Sunday, March 22, 2009

Teaching Sunday School Today, etc.


I had fourteen precious children today in my Grade 4 and 5 class. They didn’t do their homework and didn’t have their agendas so I improvised.

I felt to teach them about how to have miracles in their lives. Miracles are a fruit of intimacy with the Lord Jesus. So we looked up Psalm 100:4 where it says, “Enter His gates with thanksgiving in your hearts, enter His courts with praise. We will say, this is the day that the Lord has made, and we will rejoice and be glad.” (my paraphrase) To apply this scripture, we praise the Lord till Holy Spirit leads us to worship, then we worship till His manifest presence shows up and then we stand and receive all He has for us. 2Cor.2:16-18 says we are transformed from glory to glory as we behold Him or stand in His presence. Hallelujah!

We, His sheep hear His voice (John 10:27) and the voice of a stranger we will not listen to (John 10:6) So we cry out to the Lord, “Talk to me Lord! You promised that we would hear Your voice and we are hungry for You. Thank You Lord for speaking to us now.” Then we pause and listen. Then we check with Holy Spirit, “Is this what You are saying, Holy Spirit?” and we ask clarifying questions.

The kids were listening and I was so blessed.

I then taught them the number one reason why people don’t receive in church. Are you curious? Jesus nailed it when He said, “that a prophet is with honor except in His home town.” (Mark 6:1-8) Familiarity is the number one reason people don’t receive. We look at people through our physical eyes, with all their imperfections and don’t honor Holy Spirit, who is working through them. We can’t receive from people we don’t honor. Holy Spirit doesn’t work that way. I believe that’s why the Apostle Paul said that, “from here on in we judge no man after the flesh.” (Rom 14:13)

Then we did a word search on Proverbs chapter five (their homework text) and those who wanted to, read verses from the chapter out loud.

We then blessed ourselves using my book, “Bless Your Children Every Day,” by Ruth Swope. Many of the children had never heard of this so I explained Matt 12:35-37 where we have the choice to speak words of life or death and how they affect us. I could see revelation in some of the children’s eyes.

Our classroom was so crowded that we took a break and played dodge ball in the gym. I put one of the young men in charge and when the kids started fighting about the rules we decided to go back to the classroom. He was upset about how it went and I told him that’s how teachers feel some days. They have all these great plans but they can’t do them because one or two won’t follow the rules. That "hit" him because normally he’s the one causing the disruption. (Go God!)

So we had about 5 minutes left till the end of the service, so I asked the kids if they knew how to bless people. They didn’t so I gave them a couple of pointers. First make sure your heart is “love, wanting the very best” for the person. Then throw away all your preconceived ideas about the person and ask Holy Spirit for what HE wants to share with them, to encourage them. Then I demonstrated how to do it. I was able to break curses over one young man by doing it generally, for the whole class. Then I spoke blessing over all the children. I got told to tell one child that he was a mighty man of God and that he should look in the bathroom mirror every day and say,”Thank You Jesus that I am a mighty man. “ Another young girl had a teaching gift with the anointing of compassion that I called out for her to recognize and receive. In all about five children were specifically blessed. Hallelujah!

It was an awesome time. The service was extended and the parents were receiving in the sanctuary. The children were getting restless so I let them make paper airplanes and I told them that they wanted their parents to receive from God, because the more they received, the more they would become better parents. (more light bulbs going off in their heads. I love it.)

The young boy that I broke the curses off did such a one eighty, in behavior and attitude that it made me cry at God's goodness. He immediately took an interest in the lesson and stood close to me the rest of the service so that I could bless him again and again. Thank You Lord for keeping him free! To God be all the Glory!

It was a great morning. I met someone after the service that had a sore throat so Tricia (my daughter) and I prayed for him and rebuked that cold and loosed healing. We claimed, “Supernatural lubrication on his throat and vocal chords so he can preach and teach 24/7.” Amen.

Then at the grocery store I met a lady from work that had a pinched nerve in her neck. I asked her if I could pray for her and she said okay. So I told her that by the stripes of Jesus she was healed and I asked her to agree with me for the Lord to heal her. (Isa 53:3-5) Hallelujah, I know God’s working in her life. I told her to say “Thank You,” and that I would pray and God would heal her.”

Holy Spirit was happy so I wasn't worried about my preaching. We get better with practice.

Yay God! Now that’s living. He always answers the prayer, "Here I am Lord. Please use me today." And it’s only 3:30 p.m. There is lots of time to do stuff with the family and find time to go worship and praise Him. I love being His favorite mug! (2Tim 2:20-21)

Bless You, in Jesus' Name!

1 comment:

Brenda Gale Thompson said...

Special thanks to the people who prayed for me this morning. God answered!