Grace Bible Church - Baytown, Texas

For the past several months, we have been working through a unit on the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.  We are so excited about this study - there is really no limit to what we can learn from the example of our Savior as He lived on this earth.  Jesus Christ is the God-Man, and so (of course) there are many ways in which his life is exceptional and different from our lives.  For example, we can't personally perform healing miracles, and certainly can't die on a cross as payment for anyone's sins!

But, we often forget that although Jesus' life was exceptional, it was also very ORDINARY in many, many ways.  Jesus was a carpenter, and worked for most of his life in a blue-collar job.  He grew up from a child to a man, just like any other person.  He had close personal friends, whom he loved and spent time with.  He had enemies who opposed him.  He had to eat, drink, take care of hygiene, sleep, and do any number of other "normal" things.  In short, Jesus was 100% human man, and shared the same trials and experiences that we do (Hebrews 4:15).

What can we learn from the "ordinary" parts of Jesus life on this earth?  Well, many people (even Christians) live two separate lives - their "spiritual" life, which includes things like praying, going to church, and reading the Bible, and then their "regular" life, which includes going to work or school, doing chores, watching TV, making dinner, etc.  But this separation of life is NOT taught in the Bible!  As Christians, we should allow the Gospel and the teaching of the Bible to influence EVERY PART of our lives.  We should not "check off" our morning prayer and Bible study, and then "move on" with the day.  On the contrary, the more we learn and understand about the Gospel, and about who Jesus is and what he did for us, the more that understanding will influence everything we think and say and do.  There are many examples of this:

  - When we go to work or school, we can share our faith with others.
 
  - When we are spending time with friends, if truth from the Bible is on our minds, we will find those things overflowing into our speech.

  - When we do chores or cook dinner for the family, we don't have to think of these things as "drudgery".  If we are filled with the Holy Spirit and acting out of a desire to love and serve our family, then these simple, boring tasks are actually an act of worship that glorifies God!

If we stop to think about it, most of our time in life is spent doing these simple, routine tasks.  Don't we want to "redeem this time" (Ephesians 5:16) and make it worth while?

Parents: Talk to your kids about ways that they might forget about obeying God during the normal, routine activities of life.  Talk to them about how remembering to do these simple things with a heart of love and obedience while filled with the Holy Spirit can actually make these things less boring!  Help them see how wonderful and important it is to glorify God through the little details of life.

Memory Verse:
"So eat and drink and do everything else for the glory of God."  - 1 Corinthians 10:31 (NIRV)

Message from Mrs. Cloudt

In our continuing study of the life of Jesus we covered the death of John the Baptist and Jesus' handling of his grieving disciples.  Of note ask your students about:
1.  How did John the Baptist handle his disciples leaving to follow Jesus?
2.  Why did John the Baptist die?
3.  What is the significance of Jesus' handling of John's disciples to us today?

How would you like to grow up in a Palace where a king lived? Have you ever wondered how it would be to live in the White House and what it would be like to be the President’s child. How/where would you play? Could friends come to see you? Where would you go to school? Would it be a special school with the very best teachers? Would it be an ordinary life like all other American children have?

Today, we have the story of a baby boy who was born to an ordinary family in an ordinary house. In fact, his family was in slavery – in Egypt! And besides all that, the King Pharoah who did not know how great Joseph was 400 years before, thought these Jews in slavery had too many babies, so he decided to have all the baby boys under 2 years old to be killed. Well, Baby Moses’ mother loved God and knew that God had a plan for her baby, so she just placed him in a little basket boat that would float and let his sister watch it, like a good babysitter would.
 
Because of this, the King’s daughter, Hatshepsut, heard him cry and retrieved him from the boat and adopted him. So Moses grew up in the Palace and had no ordinary life. He had special teachers, and learned skills from art, music, and architecture that most other children never heard of.

We know that GOD WAS IN CHARGE OF GUIDING MOSES’ MOTHER, SISTER, HATCHEPSUT, THE KING OF EGYPT when they didn’t even realize it. And God is in charge of us, too. He knows what we desire and if we desire God’s perfect plan He knows it, even when we don’t know how to pray for it, the Holy Spirit knows and takes care of us.

PARENTS: We are studying “What God is Like” and are using Biblical examples of how we can know this. In this lesson, we see, so clearly, how God guided the life of Moses, even when he didn’t realize it. God, in His Omniscience, knew what his mother had in her soul. God knew how this baby needed to grow up and what would be in His soul, so He chose Him. This study, found in Exodus 1 – 2, shows us how God’s people, the Jews, were slaves in Egypt. The historical background for this is found in Genesis, where 400 years before that time, Joseph, one of Jacob’s sons (Jewish Race), was brought to Egypt, and because of his wisdom and relationship with God, caused Egypt to prosper beyond all comprehension and had food enough to spare for the entire known world at that time. Because of the famine in Canaan (Gen. 37 – 48) Joseph had his family moved to this land of Egypt. There were only 70 in his clan at that time, but the setting of our story today is 400 years after that time and "his clan" was now approximately 2 million. So you can see why the king – Pharoah – took a dim view of these (hated) Jews and enslaved them, working their “fingers to the bone”, so to speak. He did this to keep them from reproducing children. However, that didn’t seem to stop their population explosion, so he decreed that all male babies under two years of age be slain. The story of “Baby Moses and the Bulrushes” is widely known, but the message accompanying this "Guidance-by-the-Lord" of Moses is not what is customarily remembered. Truly, it is a story of God’s Matchless Grace: His Omniscience – knowing the past, present, and future; His Sovereignty over human affairs and His Divine Intervention on behalf of those who love and trust Him. This is  precisely the record of the faith of a mother, obedience of a sister, Miriam, and the Plan of God for the adult, Moses, and who he would become. His life is seen in three segments of 40 years each: the first 40 years in the Palace, the second 40 years in the Plains of Midian as a shepherd, the last 40 years as a leader of God’s children out of slavery into freedom, and back to their promised land, Canaan.

It behooves us, as adults, to realize and KNOW BEYOND KNOWING that Jesus Christ controls the affairs of men and He is in control of us! Be it known that your children are getting the beginning increments of God’s Plan for them, but the daily love, correction, training falls on your shoulders as their parents.