meditation

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Pickled

Key Verse:

[Psa 119:15 NIV] I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.

Additional Verses:

Psalms 1:1-3; Joshua 1:8

Materials Needed:

  • 1 Jar of pickle “chips” (or enough for each person to have one pickle plus a few for you to use)
  • 1 Cucumber sliced into rounds (or enough for each person to have one slice plus a few for you to use.
  • Condiment cups to fit one pickle and one slice of cucumber (one per person)
  • A slotted spoon that will fit in the jar
  • Paper towels (to clean any mess)

Preparation:

Before class, remove some of the pickles from the jar, leaving some pickles behind as well as the pickle juice.  You will use this jar to dip the cucumbers in.  Pre-slice your cucumbers into rounds and dip them for a second into the pickle juice and take them out.  Create a sample for each person to taste by placing one pickle slice and one cucumber slice that has been dipped into condiment cups.  Lean the slices away from each other in the cups if possible so the cucumber doesn’t take on too much pickle flavor.  


Object Lesson:

Do you guys like pickles?  Who can tell me what a pickle tastes like?  (Allow for answers: salty, sour, tangy).  Now did you know that a pickle is just a slice of cucumber?  If it’s just a slice of cucumber, where does all of that flavor come from?  (Allow for answers).  That’s right!  It comes from the pickle juice which has some vinegar, spices.  How do all of those flavors get inside of that cucumber?  Well the cucumber slices have been in this pickle juice for a long time, so long that they have absorbed all of the flavor of this pickle juice and they have been transformed into a tasty pickle.  That’s called marinating.  The cucumbers have been marinating in this pickle juice so much that they have taken on its flavor.  

In the Bible, in Psalms 119:15, someone prayed this to God “I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.”  That word meditate is kind of like the word marinate.  Meditating means that we think about something over and over and we focus on it and we try to absorb its meaning.  Kind of how these pickles have marinated in the pickle juice and absorbed the flavor.  What the Bible is teaching us here is that we should read and think about God’s Word a lot and meditate on it and figure out what it means and we should consider God’s ways so that we can truly become more like Jesus.

Sometimes as Christians, we don’t spend enough time meditating on God’s Word.  We might go to church once in a while, but then we skip a few weeks or maybe we intend to read the Bible every day but we only get up early enough once a week to do it.  Then we wonder why we aren’t getting stronger in our faith and not being transformed.  

That’s like taking these cucumbers and dipping them in the pickle juice and then taking them right out (drop a few cucumbers in the liquid and take them right out with the slotted spoon).  Do you think these cucumbers are going to taste like pickles?  Let’s see.  (Hand out the samples).  Wait for me, we will eat them together.  Let’s eat the pickle first.  (Eat the pickle). Wow! that has so much flavor, it’s so good.  Now let’s try the cucumber that was only in the pickle juice for a second.  (Eat the cucumber slice).  Does it taste as flavorful as the first one we ate?  No!  Why not?  (Allow for answers).  That’s right, because they haven’t spent enough time in the pickle juice to absorb its flavor, they haven’t had the time to transform into a pickle. See, we need to spend a lot of time in God’s Word, reading it over and over and thinking about it so we can absorb it and understand its meaning and allow it to transform our lives.

Hearing God’s Voice

Hearing God's Voice

Key Verse

John 10:27

Additional Verses

John 8:47; Jeremiah 33:3; Romans 8:14; Luke 11:28; Hebrews 2:1; 1 Kings 19:12

Materials Needed

  • Radio. Any kind of radio would work, but this works best with the older analog radio dials.

Object Lesson

Has God ever spoken to you before? A lot of people claim that God talks to them and tells them things, sometimes it is true and sometimes it might be something the just made up. God does speak to us though! He usually speaks to us through His Word, the Bible, and He speaks to us in a “still small voice.”

When God speaks to us usually the clouds don’t roll back and we hear this loud booming voice from the sky. It is a quiet voice that we hear inside of our soul, however it is not always easy to hear. We have to really tune in and listen to hear from God.

(Take out the radio.)

Have you ever used a radio before? Sometimes it is nice to listen to the radio because there are all kinds of music and shows on the radio, but what do you have to do to listen to it? You have to tune in!

(Turn the radio on and start to roll through the channels. You can make comments on it as you go. Once you have done this for a few moments, turn the radio off.)

As you see there are many different voices on the radio, some are good and some are not so good. You have to tune in to the good voices, the ones that you want to hear.

We all want to hear from God, but a lot of the times we are actually listening to the wrong voices. There is so much noise in our life, and so much static that it is really hard to hear what God is trying to say to us. What do we need to do? We need to tune our lives to God and be quiet so we can actually hear Him.

In John 10:27 it says that God’s sheep know His voice. That means we are tuned to hear it. Just like a sheep can know their shepherd’s voice we can learn God’s voice. If a stranger comes up and tries to lead the sheep somewhere bad do you think they will follow? No! Because they know their shepherd’s voice.

How do we tune in and start hearing God’s voice? We learn God’s voice by reading the Bible, memorizing and meditating on it. When God speaks to us it will usually be through His Word, and it will never go against what it says in the Bible. The more we learn about God’s Word the more we learn to hear His voice.

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