HAVE YOU EVER...heard a good Bible story?

My favorite, favorite thing about my perfect job is that I get to tell Bible stories every day!  I just finished studying the transfiguration with a friend of mine.  When I sat down to look at some of my lesson plans, I noticed that I had purposefully skipped the story of the transfiguration.  Why don’t we talk about this more?  Why did I skip it?  Well, I teach preschoolers and it is a big concept.  Even so, I am known for saying that preschoolers have much more potential than anyone thinks.

Some religions even celebrate the transfiguration.  The coolest part about the transfiguration is that God spoke.  Peter is talking about building some tents and is completely flabbergasted when God speaks. 

God did not just speak audibly all of the time in the Bible, let alone the New Testament.    My favorite Ooooo! moments are when he spoke to Jesus.  His baptism with the trinity present.  Ooooh!  John 12:28, during his last week before the crucifixion.  There was Paul on the road to Damascus.  Others were visited by angels, sent by God.  Some were sent dreams from God.  Awesome, but in the transfiguration, God spoke!

I heard Beth Moore preach about this once.  She said that we cannot learn when we are talking.  She said this was “a holy shut thee up!”  Luke 9:35 says that God enveloped them with a cloud and said, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” Oooooo!  Listen to him!

Do we shy away from God’s word, when it is hard to understand?  I am going to be working the transfiguration into my lesson plans next year.  I want my kids to learn how to listen to God speak.

HAVE YOU EVER listened to him?

Proverbs 1:33, 2 Peter 1:16-18

HAVE YOU EVER...loved your enemy?

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.  Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.  Luke 6:35

At school, we just talked about how disobeying God is doing the opposite of what he wants us to do.  It is not easy to do what God wants us to do all of the time.  Especially, when God calls us to love our enemy or even just our neighbor.  Even so, God works in our lives even when we tell him no.  We can learn about this from Jonah.  My favorite part of the Jonah story is how the people on the boat learned about the one true God when he caused the storm and miraculously stopped it too. 

There is more.  Jonah is a prime example of crabby obedience.  I find myself saying yes to God, but griping the whole time too.  Jonah preached to the Ninevites and they were forgiven, even though they didn’t deserve it.  Then Jonah goes and pouts about it.  God sends a plant to shade him in his sulking, and then sends a worm to kill it too. 

I have a terrible green thumb.  My green thumb is nonexistent.  I kill all plants.  When I try to grow them or people give them to me, they don’t last long.  I have a few plants around my house that are HEARTY!  I don’t know why they are still alive.  Every time my mom visits she says, your plants need watering.  Even my youngest son has started to take the initiative. 

God tells Jonah that he did nothing to keep the plant alive!  He did not plant it or grow it himself.  Why was he so upset?  He was having crabby obedience. 

Then the LORD said, “You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there.  It came quickly and died quickly.  But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals.  Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?”

JONAH 4:10-11 NLT

Most translations say that the people of Nineveh couldn’t even tell their left from their right, comparing them to children.  Would you wish harm on children?  Shouldn’t we be seeking people out like this?

God calls us to obey him.  God calls us to love everyone. 

God calls us to preach his word to EVERYONE!  God calls us to do it with joy!

HAVE YOU EVER had joyful obedience?

Psalm 16:9, Luke 15:7

HAVE YOU EVER...seen the 'Bible'?

I am sure many of you have watched ‘The Bible’ on the History channel over the last month.  I love to “see” how people portray God’s word.  Many with good intentions have made movies about the Bible.  Others had no intentions; maybe money, but still it had to have sewn some seeds. 

So, the show is 2 hours each time it is played.  We Tivo it and watch it later.  Tivo is a way to usually fast forward through the commercials and save time.  Watching ‘The Bible’ still takes us at least 2 hours to watch.  We are following along with our “real” Bible’s from our phones to remember the true stories and compare.  I am thankful for the discerning heart the Lord gave me. 

The second episode had the story of Lot.  It didn’t tell the whole story and what was shown was not how I have always pictured it, but Lot’s wife is what stood out to me.  God has been teaching me to be more of a submissive wife.  This woman was not portrayed as submissive in any way.

The book of Genesis tells us that Lot’s wife; who is nameless, was a Sodomite.  We learn that Sodom was a horrible place.  So horrible that God eventually sends down fire and brimstone from heaven to destroy it.  First mistake, Lot married a woman from Sodom.  Second mistake, they had two daughters.  Third mistake, Lot’s wife turns back to look at the city of Sodom after a warning from the angels.  They save her family, but the mistakes continue even after she is gone.

Legacy.  The Moabites and the Ammonites.  Lot and his wife’s daughters were Sodomites.  Then their grandchildren became more “bad -ites”.  You can read the terrible story in Genesis.  My point is that even after she was gone she left a dreadful legacy.

Lot’s wife turned back and turned into a pillar of salt.  Are you looking back at your mistakes or looking forward to what you need to be preparing for your family? 

Lot made mistakes but was said to have a righteous soul.  My husband makes mistakes, but I know he has a righteous soul.  I pray that the two of us with God are creating a great legacy for our two sons?

HAVE YOU EVER thought about your legacy?

Proverbs 22:6, Ephesians 5:24-25