As Abram knew God more, his faith grew stronger. God gave Abram a new name, Abraham, which means “Father of many.” This was an unexpected name because Abraham and his wife, Sarah, hadn’t had any children together and they were very old.
At just the right time, as God had promised, Sarah gave birth to a son and they named him Isaac, but one day God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac as an offering. Even though this was an unthinkable request, Abraham trusted God and prepared to do what God had told him. Abraham built an altar and placed Isaac on it, and at just the right time, God provided a ram to take Isaac’s place on the altar. God often grows our faith as we wait for Him to the very last minute!
I can only imagine how excited Abraham was to see that ram. Abraham had trusted God and God kept His promises to Abraham.
Just like God provided a ram to die in Isaac’s place, God provided Jesus to die in our place. In Romans 6:23, we read that “The wages of sin is death.” This means that our sinful deeds deserve death. We earn death by our sin. But Romans 6:23 goes on to say, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” When Jesus died on the cross, He paid for our sin with His death. Jesus is called “The Lamb of God,” because He was the perfect sacrifice for mankind’s sin. We can receive eternal life and forgiveness of our sin when we trust in Jesus Christ to be our Lord.
Thank you, God, for providing Jesus to take my place and to pay for my sins.
Have you ever had to move to a new town? We did. We had to leave our house, our friends and our family when we moved to a new state 5 ½ hours away. Moving can be a scary experience. You have to leave behind what you’re used to and go to a new, unknown place full of new, unknown people
About 4000 years ago God told a man named Abram to go to a new place, but He didn’t even tell him exactly where to go! God told Abram to go to a place that He would show him, and Abram trusted and obeyed God.
Look again in Genesis 12 and see what God promised Abram He would do in this new land.
God promised to make Abram a great nation, to bless Abram, to make Abram’s name great, to bless those who blessed Abram and curse those who cursed Abram. God promised that all of the families of earth would be blessed because of Abram.
WOW! That’s a lot of promises! Abram obeyed God because he trusted God. He believed that God would keep his promises. Abram had faith like Noah.
How about you? Do you trust God? Are you willing to obey whatever God tells you because you believe His words? God has graciously given us the Bible, so we can know Him and know how to obey Him. Do you read your Bible? Reading the Bible is how you, too, can know and trust God.
Remember that promise that God made that all the families of the earth would be blessed through Abram. Matthew 1:1 tells us how that happened. Matthew 1:1 tells us about the family tree of Jesus. Can you find Abram’s name there? Abram had a lot of descendants, but the most important one was Jesus, the Savior of the world.
All the families of the world have been blessed through Abram because Jesus came to earth. Every single person who trusts in Jesus for salvation can receive forgiveness and a place in heaven with Him. Have you received Jesus’s gift of salvation and forgiveness? You can trust Him today!
About a thousand years after God created Adam, Noah was born. Noah was the great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandson of Adam, but people back then lived a long, long time. Adam had only died about a hundred years before Noah was born, because Adam lived for over 900 years!
By the time Noah was born, everyone on earth had turned against God. Everyone’s hearts had grown wicked, but Noah remained faithful to God. Noah was different than the people around him. Noah obeyed God even when no one else did.
God knew that Noah would obey, so He gave Noah a very big job. God told Noah to build a huge boat called an ark, because God was going to send a flood to cover the whole earth. God told Noah exactly how to build the ark and Noah did it just as he was told.
God is faithful to His promises and the flood came just as He said. Before the flood came, God sent many animals to get on the ark to be saved. Anyone who trusted God could have been saved by entering the ark, but Noah and his family were the only people who got on board.
After the waters went down, God sent a rainbow as a sign of His promise to never flood the earth again. Ever since then, whenever we see a rainbow, we can be reminded of God’s faithfulness to keep His promises.
Do you know what the greatest promise is that God ever made … and kept? God promised hundreds of years before Jesus was born that He would send a Savior into the world to save His people – and God did, just as He said. In fact, that promised Son was a descendent of that faithful man, Noah. We can trust God to always keep His promises because He is always faithful and trustworthy. He is faithful to keep His promises to both the faithful and the wicked.
Jesus is the greatest gift we can ever receive. Have you trusted in Jesus to save you?
Have you ever made tried to make a painting or a batch of cookies, only to have something happen that messed up those plans? Have you ever spent hours designing and building the perfect fort out of blankets and chairs, or the perfect Lego creation, only to have your dog or your little brother break it to pieces an hour later?
We want our plans and our creations to work out perfectly, don’t we? But that doesn’t always happen.
We have seen how God perfectly designed and created the world around us. Adam and Eve were the first two people God created to enjoy his beautiful world. God designed the garden to provide perfectly for all their needs. God placed a special tree in the garden called the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” God told Adam and Eve that they could eat of any tree in the garden except for this one tree. God wanted Adam and Eve to trust and obey Him.
Satan, disguised as a serpent, tempted Eve to disobey God. Rather than trusting God’s goodness and honesty, Eve chose to believe the serpent’s lies. Both Adam and Eve ate from the tree that God had told them not to eat from. They made a choice to disobey God, to sin against their good and loving God.
A perfect world became a broken world and every single person since then has been born a sinner.
God taught Adam and Eve that sin is costly. Their sin separated them from their loving Father and one day it would cost God’s Son, Jesus, His very life. That act of love by Jesus on the cross provided forgiveness for Adam and Eve’s sin, as well as for your sin and mine, but God wants us to trust and obey Him, like He wanted Adam and Eve to trust and obey Him.
Do you believe that God is always good and true? Do you believe in Jesus as your Savior?
Thank God today for sending Jesus to earth to die for our sins and to be resurrected to eternal life.
On this first day of advent, let’s think back to the very beginning, when God created everything. God created everything by the power of His voice. God created light. God created land and water, animals and man. God created all of this out of nothing, simply by His spoken word.
God created all of this in only six days. Think of how long it takes for a baby to grow in his mother’s womb. Think of how long it takes to build a house. Think of how long it takes for a tree to grow tall. Yet, God created the world and everything in it in only six days with only His spoken word.
God created the world that mankind would know how wise and good and powerful He is. The Heavens indeed declare the glory of God, but so do the incredible creatures that God made. The beauty of flowers and butterflies, giraffes and elephants and pandas, declares the glories of God.
God had a plan for everything He made. God’s marvelous creation all works together. The air, the water, the soil and the sun all work together to sustain life on our planet. Plants and animals, too, work together in an incredible way – again giving glory to God.
God had a plan for everything He made, but His greatest plan of all was His plan to meet our deepest need by sending his son, Jesus. Even before the creation of the world, God planned to send Jesus to earth one day. Almighty Jesus humbled Himself willingly, leaving heaven to be born as a helpful baby. And at the perfect time, Jesus came to earth to live a perfect life, performing countless miracles in front of hundreds of eyewitnesses, proving His power and divinity. Our good Savior died on the cross for our sins, and was raised back to life to live again for eternity. The beauty of creation all around us reminds us of the beauty of our creator’s plan for us.
God wants YOU to know His son, Jesus. Remember … Christmas is all about JESUS!!
Hi! I love to make cool charts on the computer. We used one similar to this all summer, but I just updated it a little for the schoolyear. For perspective, I have a 16 year old daughter and a 13 year old son.
All three of us(that includes me!) choose chores from this list. The daily morning and afternoon chores are completed every day, but the chores on the bottom half are completed over a week. I hope this makes sense – I didn’t type any instructions on the chart.
I laminated the chart and put it up. Every day / week we mark off what we’ve completed until it’s all done. If we don’t finish something during the week, we will use Saturday morning to finish it. This means a clean house every week. YAY!
I’d love to hear your suggestions or questions. Feel free to comment below.
For two and a half years I’ve followed the ‘I do, We do, You do” principle when teaching English as a Second Language classes online.
First, I model what I expect my student to do.
Then, we do it together.
Finally, my student does it on his own.
In teaching my daughter to drive, I am also following this same principle. First, she watches me drive. Then, she drives while I sit alongside her, giving lots of instruction. Next, she drives while I sit quietly, only offering suggestions when it is absolutely necessary. Finally, after months behind the wheel, she’s ready to drive on her own.
A good master craftsman ought to follow this very same principle with their apprentice. My aunt and uncle are expert potters. When I spent the summer at their home many years ago, they encouraged me to watch carefully while they told me what to do. Then, they gave me some clay to work with while instructing me every step of the way. And, at last, I was free to create my own work of art.
In our modern American society, I see so many ways we’re forgetting this wonderful principle, both as parents and as disciple-makers. As parents, we often turn the reins over to our children way too early. We let them pick what they wear, what they eat, and what they do as soon as they can squawk out their wishes. We fail to train and model for them properly. On the other hand, we might spend all our time lecturing our kids, without working alongside them, modeling for them how to make good decisions or accomplish household tasks. Rather than spending time doing household chores with our kids, we’re busy working in the kitchen or the yard, while they’re busy doing homework, playing sports or hanging with their friends.
As disciple-makers, we need to be careful to begin by modeling how we pray, how we study the Bible, and even how we share the gospel. Then, we pray together and study together and share the gospel together. Initially, we share lots of instruction and do most of the talking, gradually decreasing our input and encouraging them to increase their output. This is the best way to train our children to train their children. And, this is the best way to train new believers in how to walk the walk of faith.
Jesus washed His disciples’ feet Himself first, then urged them to do likewise. Paul poured faithfully into Timothy and Titus and many others, modeling for them and training them, and then sent them out to do likewise.
We, too, can go and make disciples! We, too, have been called to be integral leaders in the multiplication of the kingdom – whether at home or in our world.
“You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”
John 13:13-17 ESV
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
Matthew 28:19-20a ESV
“I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me. That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.”
1 Corinthians 4:14-17 ESV
“Command and teach these things. Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
1 Timothy 4:11-16 ESV
“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”
Titus 2:3-5 ESV
“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”
1 Timothy 1:15-17 ESV
For more study, search the words: imitate (imitat**) and example. Read through Paul’s letters in the New Testament paying special attention to how Paul encouraged and admonished those who were following him to follow Jesus and to set an example for others. (such as 1 Corinthians 10:1-12, Philippians 3:12-17, 1 Thessalonians 1:6-10, 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15)
One year ago, September 15, 2019, I was watching my kids on the shores of Pensacola Beach. My oldest had a new love interest and we were there visiting him. They’d met online that summer. He’d come up to visit us once and now it was our turn to go down.
Somewhere in the last 365 days, that love interest turned into husband, and that oldest daughter moved south to be with him, and that idyllic seashore turned into a hurricane landing spot.
We never know what the future holds, whether abundant blessings or heartrending tragedy, but we can be sure of this: Our Heavenly Father is good. Our Heavenly Father is all-powerful. Our Heavenly Father is listening and watching and taking care of us every single day of every single year. He is worthy of our trust and adoration.
It is so easy to grow weary. It is so easy to think that life is without purpose or meaning. Yet, the light shines in the darkness. The Lord gives strength to the weary. In His mercy, the Lord opens the eyes of the blind, the ears of the deaf and the hearts of the captives.
I find encouragement in knowing that our Heavenly Father never grows weary. In my weariness and weakness, I am able to recognize the enormity of God’s power.
God alone is almighty. He alone is outside of time and space. He alone is able to do everything and know everything. He intentionally created me to need food and rest, that I would recognize my humble state and praise His almighty glory.
So, today, sisters, let me encourage you. Do not grow weary of well-doing. God is not finished with you. In this world you will have trouble, but you can take heart because Jesus – Son of God and Son of Man – has overcome this world! This world is temporary, but the new heavens and new earth are eternal. Do not work for the food that perishes! Instead, work for the treasures which are everlasting. (John 6:27) God Himself is your peace in the storm, the giver of every good thing.
We are together in this earthly journey. Let’s encourage one another as we see the end drawing near. As my Chinese friends say, “Jiayou!” (Keep going!)
All glory to His Almighty name
TWIG
“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 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 40:28-31 ESV
“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 ESV
“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”
Galatians 6:9 ESV
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.”
Every single human being on earth has been created in the image of God, but not everyone is God’s child.
God only has one begotten Son and His name is Jesus. The rest of us must be adopted into His family.
God’s children will demonstrate their intimate relationship with their Heavenly Father by loving and obeying Him, especially in their love for one another.
Are you His child? Welcome, my sister! Welcome, my brother! Let’s be family!
Are you not His child yet? May today be your day of SALVATION! Please come. Please seek His face. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you ought to do today.
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
John 1:12 ESV
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Galatians 4:4-7 ESV
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.
Teach What is Good 
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