Good day dear friends. Yesterday we started a mini-series on Growing Great Families and the first sermon was called "Seeding Good Values in Your Kids." The text is a well-known one from Proverbs 22:6: Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray. So, this week the emphasis for our devotions will be on parenting, grandparenting, etc., trying to have a positive impact on the children with whom we are in contact.
For today here is our study guide:
Monday: Re-read the Genesis 3 story of God and His creatures.
Using The Message version of The Bible here is that passage:
1 The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: "Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?" 2 The Woman said to the serpent, "Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. 3 It's only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, 'Don't eat from it; don't even touch it or you'll die.'" 4 The serpent told the Woman, "You won't die. 5 God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you'll see what's really going on. You'll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil."
6 When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it - she'd know everything! - she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate. 7 Immediately the two of them did "see what's really going on" - saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves. 8 When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God.
9 God called to the Man: "Where are you?" 10 He said, "I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid."
11 God said, "Who told you you were naked? Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?" 12 The Man said, "The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it." 13 God said to the Woman, "What is this that you've done?" "The serpent seduced me," she said, "and I ate."
14 God told the serpent: "Because you've done this, you're cursed, cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals, Cursed to slink on your belly and eat dirt all your life. 15 I'm declaring war between you and the Woman, between your offspring and hers. He'll wound your head, you'll wound his heel."
16 He told the Woman: "I'll multiply your pains in childbirth; you'll give birth to your babies in pain. You'll want to please your husband, but he'll lord it over you."
17 He told the Man: "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree That I commanded you not to eat from, 'Don't eat from this tree,' The very ground is cursed because of you; getting food from the ground Will be as painful as having babies is for your wife; you'll be working in pain all your life long. 18 The ground will sprout thorns and weeds, you'll get your food the hard way, Planting and tilling and harvesting, 19 sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk, Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried; you started out as dirt, you'll end up dirt."
20 The Man, known as Adam, named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living.
21 God made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them.
22 God said, "The Man has become like one of us, capable of knowing everything, ranging from good to evil. What if he now should reach out and take fruit from the Tree-of-Life and eat, and live forever? Never - this cannot happen!" 23 So God expelled them from the Garden of Eden and sent them to work the ground, the same dirt out of which they'd been made. 24 He threw them out of the garden and stationed angel-cherubim and a revolving sword of fire east of it, guarding the path to the Tree-of-Life.
As a parent, God sought the best for Adam and Eve. What are your thoughts about how God “did?” Was God successful by human standards or did God fail? OR did God just do what He could and left it up to the free will of the “children.”
I think this first story shows a lot. With God's marvelous creation of these two humans, came free will and with that free will the tendency to want to disobey. And given the choice between doing what God wanted and what they wanted, guess which they chose? Aren't we no better most days? Overall, I affirm that God did "good." Re-read chapter one and see how the writer of that chapter inserts that in almost every sentence. "God saw all that He had made was good." We start out "good" but given freedom to be on our own, we choose "bad."
Compare this to your family situation. How are you doing? How did you do as a “child”? How are you doing as a parent?
I believe most parents try their best as they should and never give up loving their children. But with that love should come the strong grounding of love and faith as illustrated by the use of the kite in both services. If a child were left to him or herself and allowed to be tossed about by the winds of life, it would never soar. The child would just be battered and bruised. Given a strong "holding" as the young man at 8:30 said, the kite can soar high!
If we weren't grounded as children in God's love and guidance, it's not too late. We can still seek that which daily reminds us of God's great love for us.
PRAYER: Gracious and loving God, we thank you for loving us. We thank you for our parents and their efforts to try to ground us in You. We pray a blessing on those who didn't or wouldn't try to share that with us, forgive them, love them and allow us to do the same. Our prayer is that you would be with new parents and young parents, that efforts to ground their children would be for Your honor and glory. And we pray for ourselves that this day and this word would serve to ground us and hold us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Have a great and blessed day!
e.v.
