fruitland community

Children's Ministry - Short Term Memories 3

AWANA started the spring semester last night, with 37 clubbers and bunches of leaders eager to learn God's word. I am so proud of all clubbers and their willingness to learn and grow in their faith, as well as just come and have a fun time. We started our 'Donation Battle' for Helping Haiti earthquake victims, and our total for last night was over $30.00. I am pretty proud of that, considering that we just started it last night, and most of the clubbers are just finding change around the house or cleaning out their piggy banks. I am excited to see what the next three weeks holds for this.

Lesson - In Children's Church we talked about Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. We focused on all of the different temptations that we as kids (if only I was a kid again) face on a daily basis. Some of them ranged from stealing and lying, to arguing and listening to our parents. We had groups act out different temptation skits. We then talked about why this story was in the Bible, especially since it was Jesus who had to relay this story to his followers (since he was alone when he was tempted, no one saw this first hand). We concluded that the real lesson in the temptation story is that Jesus gave honor to God during the temptations. He didn't say 'Get away from me Satan, I am the Son of God!' or 'Satan, don't you know it is I that the prophets are talking about in the Old Testament?', but rather Jesus focused on God and how the different questions Satan raised went against what God had commanded. Jesus' focus was on God, not himself. We took away the fact that we should also do the same during temptation, placing the focus on God and honoring Him rather than the temptation or any power that we may have to overcome it.

Please remember to pray for all of our kids this week as they face temptation for every side.