Hi guys, this week’s lesson is called

Fear into Faith

Its on page 33.

Well I hope it is going to be. OK anyway

Im sure that all of you have some sort of fears. It could be

Yeah the list goes on.

So what do you when you have these fears? What do you do when you are inside a sinking boat? Where your worse fears and nightmares are coming alive right before your eyes

Well these are the most likely outcomes I can think of

You can trust in your own Armour your own power, your own human strategies to tackle the problem. OK I can do this, I can handle this storm!!!!! Time to kick some stormy butts.

You could be angry at the storm

whining about how unfair life is

You could just crumble under the pressure of the storm and just give up.

ok in some special cases you would be like

But whatever path you take. (No matter how much you run away or hide. It will come back.) It always leads you back to one point. You realize that the storm is too big. Your methods and ways are not working. You are going down.

And this is the point where God comes in. Faith begins when you see God on the mountain and you are in the alley and you know that you are too weak to make the climb up. You see what you need, you see what you have and you realize that what you have isn’t even to reach the top. And you know where you want to be. You want to be at the top of the mountain where you can have

This

And this

Lol, noooo you cant really have all this on the top of the mountain, but you get something way way wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better. You get the peace of God!!!!!!

So how do we get to the top of the mountain you ask? If my iron man suit can’t help me then what can? By now you should be in the eye of the storm, your boat is leaking and your captain has abandoned ship. Oh and you can’t swim by the way, and there is a giant squid in the ocean. So you are trapped in one corner, you have nowhere else to turn to. And you see God, he is standing there he is fine and everything over at his side is calm and ok. So ofcourse in your hour of need you turn to God. You beg for help, you hear his voice and he askes you to trust him, to have faith in him, to walk on water.

And then ofcourse you go: Jesus you got to be kidding me, there is a freaking giant squid in the ocean and you want me to go into the ocean?

That is what faith is. Faith is believing and trusting in someone or something. Even though every fiber of our body tells us that it’s not logical.

But the thing is guys, when we look towards God. When we look towards God, we realize so many things. Like how we are in need of a great Saviour and that we are not strong enough. We realize how awesome, strong and big God is compared to our problems and storms. If you think about it, God is in control of everything. There is nothing more powerful than God. So with that thinking you can have the faith that you not only be able to survive the storm but also we can also OWN THE S*** of that storm. Not by your own works but through God.

But then there is the next problem. How do I get faith? How do I strengthen my faith with God?

Romans 10: 17 says Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Chirst

The bible explains it very clearly that to go through life, we need to hear the word of Christ. We need to read our bibles, we need speak to God. We need to know God more. We need to know him inside out.

· We need to know how much he loves us, that nothing we ever do or could do will ever make him turn his back on us.

· How much we need him.

· How much God is, has and will go through everything for you.

All this amounts to Grace. And grace is this

Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8-9:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, its is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.

Grace is having faith in God and not by our own works.

So you got to feed on God's word more. We need to have an active relationship Its like taking booster jabs. I mean you are walking into an infested world, full of problems and storms. Do you happily walk into it without preparing anything at all? No right?

Well it’s a process of learning. It’s a process of breaking and moulding, breaking your pride and your doubts Haha which will take a life time to master. But everyday as you trust God more and more you will see that life is more like this

Ok bye guys, i hope this helped.

Dear Bro & Sis,

Are the two copies of Teaching to Change Lives I gave away being passed around? Hope it is man... I feel the need to reread it too =]

Peace in the Pain.


Personally to me, peace in the pain sounds rather strange. You’d be pretty twisted in more ways than one if you experience peace when you go through pain, be it emotional, physical or whatever. Luckily for us, that is more or less the world’s view and since as John writes as well in John 17, verses 11 and 16. It more or less sums up the phrase, “We’re in the World, but not of the World” Conformity can be a very comforting thought or gesture, but I guess nothing’s really that easy is it.
The examples given in the book are more or less sob stories about loss of parents, loved ones, boy friend girlfriend yada yada, can’t play basketball/sports anymore etc. Sure this sound kinda sad and somewhat relatable to, but it’s not much different from anyone watching an episode of Grey’s Anatomy or One Tree Hill.
I encourage you to share your personal stories be it the lowest of the lowest points in your life to them, your struggles, your heart aches, times when you felt like you’ve hit rock bottom, when you’re in desperation. Granted this may be very personal information that you’re sharing, but I believe it’s imperative in building trust with our kids, and I for one do share such stories with mine, though I suspect it kinda bores them.
Of course, the lesson also shares about how you should deal with these setbacks, comfort like how He’ll take care of those who are brokenhearted etc, the 3 verses the book gave on pg 31. Ultimately I’m sure most of the answers and solutions always boils down to how much faith you have. Though that is correct, I think it’ll be good too to perhaps share how you’ve got out of that hole or situation you were in like you shared earlier, kinda like the conclusion to that story.
The verses provided are powerful and relevant, however, sharing something from my own personal experience, James 1:2-4 gets me through a lot of times when I really don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel anymore.
“ 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. “
In conclusion, faith will definitely get them through, but it’s important that we set the foundations right, and strengthen their faith so that they may one day rely on it.
Know that along with most things, this isn’t a magic formula that will make their problems disappear overnight, but it’s a gradual process that will eventually be resolved in His time.
Sometimes, things really have to get worse before they can get better.
Thanks for reading, hope this helps.
- Leroy

My contribution... The Living God - yipeng

HIIII GUYSS!!! Kay after reading through, I kinda still don’t really know how to plan this plan. However, I hope all of us will use our personal experiences for this lesson cuz it’ll really encourage and excite our kids to wanna hear and ultimately obey His voice! So anyhow, I thought of some questions to lead this lesson. Hope it helpsss!
Here goes:

CONSTANT VOICES:
- Start by getting them to share the different kind of voices they have encountered in their lives.
Eg. (those that they gave in the book) ‘just wait till tomorrow’ etc.
- Ask them what they think those voices were.

Eg. Was it from themselves? Or the devil? Or God Himself.
- Ask them if they believe that WE CAN HEAR GOD’S VOICE TOOOO!:D (doesn’t have to be AUDIBLE, though there ARE ppl in life who can hear God auibly)

Conclude by telling them that the voices of the crowd are persuasive and clamor for attention. THEREFORE, we have to be careful of the voices we hear! There’re mainly 3 types of voice: our very own, the devil and GOD Himself=)
SO WHICH IS WHICH?????????

THE TRUE VOICE:
Please refer to the whole of John 10:1-21

Important verses to point out =v3-5, v14-16
- Basically, those verses show that WE are JESUS’ sheep and we CAN hear His voice and we need to OBEY that voice because He is a good shepherd
- However, how do we know that the voice we hear is Jesus’ and not any others? ( I think max didn’t really touch on this but I thought it’d be important) so anyway, ask them that question and the answer isss…..that it comes with practice! Ahha. We learn as we grow. Personally, it took me a while to even know that I can hear God’s voice and even when I’ve successfully heard His voice a few times, there were still times I recognised the wrong voice and ended up doing the wrong thing. So let’s warn our kids to be discerning also, it is only by hearing and obeying our true shepherd’s voice, can we receive the peace meant for us!

- Pause here and ask if they have any questions. Next, we can share our experiences of hearing God’s voice with them and get them excited and encouraged to wanna seek His voice!

- Next, I would like to jump to the ‘Jesus decision’ part of the book. Previously, I mentioned about how recognising God’s voice comes with practice. One of the practical ways to achieve that is to PRAY! Yayyy! Bring out MATT 14:22-23.

- Pause and ask them about those 2 verses. Ask them the questions given in the book.
I think max was trying to point out the significance of prayer, that through it, we’ll not just hear what He has to say but also experience the peace of God

- On the side note: we can bring out the
MARY AND MARTHA story of which, Mary did what was better by sitting at Jesus’ feet. Luke 10: 38-42. Often, we keep doing things/ministries, thinking that that’s better than praying. However, prayer is actually more vital than doing itself. Also, we can take this chance to tell our kids that if they are afraid to reach out to their non-Christian friends in anyway, maybe they should start praying and ask God to grant them the peace and courage to do so through prayer!

- We can then link this up to ‘BEST AMONG THE GOOD’ of the book. Sometimes we hear many (human) voices telling us to do this or that. Though everything sounds good and righteous, we have to bear in mind to also seek God before agreeing to any ministries/responsibilities. If not, we might become over stretched and this may even affect our walk with God drastically.

- Conclude with that line: sometimes peace comes from saying no to good things in order to choose what is better. Explain that we need to SURRENDER every of our desires to Him, in order to hear the TRUE VOICE and receive His peae.


Summary:
we really need to RECOGNISE God’s voice and OBEY in order to receive His PEACE! Yupppss! That’s all, thanks!:)


Okayys by now if you did not guess/forgot who planned this lesson... HAHA you should smack yourself sillyy!!! yeaps so thanks to yy for starting us off with this lesson :):):)

1. Imagine that today is the last day you will have on Earth. Are you ready to die? What are some things you would want to do before dying?