Acts 1:8 - "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
We talked tonight about the power of God that is imparted to us when we receive the Holy Spirit....the power to love people, to obey God, to be joyful in all of our circumstances, to forgive others. As Christians, we have this power, yet we so often fail to use it. Paul prayed in Ephesians 1:15-18 for us to know and understand exactly who we are in Christ so that we realize our power through the Holy Spirit and use it! We also looked at Ephesians 1:19-23.
We talked about the things that usurp our power and dull us.....sin, Satan, and a lack of understanding of who Jesus is. We showed the kids a ping pong ball then and asked them if they thought it had the power to stay up in the air by itself. Of course it didn't, as we demonstrated for them. Then we showed them what happens when we add the power of a hair dryer to the ping pong ball. As they watched the ball levitate, we talked about how, with the Holy Spirit living inside of us, we have the power to do amazing things too, like the ones we talked about at the beginning of class.
Then we tried to slip a toilet paper tube over the floating ping pong ball and watched as the ball fell to the floor. We asked the kids what things in their lives are examples of what dulls their Christ-given power. We talked about all kinds of temptations and sins they are ensnared by on a daily basis and how best to avoid those things and stay "plugged in" to their main power source.
