God Calls Us

God calls to Abraham but Abraham is afraid and does not trust God. Then Abraham tries to take matters into his own hands but every time God does what he said he would do. Even today God still calls us but a lot of times we don’t hear him. We have to look for clues and hints that God is calling us but we have to be patient because it won’t be easy. I picked a telephone as my visual aid because I think that it’s like how God calls us, we have to listen and we choose if we want to follow God kind of like what Abraham did with God he heard him but decided not to do what God told him to and took matters into his own hands. Also Sometimes you don’t hear God like sometimes you don’t hear a telephone when it is ringing.

Slavery and Salvation

Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers but in the end, he saves his family from famine. Moses would probably get killed but instead leads Israel out of Egypt. Joseph was sold into slavery but God helped him save his family from famine. Also, Moses was a slave when he was very young but lead Isreal out of Egypt. God says in the bible I am who I am and God is faithful and unchanging. I think that my visual aid helps because Moses and Joseph were slaves and that’s what the handcuffs represent and the key is God and he is going to let Joseph and Moses free. What I learned is that sometimes God puts you in bad situations but if you stick with him God will turn things around for the better. Today this does not mean much since there is not a lot of slavery but it is a good lesson because maybe God will put you in a bad situation that will turn out for the better.

Covenant

A covenant is an agreement between someone or something. God made a conditional covenant with us saying that if we obey him he will bless us but if we don’t there will be consequences. There are two types of covenants, conditional which means that if you do this then I will do this sort of thing, and unconditional which is when I would do something for you no matter what. For my visual aid, I picked a slot machine because you make a covenant with the machine which is that if you give the machine money you get money back if you get all sevens or something else. What I learned is that God makes covenants with us and we should keep up our half of the covenant. Today this means that you should keep your end of the covenant or you won’t get what you wanted from the other person.

Salute to a King

The cycle of the judges kept on going on and on what would happen is that everything would be going fine then Gods people would start to sin and drift away but then God would have a war so that the Israelites came back to him and cry to God and finally God would send a judge to the Israelites. In the end, people saw that other nations had a king so they know wanted a king. What happened was everyone did as they saw fit and they wanted a king so the got a king. I think that my visual aid fits in because you always want what other people have so if you don’t have a big house and you see people who have big houses and they seem happy you’re probably going to want a big house too just like the Israelites and then the other person would get an even bigger house and you would want that. They saw that every other nation has a king so they got a king. What I learned from this is that you should always do as God sees fit, if God says that you shouldn’t get a couch don’t get a couch.

Symbol of a Lamp

God promises to send a savior to us through the line of David, and as a symbol, God uses a lamp since that was the only way people could see if there was no sun. David is a man of Gods own heart but he still made mistakes and did bad things. The line of David leads to Jesus who is the one who will save the world and the only sinless person. For my visual aid, I put a picture of street lights. The reason I did this is that nobody really uses lamps anymore to see in the dark but if they walk along a road there will probably be street lights and that’s how you would see like how Jesus is our light, and the street lights would just keep on going and going. What I learned from this lesson is that why they kept saying that Jesus is a lamp and not just that he is a light.

Something is Rotten

Israel had one bad king after another, none of the kings they had were good and then finally one king decided to worship baal. So God sent a judge Elijah to go talk to the people of Israel to show them who the real God is at Mt. Caramel. Elijah said to everyone”How long will you waver between two gods” when Elijah said that the people went silent. Then Elijah made a miracle and everyone saw but that didn’t change the opinion of the people and they kept worshiping baal. I think my visual Aid fits in because Elijah said pick one God to worship and the fork in the road is kind of a symbol that you should pick one God to worship instead of changing your religion to make it so you can worship two Gods. I learned that maybe God will put you in a different place with different people to make a change but that does not mean that the people will believe differently.

Slide to Destruction

Israel had one good king but all of the rest of them were bad kings and did bad things and then the Assyrians scattered them. Judah had two good kings but the rest was bad and the Babylonians took over. The kings of Israel and Judah confused popularity with power so they did bad things to make people like them. The kings didn’t focus on God’s laws but instead, they focused on popularity even though God had people like Elijah go and tell the kings what they were doing wrong. The nations had consequences for doing it their way and not Gods way. I think that my visual aid fits with this topic because flies are attracted to artificial light and like the flies the kings wanted popularity (which represents the light) and they didn’t care about God’s law then once the fly touches the bug zapper it dies. That’s the same thing that happened to Israel and Judah, the kings did more and more bad things and then Babylonians took over and Assyrians scattered them. What I learned is that you can’t get too caught up in being popular and should do what God wants instead of doing what you want.

A Savior

The people of Israel could not keep the Sinai covenant so God made a new one where a savior would come and save them. Instead of the covenant being written on stone tablets it would be written on their hearts and no more animal sacrifices because Jesus is the only sacrifice that you will ever need. Jeremiah was a prophet and told the people of the new covenant that they would be saved. The covenant was called the Davidic covenant and did not have any conditions, God would save them by sending a savior. Isaiah was also a prophet and gave people an image of the savior that they could relate to but today we probably would not relate to those images. I think that my visual aid fits with this topic because every time we do this in church it represents Jesus sacrificing himself for us and the covenant that God made with us. I learned that the reason for the Davidic covenant is because Israel could not keep the Sinai covenant.