We had a great red carpet night, in which we welcomed some brand new 6th graders! My prayer is that they felt welcomed, and they quickly become an integral part of our student ministry. We are glad to have them!
MS Lesson - "Eternal Life"
We finished up our series on the End Times by looking at Heaven and Paul's words in Philippians 1:20-24, 3:20-21. Paul's outlook on life and death is a little strange to us, especially to middle school students who have their entire life ahead of them. Paul seems as anxious to go to heaven as he is to keep on living. It is because he really had a passion to be in the presence of God.
We drew a vertical line down the whiteboard, and wrote many of the things we love about life on the left side. Then we took time to write on the right side things we know about heaven. As we stepped back and looked at the list, it became clear why most of us struggle with the thought of heaven. There is so much that is unknown, and we know that we enjoy so many things about life here on earth.
However, we learned a couple things from the passages of Scripture we looked at:
- We don't have to be afraid of dying if we are secure in Christ (even though we will naturally fear death to some extent).
- The best part of being in heaven is knowing God (in a way we have never before).
- We have all at times felt a longing to know or experience God more fully.
- We are citizens of heaven, and we are merely passing through here on earth.
We finished with an excellent quote from C.S. Lewis -
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
HS Lesson - "Idols and Chaos"
We started by considering how every person on the face of the world is "religious", even if they would never admit to it. We all worship something, because we are designed by the Creator to worship. So if that is the one true God or something else (like another religion, no religion or ourselves) we will worship. It is just a matter of who or what.
We looked at this statement:
WE MUST WORSHIP GOD FOR HIS GLORY
- WE MUST WORSHIP
Humans have an impulse to worship - football teams, celebrities, etc... - WE MUST WORSHIP GOD
We saw that Micah was a worshipper, but he did not worship Yahweh. Worship was an attempt at manipulating God for his own gain. His primary purpose for woshipping was his own success and prosperity.
We considered how the local church is very important, because there must be order and structure to our worship. We need church leadership, accountability, discipline, and proper doctrine. Worship without any perimeters will end up dishonoring God and perhaps we will be worshipping a god of our own imagination like Micah. - WE MUST WORSHIP GOD FOR HIS GLORY
We considered why we might be worshipping God - could it be that we are most concerned with our own satisfaction, or to get rid of guilt that we have? Or are we worshipping God simply because He is worthy of our complete worship? This is a very important question that we must each spend some time asking.
We also noted that worship disorders will always lead to deeper and darker sin, just as it did with the nation of Israel. We are preparing to look at the last lesson in the book of Judges, which will show us just how dark Israel had become as they disobeyed and rebelled against God.
Last thing we saw was that none of the characters in this account act with integrity, and yet all of them (except Micah) succeed with their self-promoting agendas (it is a dangerous place to be when God removes his hand of discipline from us…)
No comments:
Post a Comment