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Below are the memory verses for the coming month. Each lesson will be posted as it is completed.
Below are the memory verses for the coming month. Each lesson will be posted as it is completed.
August
⚽️ Sabbath, August 1st - "Learn to do good..." - Isaiah 1:17 - Learn to Do Good
⚽️ Sabbath, August 8th - “but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” - Isaiah 40:31 - Wait Upon the LORD
⚽️ Sabbath, August 15th - “ . . . ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; . . . ” - Jeremiah 6:16
⚽️ Sabbath, August 22nd - “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13
⚽️ Sabbath, August 29th - “ It is he . . . who established the world by his wisdom . . .” - Jeremiah 51:15
Sabbath, August 1st
Learn to Do Good
“Learn to do good. . .” Isaiah 1:17
We talked last week about doing foolish things, aka not being wise, and you all came up with a lot of things which would not be a good thing to do. It was quite a list. But let me assure you, you did not fully plumb the depths of stupidity and foolishness.
I asked you four questions this week as your assignment to prepare for today:
We could spend some time discussing exactly what good means and come up with a definition of good. We could come up with a list of behaviors which are good - although that might involve a lot more discussion. Here’s why:
Let’s do a couple of experiments.
In each of these examples, the object itself never changed. The context surrounding the object modified how you judged it. That’s why our discussion about what is good and what is not will take a very long time. We make our choices based on what we feel or what we perceive. Those feelings and perceptions are based on our culture, how our parents have raised us, or what we think is good for us. We truly need an unchanging standard (God’s Word) to tell us actually what is true, not just what looks good in the moment.
But perfectly knowing what God considers good is going to take us a lifetime to understand. So where do we start?
Let’s start with the Bible - with the rest of the memory verse. Isaiah 1:17 says, “Learn to do good,” but it doesn’t stop there. It continues, “seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.” We have a responsibility to do the right thing, to help people who cannot help themselves, to reach out and serve others.
This is just one example of something God says is good. There are many, many others! The problem is that not everyone agrees with how to interpret the Bible. So we study and we think and we counsel with others. And we pray and we read the Bible.
It takes a lifetime of adjustments, small and big, to modify our understanding of God’s definition of good. But in the end, it’s worth it! Doing good is a clear command from God. It would be very good for us to obey.
Sabbath, August 8th
Wait Upon the LORD
but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31
Materials: hair dryer, ping pong ball
Do you know how far some butterflies migrate each year? Some Monarch butterflies travel 2,000 miles!
Do you know how far some hummingbirds migrate each year? Some travel 1,300 miles - 500 miles across the Gulf of Mexico in 18-22 hours!!
Some eagles migrate from Northern Canada to northern Mexico each fall. That’s about 3000 miles. A stream of migrating eagles can be 20 - 30 miles long and half a mile wide, with the birds averaging about 30 miles an hour. They can travel as much as 225 miles a day. How can they go that far? They depend on the wind. If there’s no wind, the eagles can’t soar. So when there’s no wind, eagles stay put or only travel locally. Eagles take advantage of wind currents. They find a thermal - a column of rising warm air. Once the warm air carries the eagles really high, they glide until they find another column to take them up again.
Imagine how exhausted a butterfly or a hummingbird or an eagle would be if they didn’t have the wind helping them travel!!
In a similar way, when you belong to God, He gives you the support that you need in order to endure troubles and problems. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have to do anything. You can’t give up when faced with difficulty. You can’t just sit back and do nothing. God expects you to stay the course, to fight the good fight, to persevere to the end. But He also promises to help you - to renew your strength, to mount up with wings like eagles, to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint.
It’s like a ping pong ball. The ping pong ball can fly through the air when hit or thrown. It can roll along the floor. It can bounce. But it cannot hope to lift itself up - not any more than you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps. But just like the air dryer can support the ping pong ball, God can give you the strength and determination, the courage and the hope to persevere in following Him and serving Him with all your heart!
Problems don’t go away, but God promises that we don’t have to go through them alone. We don’t have to find the strength on our own to endure. We can trust Him. We need to trust Him. He promises never to leave us or forsake us.
But we can lose God’s support if we decide we’re not going to walk in His ways. Here’s where the support is - in this stream of air. If we place the ball outside of that support, the ball will fall. If we try to live our lives outside of God’s support - outside of His ways, we’re going to find ourselves without the strength to persevere and succeed. Why would we want to live without God’s Spirit helping us in our lives? It would be so foolish!
So stay close to God. Read your Bible every day. Talk to God every day in prayer. Go to church. Think about God and what He wants you to do in every situation. Trust God. Wait upon Him.
but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31
Concept from: Science and the Bible: 30 Scientific Demonstrations Illustrating Scriptural Truths, Donald B. DeYoung, “Floating on Air,” Baker Books, 1994, pg. 52-54.
⚽️ Sabbath, August 1st - "Learn to do good..." - Isaiah 1:17 - Learn to Do Good
⚽️ Sabbath, August 8th - “but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” - Isaiah 40:31 - Wait Upon the LORD
⚽️ Sabbath, August 15th - “ . . . ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; . . . ” - Jeremiah 6:16
⚽️ Sabbath, August 22nd - “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13
⚽️ Sabbath, August 29th - “ It is he . . . who established the world by his wisdom . . .” - Jeremiah 51:15
Sabbath, August 1st
Learn to Do Good
“Learn to do good. . .” Isaiah 1:17
We talked last week about doing foolish things, aka not being wise, and you all came up with a lot of things which would not be a good thing to do. It was quite a list. But let me assure you, you did not fully plumb the depths of stupidity and foolishness.
I asked you four questions this week as your assignment to prepare for today:
- What is good?
- What behaviors are good?
- What does God consider good? How do we know this is what God wants?
We could spend some time discussing exactly what good means and come up with a definition of good. We could come up with a list of behaviors which are good - although that might involve a lot more discussion. Here’s why:
Let’s do a couple of experiments.
- [Draw two identical circles on the board. Surround one with large circles and one with small circles. ] Which is the larger circle? (Ebbinghaus Illusion)
- [Draw two identical lines. Put inward arrows on the ends of one line. Put outward arrows on the ends of the other.] Which line is longer? Müller-Lyer illusion
- [Show the students a checker shadow illusion.] Which gray square is darker? (Adelbert Ames-style / Edward Adelson) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion]
- [Show the students a gray circle on white background and a gray circle on black background.] Which gray circle is darker?
In each of these examples, the object itself never changed. The context surrounding the object modified how you judged it. That’s why our discussion about what is good and what is not will take a very long time. We make our choices based on what we feel or what we perceive. Those feelings and perceptions are based on our culture, how our parents have raised us, or what we think is good for us. We truly need an unchanging standard (God’s Word) to tell us actually what is true, not just what looks good in the moment.
But perfectly knowing what God considers good is going to take us a lifetime to understand. So where do we start?
Let’s start with the Bible - with the rest of the memory verse. Isaiah 1:17 says, “Learn to do good,” but it doesn’t stop there. It continues, “seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.” We have a responsibility to do the right thing, to help people who cannot help themselves, to reach out and serve others.
This is just one example of something God says is good. There are many, many others! The problem is that not everyone agrees with how to interpret the Bible. So we study and we think and we counsel with others. And we pray and we read the Bible.
It takes a lifetime of adjustments, small and big, to modify our understanding of God’s definition of good. But in the end, it’s worth it! Doing good is a clear command from God. It would be very good for us to obey.
Sabbath, August 8th
Wait Upon the LORD
but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31
Materials: hair dryer, ping pong ball
Do you know how far some butterflies migrate each year? Some Monarch butterflies travel 2,000 miles!
Do you know how far some hummingbirds migrate each year? Some travel 1,300 miles - 500 miles across the Gulf of Mexico in 18-22 hours!!
Some eagles migrate from Northern Canada to northern Mexico each fall. That’s about 3000 miles. A stream of migrating eagles can be 20 - 30 miles long and half a mile wide, with the birds averaging about 30 miles an hour. They can travel as much as 225 miles a day. How can they go that far? They depend on the wind. If there’s no wind, the eagles can’t soar. So when there’s no wind, eagles stay put or only travel locally. Eagles take advantage of wind currents. They find a thermal - a column of rising warm air. Once the warm air carries the eagles really high, they glide until they find another column to take them up again.
Imagine how exhausted a butterfly or a hummingbird or an eagle would be if they didn’t have the wind helping them travel!!
In a similar way, when you belong to God, He gives you the support that you need in order to endure troubles and problems. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have to do anything. You can’t give up when faced with difficulty. You can’t just sit back and do nothing. God expects you to stay the course, to fight the good fight, to persevere to the end. But He also promises to help you - to renew your strength, to mount up with wings like eagles, to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint.
It’s like a ping pong ball. The ping pong ball can fly through the air when hit or thrown. It can roll along the floor. It can bounce. But it cannot hope to lift itself up - not any more than you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps. But just like the air dryer can support the ping pong ball, God can give you the strength and determination, the courage and the hope to persevere in following Him and serving Him with all your heart!
Problems don’t go away, but God promises that we don’t have to go through them alone. We don’t have to find the strength on our own to endure. We can trust Him. We need to trust Him. He promises never to leave us or forsake us.
But we can lose God’s support if we decide we’re not going to walk in His ways. Here’s where the support is - in this stream of air. If we place the ball outside of that support, the ball will fall. If we try to live our lives outside of God’s support - outside of His ways, we’re going to find ourselves without the strength to persevere and succeed. Why would we want to live without God’s Spirit helping us in our lives? It would be so foolish!
So stay close to God. Read your Bible every day. Talk to God every day in prayer. Go to church. Think about God and what He wants you to do in every situation. Trust God. Wait upon Him.
but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31
Concept from: Science and the Bible: 30 Scientific Demonstrations Illustrating Scriptural Truths, Donald B. DeYoung, “Floating on Air,” Baker Books, 1994, pg. 52-54.
