There are so many places in the Bible that talk about singing to God, singing a new song, making melody in our hearts. Maybe it sounds like this. (Pour a little water into a glass and strike the glass lightly with a spoon.)

Notice what the verses don’t say. They don’t say that you have to sound good - who gets to decide what sounds good and what doesn’t? If you are praising God with your songs, that’s pleasing to Him. It doesn’t have to be pleasing to someone else.

So maybe that sounds like this. (Pour water into another glass at a different level. Again, strike lightly with a spoon.) What you have inside - in your heart - determines the sound of your praise, or lack of praise.

The way you praise God doesn’t have to be the way someone else praises God. Your song doesn’t have to sound like anyone else’s song. The melody in your heart just needs to be genuinely praising our Great God.

So if every glass had water in it at a different level and we all tried to sing simultaneously, it could sound like chaos. I think God would still hear our individual praises, but we wouldn’t be doing the first part of the verse: addressing one another in a way that builds each of us up.

So we try to sing in harmony. We try to take turns and work together to make a pleasing sound both to God and to one another. When we do that, the music draws us closer together as we praise Him!

Maybe it sounds like this. (With pre-set levels of water, play a simple song by striking each glass in the proper order.)

I hope you always have a song in your heart, praising God.

Sabbath, July 20th
Sing to Him
Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works! Psalm 105:2

Materials: jars, bottles, mugs and glasses of various shapes, sizes, styles; water

Each of these containers has a different purpose. Because of that, they are designed a little different from one another. The canning jar is very stable with a nice mouth for ease of canning. The bottle has a narrow opening so pouring out the liquid doesn’t make a huge mess. The glass has a more decorative look and the stemmed glass adds elegance to a meal. If you were going to have a fancy Thanksgiving meal, you probably wouldn’t place the bottles at everyone’s plate for them to drink from. If you wanted to preserve green beans, you wouldn’t put them in the stemmed glass and place it on the shelf.

In a similar way, each one of us has a different purpose in service to God. God might use some of us to repair a roof for someone - but that wouldn’t be me because I’m afraid of heights. God might use one of us to prepare a Bible study, but not everyone has a gift of being able to teach clearly. God might use one of us to start the coffee pots for the fellowship each week, but that wouldn’t be our family because we’re not the first ones here each week. In so many ways, God gifts each of us different gifts to use for the benefit of the whole group.

So if each of these glass containers has a different purpose, wouldn’t you expect it to make a different sound - to have a unique sound coming out of its heart? Whether you strike the glass, clink it against another one, run a wet finger over the top, or blow into it - each glass container is going to make a unique sound.

Similarly, each of us is going to bring a slightly different sound out of our hearts in praise to God. Why would we expect the praise coming out of my heart to sound exactly like the praise coming out of the heart of my daughter? We are each unique, each of us with unique gifts and purposes. The praise coming out of each heart praises God uniquely.

I can’t write songs like Christopher does and I don’t play the guitar like Jonathan does. But that doesn’t make their music any less pleasing to God. I don’t particularly like Christian rap, but I’m impressed that they can get those words out that fast clearly! I like slower, heart-felt hymns and spiritual songs, but I don’t want them to sound like a funeral dirge. One song leader in Canada told us we were going to sing the hymn so slowly that someone could go out for breakfast and we’d still be singing it when he got back! That’s not my idea of praise. But that’s the praise Sydney wanted to make to God that morning!

Maybe the way you express praise to God isn’t through music; maybe it’s through art. Maybe it’s through the quiet serving of your family without complaining or arguing. Maybe it’s through poems, not set to music. There are lots of ways to praise God. We’re just used to thinking that praise only comes through music.

Maybe our goal should be to live our lives in such a way that our entire life is praise to God, a thank offering to Him for all of His wondrous works. Think about it. How do you praise God?

Sabbath, July 27th
Get Away!
My mouth speaks what is true, for my lips detest wickedness. Proverbs 8:7

Materials: long stick, wool sweater, balloons, string

Can you think of something you absolutely detest or hate? Do you want that thing next to you, or, worse yet, touching you? No. If it is truly something that you find absolutely disgusting and despicable, you want the thing as far away from you as you can get it - like, yesterday.

Likely you have something in mind that causes you to make a face just thinking about it!

The ASL sign for “hate” is flicking the middle fingers off the thumbs in a “get away from me” motion.

If there’s something detestable, disgusting, despicable and downright yucky, you just want to take every evasive maneuver possible to keep it away from you - kind of like balloons you’ve rubbed with a wool sweater. Because they have the same kind of static electricity, they repel each other. So if you tie a balloon on each end of the string, rub the balloons with a wool sweater and then put the balloons over a long pole, you’ll see how they repel.

This is how we, as people who love God, should react to wickedness. The things that God has designated as wicked or evil, sinful and wrong - those are the things that we should want to avoid at all costs. We should be like the balloons which repel each other. We don’t want to go anywhere near wickedness.

So here’s the thing: you have to read the Bible so that you know what God says is detestable and disgusting. Then you’ll know what you don’t want to have anything to do with!

Sabbath, August 3rd
Seek God Always!
Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually! 1 Chronicles 16:11

Materials: plastic pen, pepper, salt, wool cloth

Why do tools come with an instruction book? So that you can use the tool most effectively! Why do cooks follow a recipe (most of the time)? So that you can expect the food to end up tasting in a certain way. Why do people follow the instructions when they’re putting together a piece of furniture? So that you end up with a piece of furniture that you can use as expected. So then, why would you want to read the Bible and follow God’s commands? So that life will work. God as Creator gave us an instruction book to help us live life in a way designed to minimize the pain that we have to go through.

But sometimes we go through pain anyway. It’s not necessarily because we’ve done something wrong. Sometimes it’s because we live in a fallen world. And then there are times when we just don’t know, and may never know, why we have to experience pain.

So then, what do we do?

We seek the only One who can save us - our Great God. It’s much like what happens when we electrify a pen and then put it close to pepper and salt. The pepper will be attracted to the pen much more rapidly than the salt.

In a similar way, whenever we don’t know what to do, our first reaction should be to seek God. Like the pepper immediately responses, so should we. We don’t want to be like the salt that is much slower to respond.

When we are happy, we should seek God. When we are sad, we should seek God. When we are upset or hurt, we should seek God.

God is good. God loves us. God has our best interest at heart. God knows what we need here and now to be formed into the image of His Son. So regardless of what your day looks like:

We need to seek the LORD and his strength! We must seek his presence continually!

Sabbath, August 10th
Power You Can’t See
you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 1 Peter 1:5

Materials: large piece of paper, ruler

If I put a ruler on the edge of a table, how easily can I flip it off the table by hitting the end of it? Pretty easily. But what happens if I put a large piece of paper over the top of the ruler. Is it any more difficult to flip the ruler? Yes! The weight of the air pressing down on the paper creates a resistance to the paper flying up when I hit the end of the ruler.

Just because I can’t see the air doesn’t mean that it isn’t there.

And just because I can’t see the air doesn’t mean that the air doesn’t have a huge impact on the ruler and the paper - and what I can do with them.

This is just a simple reminder that just because we can’t see God doesn’t mean He isn’t there. He is there. He has great power. As Creator of the Universe, what is there that He can’t do?!!

He saves us. He protects us. He provides for us. He keeps us from trouble. He heals us. The list goes on and on. And in the end, God grants us salvation, the gift of living with Him forever in His kingdom. He’s our great God.

We just need to put our trust in Him and know that He loves us, wants the very best for us, and will bless us enormously. It doesn’t mean we won’t experience troubles and sadness and pain in this life. It just means that He wants us to believe, in spite of everything that happens, that He is good all the time. There’s nothing too big in our lives that He cannot handle. The Great God of the Universe has a plan for you and He will accomplish His purpose in your life.

The next time you feel overwhelmed or stressed or hurting or saddened by what’s going on, remember the power of our God. It’s there.

Sabbath, August 17th
All Things
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 2 Corinthians 4:17

Materials: warm water, cold water, food coloring, colored frozen ice cube, clear container

What happens when you put an ice cube in warm water? It’s easier to see what happens when the ice cube is frozen colored watered. Obviously the ice cube floats because it’s less dense than water, but what happens to the melted ice water? The cold water is much more dense than the warm water.

And what happens when you have cold water at the bottom of a container of warm water? The cold water will move, but since it’s more dense than the water around it, it will spread out along the bottom of the container.

This is what happens on a small scale in a small container, but it’s also what happens in our oceans. The ice caps melt and the cold water sinks. The cold water spreads out and the heat starts to transfer from the warmer water. You can see currents as the water flows and mixes. The moving currents of water affect the air currents above them and we get wind. And the wind brings the weather changes in our world.

God designed the flow of the water, the currents from the warm and cold waters. The water doesn’t become stagnant. It moves and grows and continues to be a healthy place for ocean creatures, and then affects the winds and all the land creatures too!

But what does this have to do with the light momentary afflictions that we experience in our lives?

The cold colored water and the ice cube are like the negative things that happen in our lives. Getting a scrape on your knee, catching a cold, experiencing a death of a family member or good friend - all of the negative things that we experience can be used for good - just like the cold water is used for good, to create currents. God says that all things work together for good. It isn’t that all things are good. It is that God can use all things to grow us and mold us and move us into the people that He wants us to be. 2 Corinthians 4:17 says, “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”

In other words, we may not like the cold water right now, but God can use the negative things in our life for so much more good than we can even imagine right now. We just have to trust Him.

Sabbath, August 24th
Great is our LORD
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. Psalm 147:5

Materials: pins, tape, straws, scissors, square sheets of paper, typing paper

If you ever look in the library, you will find a surprising number of books on how to construct airplanes. There are various models and designs, all with more or less of the theory of flight and aerodynamics included. Airplanes have long captured the attention of people - even Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) drew designs for a flying machine. It’s an important topic. After all, if you want this piece of paper to go from this side of the room to that side of the room, you’re going to have to do something other than send a single sheet through the air as is.

Or - think of a pinwheel. Someone had to come to the understanding of how wind works and how you can harness the air to make a pinwheel turn. If I pin a piece of paper to a straw, it’s not going to turn, no matter how much I blow on it. But if I bend the edges of the paper, to make foils on the ends of the blades to catch the air, I can make the pinwheel turn. And that’s important - the harnessed wind power turns windmill to grind flour (Think of a Danish windmill.), to pull water from the ground (A common sight in Western Nebraska!), or even to generate electricity (Think of the huge wind turbines that dot some of our western states.) The understanding of how to use the wind power has meant food and water for centuries.

Knowledge is power.

So here’s this wonderful gem of a verse: Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure (Psalm 147:5). Our great God understands beyond the ability to measure His understanding. Therefore, His power is unlimited as well. What is there that God cannot do? He created all things - all things! He knows how everything works because He designed and created it to work just the way it does. What is there that He could not do with His creation?! He is all-knowing and all-powerful.

It’s a comforting thing to remember when you feel like things are going badly and are out of control. They may be out of your control, but they’re not out of God’s control. And it’s a sobering thing to remember if you’re ever tempted to do things your way instead of God’s way. You’d just find yourself fighting against God - and that’s a losing proposition, hands down.

You might figure out a way to get the piece of paper across the room - like wadding it up and throwing it like a ball. But God has a plan for His creation, a plan that involves beauty and purpose. Your plans, next to His, are like a wad of trash next to the most intricate airplane ever. Great is our Lord!

Sabbath, August 31st
Feathers
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. Matthew 10:29

Materials: feathers, drop of oil, water, towels

Have you ever spent any time looking into feathers and what an amazing creation they are?! The story goes that the inventor of velcro got his idea from the burrs which stick to animal coats, clothing, and anything else that brushes up against them. But velcro could very well have been inspired by birds’ feathers. Their intricate creation not only keeps each individual barb connected to the one next to it, if they are disconnected, the bird - by running its beak down the feather - can reattach the barbs together.

If that weren’t amazing enough, when the bird preens his feathers (cleaning and straightening them out), he’s also spreading a little bit of oil on them. Have you heard the saying “water off a duck’s back”? The water runs right off a bird because of the oil on their feathers. (Incidentally, when birds get into an oil spill, we clean their feathers with Dawn “to get grease out of the way.” But the detergent also strips the natural oil from the feathers. Until the bird can dry out and get itself re-oiled, it can’t fly and is extremely vulnerable to anything that thinks it might like a chicken dinner.)

And speaking of flying, feathers are designed by God in the perfect way to make flying possible for birds. The albatross needs to have a running start of a cliff to get airborne, but once it’s up in the air, flying is not a problem even for this huge bird. Feathers are a vital part of a bird getting lift - air rushing over the wing at a faster rate causing low pressure and therefore lift.

We could also talk about the different types of feathers. The long pinion feathers at the end of the wing are for flight. The contour feathers give the bird its shape and protection. The down feathers provide both insulation from heat and cold.

When you look at feathers and you think about how intricate they are, how much detail God put into each one, and then you read the verse in Matthew 10:29, Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. Then Jesus follows that with these two very comforting verses: 30But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

If God is willing to bless the birds with such an amazing attribute as feathers, what will He do for you?

Sabbath, September 14th
God’s Laws are Trustworthy
The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy; Psalm 111:7

Materials: thermometer, water, ice, cup

Water freezes at 32ºF - unless you add salt to it. Then it freezes at a much lower temperature. In fact, if you keep adding salt to your water, you can keep the water from freezing up to -6ºF! Six degrees below zero. Why is this important? Well, it’s very important for the department of transportation; it’s how they keep ice off the roads in the winter time. But more importantly, getting the ice to melt by adding salt is how you get the cream mixture cold enough to make ice cream!

It’s a cool 😀 reminder that we use God’s natural laws all the time to make life work better for us. And we can use God’s laws because they don’t change. They are trustworthy. We can depend on them to work the same way all the time (unless God performs a miracle).

Guess what? Using and obeying God’s moral laws makes life work better for us too. If you obey God about telling lies - you don’t tell them! - people trust you. That makes relationships a whole lot more pleasant. If you obey God about stealing - you don’t take things that don’t belong to you - it likewise makes people trust you, and it helps to keep you out of jail.

God gave all of His laws for our good - the natural laws and the moral laws. We can depend on God’s laws to always be there. They are trustworthy! They don’t change. If we worked harder at using them and obeying them as God intended, life would work better for us!

Sabbath, September 21st
Only God Can Make a Tree
in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy. Psalm 68:10b

Materials: various items made from trees

There are so many products made from trees: boxes, paper products, books, pencils, clothespins, turpentine, cinnamon, vanilla, puzzles. The list goes on and on.

But even if you had all these products, you couldn’t reconstruct a living tree. You couldn’t take the pieces and create a living tree. You could create something that looks like a tree, but it wouldn’t grow leaves. It wouldn’t produce fruit.

Our great God, in His goodness, as provided what we need. And it’s not just trees. Think about God’s creation and what He has provided for us: water, air/oxygen, gravity, the sun/moon/stars, food, shelter, family. What is there that we need that God hasn’t provided for us?!! He has created everything. He has provided everything that we need.

I love how this verse in Psalm 68 tells us why God provided for us - because He is good!!

There’s a poem that I love by Joyce Kilmer, entitled “Trees.”

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

I praise God that He is good and He has provided everything I need, including trees.

Sabbath, September 28th
What Do You Want To Hear?
and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. Proverbs 18:15b

Materials: noise-makers (whistles, recorder, harmonica, wooden blocks, balloon, spoons, scissors, marbles)

The ear is an amazing thing! With just your hearing, you can determine so much information about a thing: what is it, where it is, perhaps the size, how close it is to you. You can distinguish between someone hitting the table and clapping their hands. You can tell whether the person who snapped their fingers is next to you or clear across the room. You can tell whether the balloon is being inflated or deflated. You can tell whether a recorder is being played or a harmonica. All from the sound you hear. And! As you get older and you become a parent, you will get really good at knowing exactly what your children are doing even when you aren’t in the same room with them. If your teenage son, for instance, gets up at midnight for snack, you’ll be able to tell that he got a knife out of the drawer and smothered a piece of bread with butter before opening the refrigerator and pouring himself a glass of milk. Much to his amazement, your sense of hearing becomes really acute when it comes to your kids’ activities.

But besides information, sound can either irritate us or bring us a great deal of pleasure. The dripping of a faucet or the ticking or a clock can keep you awake at night and make you think you’re losing your mind. The sound of a brook tripping merrily over the rocks brings a smile to my face. The rattling of the car keys excites my dogs. Speaking French is a guaranteed way to transform a sleeping Pepper to a barking, excited Pepper. But speaking French to you doesn’t get you all excited!

People (and dogs) react differently to the sounds they hear. And logically, if you like a sound, you’re going to want to hear it. If you don’t like a sound, you’re going to want to avoid it. I don’t like the sound of conflict and fighting. I don’t like the sound of breaking glass. I don’t like the sound of my children coughing or vomiting. I like to hear the birds singing. I like the sound of canning jars sealing. There’s a satisfying pop which tells you that you’ve succeeded in preserving that jar of harvested vegetables or fruits until you need them next winter. I like the sound of my friends and family talking and laughing.

And God tells us here in Proverbs 18:15 that, if we’re wise, our ear will seek knowledge. We will want to hear what is true and just. We will seek out God’s ways and His direction in our lives. We’ll be hungry to listen to His word being read. So here’s the question: What do you want to hear? What do you desire to listen to? Are you seeking knowledge? That would be the wise thing to do.

Trumpets, September 30th
We Will See Him
but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 1 John 3:2b

Materials: drawing paper, pencils, crayons, markers, a photo of a person

What if I described someone to you, and you had to draw them based on what you heard me say? Do you think your drawing would look like the actual person? What if you looked at the drawing the person next to you made? Would your drawing look like his drawing? Not likely. You might not even think it was a drawing of the same person.

When we talk about Trumpets, the first of the fall Holy Days of God, we talk about trumpets and judgment on this world. Because of verses like 1 Corinthians 15:52 . . .For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, . . .
we think about people being resurrected, getting to see people we haven’t seen for a long time!

Because of verses like Joel 2:1 Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near, we think of a huge battle against the returning Lord of lord and King of kings, Jesus Christ.

And maybe we think about getting to see Jesus Christ face to face because of songs like “I Can Only Imagine.” “I can only imagine what my eyes will see when Your face is before me.” And we think about our actions - falling on our face in worship before Him, dancing for joy, and shouting a great shout of victory!

But 1 John 3:2 says something very important for the people of God: but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

When Jesus Christ comes back, we’re not only going to see Him as He is, we are going to be like Him. That boggles my mind. I’m instantly going to be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. And I’m going to be like Jesus.

Truly!! There’s a great day coming!!

Atonement, October 9th
Atonement
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalms 147:3

Materials: bandages, tape, glue, paper, first aid kit, needle, thread, patch, cloth

If I tear a piece of paper, is there anyway I can put it back together again?
I could tape it. But you’d still see where the tear was.
I could use another piece of paper and some glue. But you’d know it’d be repaired.
I could completely shred the paper, add some water, and some more glue. Then I could spread it out and let it dry. It wouldn’t look like the original paper, but you wouldn’t see where the initial tear was.

But that’s paper. What about cloth? What if I get a tear in my shirt? What can I do?
I can tape it, but that’d come off the next time I washed it.
And glue would act similarly.
I could sew it. If it’s a small tear, I could just use thread to cinch up the hole.
If it was large tear, I could sew a patch over the top of it. But you’d always know it was there.

What about you? What if you get a cut? What can you do?
You can put a band-aid on it.
You can use NewSkin.
Sometimes you need stitches.
You can do some surface repairs, but it is really God who heals us - either allowing the body to heal itself as God has designed it or directly as an answer to our prayers.

But that’s outside. What about the inside? What about the damage that has been done to you heart and mind because of your sinful choices? What can you do to heal that? Is there any way to put your mind back together - the way it was before you sinned?
You can ask for forgiveness.
You can try to make amends by telling the truth, repairing something, admitting your mistake, replacing something damaged, etc.
But for the damage to really be healed requires God’s healing. He has given us His Son to not only save us from our sin, to heal our diseases, to bind up our wounds and heal our broken hearts; Jesus also is our Advocate before the Father, ever living to make intercession for us, to restore the relationship that we have with God. Jesus makes things right again!

When we’ve sinned, made a mistake, created a tear, we can only do so much to make repairs. It takes God to heal the situation and to heal us. As we come before Him on this Atonement, we can never forget that it completely a work of God to make us whole.

Sabbath, October 12th
Hear and Understand
And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand.” Matthew 15:10

Before Jesus started speaking to the people, he gave them two commands: hear and understand. These are two separate, but connected, commands.

Think about hearing. In order to hear what someone is saying, you have to be close enough to actually pick up the sound. If you’re standing on the other side of the room, you may not be able to hear what I’m saying on this side of the room. When you want to hear someone, you get close to them.

But just because you can hear, it doesn’t automatically follow that you can understand. If they are using words you don’t know, or speaking in a language you don’t speak, you aren’t going to “get” what they’re saying - no matter how close you get to them. If I say, “Cherchez le livre sur la table et ouvrez à page huit s’il vous plaît,” it will do you no good to get closer to me. You’re still not likely to understand what I want you to do. You might have to learn French before you’d understand.

So when Jesus wanted to talk with the people, He gave two commands: hear and understand. And these can apply to us today. Do you want to know what God wants you to do? Do you want to receive the blessings of walking in God’s ways? Then you must likewise do these two things: hear and understand. The first one - hear - means you’re going to have to get close to Jesus. That means walking in His ways. That means reading the Bible, praying, fellowship with other believers, doing what God tells you to do - like going to the Feast of Tabernacles.

Do you want to understand what God has said? That means you’re going to have to study. You’re going to have to put in some time and effort. You’re going to have to ask for God to open your mind and give you understanding and wisdom. God says that when we seek Him with all of our heart, He will be found by us.

It’s a good thing to remember before we go to the Feast. Are we going to have a good time? Yes! Are we just going to have a good time? No. We are going to assemble before God on His days because He said to! We are going to worship Him. We’re going to spend time with Him. We’re going to learn more about Him in His presence. We’re going to hear and to understand - because we want to know Him. We want a closer walk with Him. We want the blessing of walking in His ways: Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways! (Psalm 128:1) And we’re going to rejoice while we’re doing it.

Sabbath, October 26th
Walking Water - Share
Freely you have received; freely give. Matthew 10:8b

Materials needed: four clear cups, water, food coloring, strips of paper towel

Imagine you have a cup full of colored water and you stick a twisted strip of paper towel into it. Then you stick the other end of the paper towel into a cup that has a small amount of clear water. Do you know what happens? The colored water will work its way up the towel and down into the second cup, coloring the water.

What happens if the second cup also has colored water? Then the two colors will mix.

What happens if both cups are about equal in amounts of water? The water from both cups will wick up the towel and met in the middle.

This is called capillary action. (Capillary action is how florist can make green carnations and fourth grade science teachers can make multicolored celery leaves.) The water moves from an area of higher water density to an area of lower water density. It looks like the water is out for a walk. When we add food coloring to the water, we can see how the water molecules move more clearly.

Do you ever do this? Do you ever take what you have and give it to someone else?

We’ve just returned from celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles. It’s a great eight days of worshipping God, fellowshipping with other believers, and drinking in of intimate time with Jesus Christ. Not only did we eat many good meals together, we also shared some very good spiritual meals together: sabbath school lessons, seminars, sermons, Bible studies, etc. What did you take away from the Feast? What did you learn (or reinforce) that you can share with the people around you?

Some of the people around you don’t know anything about the Feast of Tabernacles. They’re like that cup with clear water. You get to tell them something that may be brand new to them. Other people you know celebrated the Feast at a different Feast site. They heard different things that you heard. You’re like one colored cup of water; they’re like another colored cup of water. When you share together, you mix your ideas. And that’s a good thing too.

We are so blessed. God has given us so much. And whether you’re sharing what you have been given physically, or you’re sharing the good news of the kingdom of God, there are people out there who need the blessing that you can give to them. What can you share with someone today?

Sabbath, November 2nd
God’s Laws Don’t Change
the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; Psalm 19:8a

Materials: syrup, oil, water, jar

There’s something very comforting in knowing that God’s laws don’t change. You can rest assured that when we walk down the stairs, gravity will make sure that you’re going down, not up. When you throw the ball for your dog, the ball flies the direction you throw it; it doesn’t curve around and bop you on the head like a boomerang. You know that the friction between your feet and the floor keeps you from sliding all over the place. And you take a breath of air throughout the day without worrying if the oxygen is suddenly going to become lighter than hydrogen and float up out of your breathing space. It all sounds so silly to talk about the natural laws of God, as if they were not constant.

But because God’s laws are constant, we can be fairly certain of some basic things. For instance, every fluid has a specific density - that is, the closeness of the atoms within the liquid.

If I pour water, oil, and syrup into a jar, I know that the oil will rise to the top, the syrup will sink to the bottom, and the water will separate the two. I can show you this because God’s natural laws are constant. They don’t change. We believe that to the point that we go forward with confidence, believing that God’s laws aren’t going to surprise us.

In reality, all of God’s laws are constant - the natural law and the moral law. If you murdered someone yesterday, that’s wrong. If you murder someone tomorrow, it’s still wrong. If you lied last week, that’s wrong. If you lie next week, it’s still wrong. God’s laws don’t change. In Matthew 5:18, Jesus told his listeners that as long as heaven and earth exist, so will the laws of God. The last time I checked, the heavens and the earth are still here. God’s laws are still here. We can depend on them.

Furthermore, we can know what God’s laws are. He wrote them down. And since they don’t change from day to day, or year to year, or century to century, we know God expects us to obey His laws - all of them.

Sabbath, November 9th
Stir Up One Another
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, Hebrews 10:24

Materials needed: stiff cardboard or clipboard, colored sand, pencil, rubber band

Imagine that I have a piece of cardboard onto which I’ve sprinkled colored sand. Now imagine that I’ve run a rubber band around the pencil the long way, to simulate the bow on the violin. What will happen to the grains of sand on the cardboard when I run the rubber band perpendicular to the cardboard? The cardboard will vibrate and will pass along the vibrations to the grains of sand. They’ll “dance.” In fact, if I continue long enough, the grains of sand will form a pattern.

My dog Pepper gets very excited when he hears words like “ball” and “grass” (Don’t ask me why!!!) and “Laissez les bonne temps rouler.” He doesn’t know what the French means, but he thinks it means something pretty exciting!! It’s quite ironic because that phrase means “Let the good times roll.” But how in the world would he know that? Nevertheless, Pepper can be rapidly stirred to a frenzy of barking and dancing with just a few words.

Do you know that we, as people, are very much like the grains of sand and Pepper? We can be excited when stimulated in just the right way. We can be stirred up to anger. We can be stirred up to do wrong things. But the author of Hebrews tells us to think about, to plan ahead, to devise a way to stir each other up, to get ourselves all excited. For what purpose? To love one another and to good works, to do things that please God, to do what is right.

Words can do that. Your words and your actions towards your family, your church family, your friends - they are very powerful. They can get other people excited and ready to “dance.” So the first thing to learn from this verse is that our words can be powerful motivators for good.

But it’s very curious: your job is not just to excite other people. The way this verse is phrased leads us to believe that we’re stirring up one another and ourselves. We’re supposed to think about ways not just to get others to do good things for God, we’re supposed to be participating. We’re intimately involved. We’re working together in love to serve God. That’s the second thing to learn from this verse: we’re in it together.

The sand is easily excited. But it takes consistent work to get a pattern to form. In the same way, we can get people stirred up, motivated to love and do good works for the Lord, but it takes some sustained effort to achieve something really valuable. The third lesson is to continue to look for ways to encourage one another. It’s not one and done.

When you spend some time thinking about this verse, it’s actually very cool. One: look for ways to encourage one another in love to serve God. Two: We need to encourage one another and work together. And three: we need to persevere. Keep on encouraging one another. Laissez les bonne temps rouler!!

Sabbath, November 16th
God’s Promise
I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Genesis 9:13

Materials: CD, flashlight, prism

Do you know how a rainbow works, scientifically? When the light hits the water droplets, the light is bent (or refracted). When you bend light, the various colors bend at different angles. Red bends the most; violet bends the least. They bend in this order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Without the moisture in the air, you don’t see the rainbow.

You can use other things to get the light to refract. You can sometimes see the rainbow in butterfly wings, using a prism, or on soap bubbles. The light shining off a CD can also refract to create a rainbow.

I love how God placed the rainbow in the cloud as a promise to the earth that He would never again completely destroy the earth by flood.

But I also love how God created the rainbow using two symbols that we often associate with Him: light and water. Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:12). God is light (1 John 1:5), and in Him there is no darkness at all. Jesus is also the source of living water (John 4:10, 14; John 7:37). If you believe in Jesus, the Light of the world, you will be given the Holy Spirit (John 7:37-39), that living water will flow out of you.

Then the Light of God shining on you and your life will display the promises of God for all to see. You become a witness to the greatness, the majesty, the awesomeness of our God. Your life reflects God’s love and mercy. You testify to everyone around you that God is the source of life and salvation.

God’s promises are displayed for all to see in the rainbow. But God’s promises are also displayed in your life for all to see. Think about how well you allow others to see Jesus in you the next time you see a rainbow.

Sabbath, November 30th
Blessed
I will surely bless you . . . Genesis 22:17a

Materials: posterboard, colored markers, assorted stickers, stamps, etc.

We are so blessed! We hear that a lot. But do we believe it, really believe it?! Because if we really believe that we are blessed of God, it changes our lives.

So here’s a simple exercise: Think about why you are blessed. Turning the word “blessed” into an acrostic exercise, think of one word for each letter to describe why you are blessed.

B - belong. We belong to God. We are His. He has adopted us into His family. Not only that, but we belong in our family. We have a home where we live and belong.

L - Loved. We are loved. We are greatly loved by God, after all, He gave us His Son. Likewise, we are greatly loved by our friends and our family.

E - Edified, exhorted, and Encouraged. We have a great church family, friends, and family who all want our best. They encourage us, both to do well in life and to seek God. They build us up, edify us, and exhort us to keep fighting the good fight.

S - Saved. We have been saved by God, He is saving us, and we will be saved when Jesus Christ returns.

S - Sanctified Saints. If we have been saved by God, then He is in the process of sanctifying us, the saints of God - changing us into the image of our Savior.

E - Elated Elect. We belong to God. We’re the saints of God. We are chosen by God. We are the elect of God. And we are elated to be so.

D - Designed. Not only were we designed by God, He has a design for our lives. We have a purpose as His servants. We must remember to be devoted to the duty designed by God for us to do.

We could talk for a very long time about our blessings, and it’s very good to do so. When we remember what God has done, we are motivated to serve Him with thanksgiving. We owe Him everything. And that’s exactly how we should serve Him, with everything that we have and everything that we are.

Sabbath, December 7th
Remove Yourself From the Situation

Without wood a fire goes out; without a gossip a quarrel dies down. Proverbs 26:20 (NIV)

Materials: play-doh, matches

Have you ever had an argument with someone? Silly question, right? We have disagreements, arguments, fights, contention with the people around us all the time. Sometimes it’s a legitimate disagreement over the available facts. But sometimes it’s just our opinion.

But something makes a disagreement even worse - if you talk about that person and how wrong they are to other people. That’s called gossip. And gossip is never a good thing. It can cause a lot of hurt feelings and it can accelerate a quarrel between people.

So King Solomon gives a good piece of advice: just like a fire goes out if it doesn’t have wood (or fuel) to burn, so a disagreement will die down if you don’t keep talking about it. But go one step further: if you can, step away from the argument completely.

Here’s a dramatic way to show how that works: Line up matches in a row with the non-burnable ends in the play doh, standing the matches straight up. Put a gap in the matches. Then light the end match. When the fire gets to the gap, it will not jump to the next match.

Similarly, when you remove yourself from the situation, i.e. refuse to continue an argument, refuse to gossip, refuse to keep contribute something flammable, you’ll be removing the fuel which keeps the fire or the quarrel going.

That’s not easy to do sometimes. It’s hard to put my hand over my mouth when I want to say something snarky. It’s hard not to roll my eyes out loud in response to a comment. It’s very tempting to pass along a juicy story to someone else. But, in the long run, it’s just better to remove myself from the situation and refuse to engage.

Sabbath, December 14th
Be Separate
Therefore, "Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” 2 Corinthians 6:17

Materials: dominoes

Let’s say that setting up a line of dominoes is kind of like life. You live in this world. Whatever happens in this world happens to you. If there’s a flood in your area, the water doesn’t magically stop at your property line. If there’s an ice storm, it doesn’t magically go around you. If the government passes laws, you have to obey them. You don’t get a “bye” just because you don’t feel like obeying the law. If it applies to the citizens of your country, state, or county, then it also applies to you.

But sometimes, because you love God and are obedient to Him, sometimes God protects you from the things that happen in life. How many times have tornadoes lifted and skipped over top of God’s people or completely taken another turn? Sometimes we get a strong feeling to do something - like moving the car. Because we listen to God’s prompting, we are saved from trouble. Mom and Dad had a very strong urging to move the car in their driveway to the back of the house. The next morning, the neighbor’s huge black walnut tree was lying where their car would have been. There are countless stories of God’s protection and provision. That’s kind of like God’s hand reaching down and preventing the domino (the one that is you) from falling. These are the natural events like storms, tornadoes, fires, and floods.

But you shouldn’t expect God to save you from disaster if you don’t remove yourself from things that are ungodly. Let’s suppose that your friends are shop-lifting or cheating on tests or vandalizing neighbors’ properties. If you are caught with them, you will pay the penalty for your wrong behavior. God will not rescue you from that disaster. If you are caught breaking man’s laws, you will have consequences.

In a similar way, if you are with a group of people who are breaking God’s laws, doing things that are displeasing to Him, why wouldn’t you expect to experience God’s wrath. If you know what is the right thing to do in God’s sight, then do it. Remove yourself from a situation that you know is displeasing to God. You are not gaining anything good by going with the crowd that is going contrary to God’s will in their lives.

God has put us into this world. We have to live in this world. But we don’t have to live like the world lives. We don’t have to do the things that are displeasing to our God. And if we think we’re getting away with something, think again. God knows. And disaster will come suddenly.

Sabbath, December 21st
Working Together
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: Ecclesiastes 4:9

Materials: candles, matches, jar of buttons

I don’t know who first introduced me to the idea of playing 52-Card Pick-Up, but I can remember very strongly my aversion to having to pick up all those cards all by myself - and then to make sure I hadn’t missed any and ruined the deck.

I do know that oftentimes when a particularly tiresome job is on my short-list, the job is much more manageable if several people are working together to get it accomplished. Not only does many hands make light work, many people together also can mean joking and laughter and fun, which also makes a hard job seem less hard and to go more easily.

You know what I mean, right? Imagine there’s a huge container of buttons and I dump it out all over the table. It’s going to take a while for me to pick up all the buttons by myself. But if I have people helping, we’ll accomplish it in a fraction of the time and we’ll likely have more fun doing it.

But, it’s not just making the job go more quickly or more smoothly. There’s another really cool thing that happens when you have a couple of people working together on a task. You get to combine strength - mental or physical. It’s like lifting a log. Something that I can’t lift by myself, I can move if I have someone to help me. Or if I’m trying to figure out a riddle. Having another person working on the same puzzle can help each of us come up with more possibilities. We’re stronger together. We’re able to accomplish more in a shorter period with a much better outcome.

But you know what, we have to work together. I’m not going to be able to move a log if you’re standing on it. We have to have the same goal, the same agenda in mind, otherwise we’re going to accomplish less than if we were all alone.

Oh that we would learn to work together, to encourage each other, to accomplish more and do it more efficiently - all for the glory of God!!!