Finger Play: Four Little Leaves

Four little leaves (hold up 4 fingers)
Sitting on a tree, (put them on the back of other hand)
One fell off, (make 1 tumble down)
And then there were three

Three little leaves (hold up 3 fingers)
All yellow and brown,
One danced away (make 1 swirl away)
Down to the ground.

Two little leaves (hold up 2 fingers)
Waving in the breeze, (wave them about)
One flew off (make 1 fly away)
Away from the trees.

One little leaf (hold up last finger)
Left on the tree.
Said, “Good-bye, Wind,” (wave it good-bye)
and flew down to me. (fly down to chest)

Bible Verses for Kids: God has made me to laugh

And Sarah said, God has made me to laugh,

so that all who hear will laugh with me.

~Genesis 21:6

Family Devotions: The Lord Provides

So Abraham called that place, “The LORD Will Provide.”  And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD, it will be provided.”  – Genesis 22:14

It started off as the worst day of Abraham’s life.   His precious son – his only child – had been a source of great joy for a few years now.  God had promised that Abraham and his son would be ancestors of the most important person in the history of the world – Jesus, God himself. But then God threw Abraham a curveball.  A big one.  He asked Abraham to sacrifice his son to him.  It didn’t make sense AT ALL.  God created life, he loves life and he protects life.  God loved Abraham and his son deeply.  Why would he end Isaac’s life so soon?  How would he ever become a great-great-great-great-(fill in a lot more ‘greats’)-grandfather of Jesus?  Isaac was only a boy; he hadn’t had any children yet.

Yet Abraham trusted God and his promises.  Analyzing it all, Abraham concluded that God must be planning a resurrection of his son from the dead (Hebrews 11:17-19).  That was the only way, he thought, that God could fulfill his promise of blessing the whole world through the Savior that God promised would descend from Abraham through Isaac.  So he marched up the mountain with his son, ready to do what God commanded, because he knew that he could count on God’s unchangeable promises.

The LORD stopped Abraham before he harmed his son.  He also provided a substitute sacrifice – a ram.  What a breathtaking blessing!  Being able to sacrifice the ram instead of his son!  Abraham gave the special place a name.  He didn’t call it, “The worst day of my life” or “The day I almost lost my son.”  No, not a self-centered name.  Instead he called it “The LORD Will Provide.”

The LORD has provided for us, too.  He sacrificed his Son to die the death we deserved as sinners.  As sinners, we don’t deserve to have the favor of the LORD, yet in Christ we do.  We don’t deserve his forgiveness, yet in Christ it is ours.  The LORD has provided a substitute for us.  Jesus died to free us to live with the LORD forever.

Prayer:
Dear Savior, thank you for being willing to take the fall for what I have done.  What a heartwarming privilege it is to know that you paid for my sins in full so I don’t have to.  Amen.

WELS.net

Bible Stories for Kids: Noah’s Ark

A long time after Adam and Eve lived, the world became full of people. The world was also full of sin. One man who still believed in the promise of the Savior and obeyed God was Noah.

The world became so evil that God decided to destroy it. But he would save Noah and his family. God told Noah, “I am going to send a great flood. I will destroy every person, but I will save you and your family.

Then God told Noah just how to build a big boat with rooms in it for Noah’s family as well as many animals. Noah built the ark or big boat just as God told him to.

When the ark was finished, Noah took his three sons, their wives, and two of every kind of animal on the ark. God himself shut the door. Now the rains came down.

Click here to continue reading the Bible account>>

(click on picture to print coloring page)

Bible Stories for Kids: Adam & Eve Disobey

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ “

“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”   (click to read Genesis 3)

(click on picture to print coloring page)

Family Devotions: The Garden

A friend and I once decided to grow the perfect garden. We chose our favorite fruits and vegetables. We carefully planted the seeds and seedlings, imagining dribbly-sweet watermelon and butter-slathered corn on the cob. By midsummer our hours on the job, vacation time, and even some laziness had reduced our beautiful garden to a worthless joke. The hope of ripened produce was all but gone.

The Garden of Eden really was the perfect garden. God made “all kinds of . . . trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food” (Genesis 2:9). Rivers watered the garden and teemed with fish. Birds and animals thrived. God had made the garden both beautiful and useful. But even better than clear streams and colorful flowers was God’s presence. Since Adam and Eve were without sin, they could walk and talk with God face-to-face. That friendship was the heavenly Father’s plan for his children.

The perfect garden and that perfect friendship were ruined when Adam and Eve sinned. Their sin was no joking matter. God hates sin. It means death and eternal fire. And it is passed down from one generation to the next. We’re just as tainted by sin as Adam and Eve were. Yet God’s love didn’t leave us in our sin-infected mess. He sent Jesus to suffer and die so that we can inherit heaven—a place even more glorious than Eden.

In John’s book of Revelation, God gives us a beautiful picture of heaven. There God will walk with his people again. There we will live forever without sadness or pain.

My friend and I had high hopes for our garden, but we were disappointed. God’s eternal garden will not disappoint us. Jesus himself promises, “Behold, I am coming soon! . . . Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life” (Revelation 22:12,14).

PRAYER: Dear Lord, help us keep heaven’s eternal, perfect garden of God’s love in our hearts. Amen.

Parents Crosslink

Bible Stories for Kids: Creation of Man & Woman

The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.  The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Creation of Man and Woman (click to read Genesis 2:4-25)

(click on picture to print coloring page)

Bible Stories for Kids: Creation of All Things

Long, long ago there were no people or plants or animals. There was no sun, no moon, and no stars to be seen. There was no sky or earth. Only God lived.

God changed all this by making the earth, the sun, moon and stars. God made all things in a special way. The Bible, God’s Word, tells us how he did this. He made all things out of nothing. God was able to do this because he has almighty power.

First God used his almighty power to make the heaven and earth. But the earth he made was empty, dark and covered by water.

So God said, “Let there be light.” As soon as God said that, there was light. Now there were both light and darkness. God called the time when it was light “day.” The time when it was dark he called “night.” The time of light and the time of darkness were the first day.

On the second day God said, “Let there be a sky above the earth.” The sky he called “heaven.” It was like a beautiful blanket of air in which clouds could float. The sky covered the whole earth. << click here to continue reading >>

click picture to print a coloring page

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