We left for a mini vacation this morning until Friday and so ZG was taught by Mrs. Lynn and Mr. Don.
Pastor Billy talked about the Holy Spirit this past week. We asked the kids who the Holy Spirit is, what His job is, how He helps us, how we get the Holy Spirit living inside of us, and what happens to us once the Holy Spirit is there? What do others see in us when the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts?
We discussed how God gave us the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament, He spoke personally with those He loved, like Moses. We read Exodus 34:29-35 about Moses' encounter with God on the mountain top and what happened to him afterwards. We talked about why Moses' face shone after His encounter with God, why the people were afraid of Moses when they saw his face shining, even his own brother Aaron and the other leaders of Israel. We talked about why they thought Moses then chose to cover his face with a veil when he was with the people from then on.
We looked at some New Testament Scriptures then about what happens to us when we receive the Holy Spirit as new believers. We read 2 Corinthians 3:13-18. This Scripture says that, as believers in the New Covenant, or the covenant of Jesus Christ, we radiate the Lord’s glory like Moses’ face did. We don’t wear veils any longer once we become Christians, but we shine with God’s love and glory and example to those around us. We discussed how this means we should live then. How it should direct the way we speak, think, and behave in any and all circumstances.
Then we read Isaiah 60:1-3 and talked about what should be the result of our living as examples of Christ and letting our light shine in such a dark world of unbelievers. We looked at verse three again and decided that maybe nations and kings would not necessarily be drawn to us individually, but neighbors and friends, people we run into in the grocery store or at a park and you start talking to, homeless people you give a brown bag to, unsaved family members, people at Prayer Stop, etc...the possibilities are endless.
Then we showed the kids a sunflower and asked them what it was. We told them a little bit about what makes sunflowers so special. Sunflowers grow anywhere the sun shines hot and bright. They protect the land from erosion when it rains too much and produce seeds that birds, chicken, cattle, and even humans can eat. The seeds also grow more sunflowers when they are planted.
Do you know that the sunflower follows its true love all day long? When the sun rises in the east, the sunflower leans in that direction. Then as the sun crosses the sky towards the west, the sunflower follows it by tilting toward the light. By sunset, the flower gazes west, faithfully taking in the last warm rays of its beloved sun.
Unlike some other flowers whose names I can't even pronounce (and we tried to give a few examples), the sunflower’s name is easy to remember. Here is a flower that loves the sun so much that it even looks like the sun!
The Bible tells us that God is light. In talking about the end of this age, Isaiah 60:19 tells us that, the sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. How cool is that? In heaven, we won’t need a sun or a moon because God will be our light and there will never be darkness because of His presence.
We thought back to our story about Moses’ face glowing after he spent time on the mountain with His God. Moses’ face shone because he began to look like the One he loved…just like the sunflower looks like the one it loves, the sun.
We have a Son whose glory we are to reflect and follow and shine in this dark world as an example of. It’s not the s-u-n though. It’s the S-o-n, Jesus Christ. We prayed and asked God to help us be good reflectors of His glory to those around us, to always remember those that are watching our example, and to keep our faces turned towards Jesus, following His example and His glorious light because we can’t be good examples if we aren’t good followers of the BEST example.
