Have you ever wondered if it’s really all that important to read the Bible with your family?

Could it really be a part of God’s plan to study the Bible with your whole family?

Is it even possible to read the Bible with all your kids at the same time?

As homeschool parents, we do have the opportunity to spend our Bible time with all of our children at once. Not only does it make the process easier–it looks pretty biblical, as well.

Why Read and Study the Bible with Your Whole Family?

I always like to look to God’s original design when considering how we should function in our lives.

Just like God established the church, he established families—and he directs families to worship together.

In the Old Testament, as we see in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Joel, families are called to stand together for the public reading of God’s Word—even the smallest people.

While Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women, and children, gathered to him out of Israel, for the people wept bitterly. – Ezra 10:1, ESV

In Ezra, children were included in the assembly of the Lord.

And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the Lord had commanded Israel. So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law. – Nehemiah 8:1-3

The book of Nehemiah also describes children in the assembly, listening to the Book of the Law of Moses. Nehemiah 12:43 refers to children rejoicing with the people.

…gather the people.
Consecrate the congregation;
assemble the elders;
gather the children,
even nursing infants.
Let the bridegroom leave his room,
and the bride her chamber. – Joel 2:16, ESV

In Joel, the assembly even includes nursing infants.

Not only are we to worship our Lord together in the larger body of Christ. We are also called to worship God as a family. Deuteronomy chapters 6 and 11 have, perhaps, some of the best known, direct commands to do so.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. – Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Grab your FREE Bible Study Tool Kit–over 130 pages of Bible resources for your family!

Read the Bible with Family

• That God’s Word is important
• That we can learn about the Bible together, and from each other
• That our family has committed “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15b)

There is great value, too, in being able to guide our kids through the Bible. We want to be able to help point them—over and over again—to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

• It is so vital that our kids learn who God is—that he is sovereign and holy.
• They need to know that we are sinful and that our sin separates us from a holy and just God.
• We want to communicate over and over again that God loves us so much that he had a great plan for our salvation since before the beginning of the world, and Jesus—God the Son and the Son of God—became fully God and fully man so he could live a sinless life and take the punishment for our sins.
• We need only to believe on him and confess in with our mouths, turning from our sin—repenting—and we will be saved.
• We also want our kids to understand Jesus’ commands to his followers.

Not only can we study the Bible as a family, it is really important that we do. Our kids need our guidance and support understanding the most important book in the universe.

Danika Cooley’s book Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible is your crash course on teaching the Bible to your kids. Danika is an award-winning children’s author and Bible curriculum developer, and her popular Bible Road Trip is used by tens of thousands of families.

Learn more about Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible and grab your free 130-page Bible Study Tool Kit here.

The post Why Read and Study the Bible with Your Whole Family? first appeared on True Aim.

I was given these product for my honest review and am excited to share my experience as well as an awesome giveaway! For more information please read my full disclosure.

What are Gifts that Give Back?

You are doing double duty when you buy gifts that gives back. They are companies that give a portion or all of their profits to a charity.

Logos trading post does just that. Part of their proceeds go to support missions and buy Bibles for people in Asia Minor. Not only that, each of their products is made with the goal of spreading the gospel from the people who make them, to people who are given them, and even more, to people who see them as a result of your gifting.

Logos Trading Post

The mission of Logos is to spread the Gospel! Inspired by the beautiful Turkish rug, these Christian Gifts are also made in Turkey. My favorite gifts are the handmade serpentine stone cross necklace and the traditional Turkish style bookmarks. They are gifts that my friend who have everything will appreciate. They also carry so much more, including coasters, placemats, mousepads, and Christian Movies.

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The post Christian Gifts that Give Back – Buy a Gift and They Give a Bible first appeared on True Aim.

This post is sponsored by World News Group. All opinions are my own.

We already have a curriculum for science and geography, but like to supplement with different materials to add interest and make the topics relevant to our children’s lives and the world around them. It is difficult to find science materials that have a biblical world view. That’s why I’m so excited to have found God’s Big World magazine.

God’s Big World Magazine

Each month kids get a taste of different experiences from around the world. Each magazine is broken down into bitesize 8 lessons that are the perfect length for preschool and early elementary students.

The text is easy to read for beginning readers and includes more information for parents to help expound the subjects for their students. Plus, there’s scripture that relates to what you’re reading on every page.

There’s also puzzles and activities included in every lesson. My daughter really liked the big map that came with our copy, so we played a little game. We searched the magazine for states and countries and marked them on the map to see how many different places were mentioned.

You can also go online with your subscription and get more information for each lesson with simple videos. Download extra activity pages for multiple students from the site too!

This is the perfect solution to adding supplemental material to your homeschool science or geography curriculum, or turn it into your weekly lesson for preschool and kindergarten!

I can’t wait to see what is in next month’s magazine, and my kids are already begging to see more of the videos online.

Click here to save 15% on a yearly subscription!

World News Group Magazine Freebie and Giveaway!

Download a FREE copy of God’s Big World here! If you have older children, you might like WORLDkids or WORLDteen.

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The post What Can a Kids Magazine Subscription Do For Your Homeschool? first appeared on True Aim.

But this isn’t a happy post. The fall has come much sooner than I expected, and I can see a bitter winter approaching.

There are hints of it on the news, from time to time. A few months ago, an Oregon couple lost their bakery because they were Christian. It struck me because I too am a Christian business owner. Today I read that a Christian woman named Kim Davis is sitting jail for her Faith; a Faith that I also share.

This post is sponsored by the NRLC. All opinions are our own.
Don’t miss the GIVEAWAY at the bottom of the post!

A few years ago, the Obama administration targeted a homeschool family and set the legal precedent to ban homeschooling. And just last week, a mother told my wife that we should not be “allowed” to homeschool our children because our Faith is “hateful” and shouldn’t be taught to children.

A blizzard of tyranny is coming. Can’t you see it, now?

I warned you. I wrote a book to warn you. But perhaps you didn’t have time to read it. I understand. You were too busy living your life, you said. I used to respect that.

We work our jobs; we go to our Churches; we raise our families; we homeschool our kids. We don’t have time to protest. We don’t have time for politics. We are too busy.

But guess what? Those who hate us and hate our way of life, hate our homeschools, hate our Faith, and hate our God, they make the time. They are motivated. They know how to fight, and they aren’t preaching tolerance anymore.

They are getting us fired from our jobs, attacking our Churches and organizations, redefining our families, and they want our kids back in their schools! Our Faith, Families, and Freedom are hanging on edge.

Enter to win at the bottom of the post!

I used to believe that I was safe because I live in Idaho, and we are certainly a “red” state. Then I heard the history of the Shippy family.

In 1985, they tore this family to pieces right here in Idaho. The Shippy family (three brothers and their wives and children) didn’t kill anybody. They weren’t a threat to anybody. They just had religious convictions and saw a government school leading their kids astray. The Shippys felt they could do better for their kids at home. And they did. Their kids were thriving at home.

But that wasn’t good enough for the officials. Kids weren’t allowed to learn at home; they had to learn at school… or try to learn at school. Homeschooling was a terrible crime.

No one could claim that the children weren’t doing well. No one could say that the Shippy kids weren’t learning at home, and learning much more than they had in school. No one could point out instances of neglect or abuse.

Still, that didn’t stop the authorities from claiming they had to intervene for the “good of the children.” And so, the three mothers and three fathers were arrested and thrown in jail. Again, “for the good of the children,” the Shippy kids were forcibly removed from their home by armed deputies, separated from each other, and scattered among various foster houses. Breastfeeding babies were deprived of their mother’s milk, once again “for the good of the children.”

Then something really terrible happened. Cecilia Shippy, a mother of eleven children, suddenly died. She died alone, separated from her husband who was still in jail.

If this was all “for the good of the children,” the public could no longer see it. The authorities hadn’t killed her, but suddenly people could see plainly the blood on their hands. And from this great tragedy, a greater cry of Faith, Family, and Freedom was raised. It was raised so loud and so high that today, Idaho is the freest state when it comes to homeschooling.

Can you imagine the horror these mothers, fathers, sons, daughters and babies went through as they were ripped apart? Yet, the authorities would have us believe that tearing a family apart was a lesser evil than letting that family educate its own children. It was not progressive, it was not tolerant, it was not liberal; it was Tyranny of the highest order.

I was born in 1985, the same year that the Shippy children were abducted by the government for homeschooling. I was being brought into a world where Faith, Family, and Freedom were openly trampled. Yet, while Cecilia Shippy did not live to see the victory she won, here I am exactly 30 years later, homeschooling my kids and loving it! Thank you, and God bless you Cecilia, and your beautiful family. I am sorry that more haven’t heard your story.

But, I’m not here to celebrate because tyranny didn’t die in 1985! It is back in style. And once again our Faith, Families and Freedoms are in danger. We are going to need the next generation of Shippys to stand the next wave of tyranny down.

The good news is that the Shippys were only six adults fighting for a right nobody had heard of. We aren’t just the Shippys anymore. There are millions of us now who have tasted the greener grass, and we aren’t going back!

And we certainly aren’t sending our kids back! We are going to come out swinging. And this time, we aren’t going to let them take our children, we aren’t going to let them put us in jail, and we aren’t going to wait for a mother of eleven to die to turn public opinion. Oh, and we aren’t going to “stand our ground,” we are going to take ground. We are going to rip ground out from underneath their feet!

That is what we should do, anyway. But whether the tyranny movement will be met by a stronger Faith, Family, and Freedom movement really depends you. United we stand, divided we fall. Will you join our ranks?

If you want to preserve your Faith, Family, and Freedom for your children’s generation, please attend or share the National Religious Liberties Conference. This is the organization we needed to bring us together to fight for our religious freedoms. Victory won’t happen without you! And as the Shippys proved, the battles we win and lose today will have a lasting impact.

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The post Are Our Freedoms Hanging on the Edge? first appeared on True Aim.

They are going to crucify him in the media, and ruin his entire family if they can. They hate him, and now that they have him, they are going to finish him.

Yet, I’m not here to defend Josh; I don’t know him, never watched his show, can’t tell you what type of person he really is, and only God knows if he is truly repentant or just sorry that he got caught.

But the media isn’t really after Josh, are they? Since when have they cared about porn? Since when have they cared about adultery? When their own Lena Dunham admitted to molesting her sister, they came in droves to defend her (for the record, I think both were wrong, but since they were both “children,” I don’t know that it is fair to call either a “child molester”).

Josh is being nailed to the wall by these people, not because of what he did, but because of what he stood for – Faith and family values. In ruining Josh’s reputation, they hope to further erode the faith and family movement.

But Josh was right and his story proves it! Josh went around the country claiming that adultery, pornography, child-molestation are evil, and lead to destruction. Isn’t that exactly what has happened to him? His secret sins and lusts have devastated his family, and ruined his reputation. Had he lived the family values he was preaching he wouldn’t be in this terrible situation.

However, as far as discrediting his Faith, the opposite is true. I do not know a Christian in the world who claims perfection. The Apostle Paul writes, “It is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” (Romans 7)

Josh is a Christian man, raised in a Christian home, admitting he is addicted to porn. That is how powerful and dangerous pornography is.

Now, if men raised in Christian homes were the only ones addicted to porn, then the media would have something. They could say “See, those values lead to lust and adultery.” But that isn’t the case. Pornography is rampant in the US, and around the world. Christians rally against pornography precisely because we see that it is a dangerous temptation for us, our spouses, our sons and daughters, and our neighbors and their families.

It is not hypocritical to profess a “moral ideal” that we know we can’t keep, but it IS hypocritical to claim a “moral ideal” doesn’t exist simply because we can’t keep it. To the world, lust is an indulgence, to the Christian a temptation. Still, our society loves to fling temptation into our faces, and then condemn us when we join them in their indulgences.

Now,  as far as the media’s attempt to discredit our Faith because of Josh’s moral shortcomings, nothing could be more sinister and dishonest. Christianity has never claimed to be a religion of morally perfect people. In fact, it makes the exact opposite claim. It claims that all of us are sinners in need of a Savior. Josh proved that!

Christians already knew Josh was a sinner from the beginning. We certainly didn’t need the media to tell us that. Now we know to what extent, but our message remains the same: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23)

There are consequences for sin, and Josh is going to suffer those. Yet, what he has done proves all the more that America needs to embrace “family values,” and that we all are in need of a Savior, Jesus Christ, who paid the penalty for all sins, even terrible ones like Josh has committed.

To the Christians who are crushed by Josh’s shortcomings, perhaps you have created an idol of him? You were right to expect better, but Josh is not our spokesman – Jesus Christ is. And Jesus will not let you down!

The post Josh Duggar was RIGHT! What He Did Proves That first appeared on True Aim.

There were a few close calls. One time he was strung out for a week solid. He started hallucinating and seeing aliens and star people. I was tempted to question his lifestyle, but his bloodshot eyes looked deep into mine and he said, “Look at me. You think I would chose this lifestyle? This is how God made me!” What a great point. No one would choose to live like that, so it must be how God made him.

A month later he lost his job because his boss was bigoted against stoners. I can never understand hate like that.  My stoner friend said Jesus wants us to love and accept everyone for who they are. I could see he was hurting, so I told him that I loved him and offered to buy his next fix.

Okay, so that story is only half true. I did have a friend hooked on drugs, but of course, I didn’t support his choice. Precisely because I did love him, I rejected his lifestyle.

Yes, there were times when it offended him, times when he thought I was being “judgemental,” and intolerant. But guess what? When he needed help out of the lifestyle, he didn’t go to his supportive friends; he came to me.

The other day I spoke out against an even more destructive lifestyle, homosexuality. And guess what, someone called me “hateful.”

Do you know what the attempted suicide rate is for homosexuals? It’s about 30% for gays and 43% for transgendered. But the real killer is desease. For example, roughly 2% of Americans are infected with HIV, and homosexuals account for 61% of those infected.

The drug rates are just as high, with about 30% of homosexuals abusing, compared to about 9% of heterosexuals. And for all the talk of “love,” homosexuals are far more likely to commit acts of domestic violence.

Although the name “gay” suggests otherwise, they are also far more likely to suffer from depression and mental illness.

The list goes on and on, proving that few lifestyle choices could be more destructive than homosexuality. Most advocates will admit this, but say that it is all the result of society not accepting gays.

Nice try!

People have been persecuted and oppressed all throughout history. And I’m not talking about micro-aggressions and name calling. I’m talking about Christians being hunted down and burned at the stake for their beliefs!

And guess what, no evidence suggests that these persecutions caused suicide, domestic violence, drug abuse, or disease. In fact, they often had the opposite effect.

As Christians we know that all lifestyles that run counter to God’s design lead to self-destruction. Look at hollywood. They have all the wealth, and glory, and fame that the world has to offer, and yet we find a common theme of abuse, suicide and depression. Society loves them, so what is their excuse? The truth is, genuine happiness is not found in any lifestyle apart from our Creator.

And so I have to ask, who is the true homophobe? – the true gay-hater? The progressive who encourages gays on to their destruction, or the Christian trying to show them a better way?

The post Christians Aren’t the Ones Who HATE Gays first appeared on True Aim.

This never used to bother me; it didn’t bother my parents; it didn’t even bother my preacher. If I missed a Sunday or two, he might inquire where I was, but when told him that I had a sports competition, he’d smile approvingly and ask how it went. So long as I wasn’t out shopping for a new Church or forgetting to tithe, it seemed there was no harm ignoring the Sabbath from time to time.

Things began to change when I started teaching Sunday school. Being the teacher forced me to make the Lord’s day the priority each week, whether I wanted to or not. It was then that I finally saw the spiritual necessity of the Sabbath.

It is so easy to get lost in life’s endless details. God knew this from the beginning, and that is why He set apart the final day of Creation, making it a holy day of rest and reflection. God didn’t need to rest or reflect, but we do.

Jesus says, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). So, when you skip the Lord’s Day, you aren’t just blowing God off; you are starving yourself spiritually. When we allow our children to skip the Sabbath, we are starving them as well.

Children from good Christian families are disappearing for several months at a time during certain sport seasons. It isn’t healthy; our youth’s spiritual malnutrition is leading to spiritual death. Roughly a third of Americans under 30 are now atheist or agnostic.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Church will continue to lose this war, precisely because Christians value the company of cheering fans, to the fellowship of Communion. The only question is whether or not your children will be among those lost.

Keeping the Sabbath

Now, please don’t think that I am suggesting bringing your kids to Church is a spiritual cure-all. It isn’t even close. But I will say, that in the few years that I was a Christian Education Director, I could see a huge difference between the spiritual maturity of Sabbath-keeping kids versus Sabbath-breaking kids.

It seems that in our desire to not be “legalistic” like the Pharisees, we’ve allowed ourselves to pick and choose which of God’s laws we are willing to obey. And that is just what the Sabbath is, God’s law.

Now someone is going to say that the Sabbath is Old Testament Law and we no longer have to obey it. Really, then why did the early Church feel the need to honor the Sabbath? Why did God set apart the Sabbath at Creation, if he only intended ancient Hebrews to honor it? And are we to disregard the entire Ten Commandments, or just the Sabbath?

These were all questions I had to ask myself. Even though I knew the answers, it took my family several years to truly fall into the habit of honoring the Lord’s Day above all else. And to be honest, we still fail from time to time. However, honoring the Sabbath has been a life changing experience.

Tips for Keeping the Sabbath with Kids

If you would like to do a better job obeying the 4th Commandment, here are some tips and suggestions that really helped our family.

1. A Full Day: The Sabbath was meant to be a full day of rest and reflect. It wasn’t something you squeezed in before work, or after the football game. We decided to start our Sabbath at 12 A.M. Sunday morning and end it 11:59 P.M. Sunday night.

2. No Work: We have decided not to conduct any business on the Sabbath, (if we can help). This involves a lot of planning. Since we have a home business, it is really tempting to do catch up work on the Sabbath.

Eventually we managed to put all our business dealing, even urgent ones, aside until Monday. But then we did something even worse.

My wife and I began to subconsciously save regular housework, like laundry and mowing the lawn for Sunday. This allowed us to give more time to the business during the workweek, and then catch up on the housework on the Lord’s Day. This might have been even more disrespectful to God, because now instead of letting our important business ruin our Sabbath,  we were letting petty chores consume the day.

So, the new rule is that we do NO work, period, on the Sabbath, except cooking and cleaning up after ourselves (dishes, sweeping after meals, cooking). This has made it a true day of rest.

Now, if you work for a company that requires you to work on Sunday, this may not be as easy. I believe that professions that involve Emergency Care (Nurses, Doctors, Police, Soldiers) are probably fine working.

If you don’t work in those fields and your employer won’t give you the Sabbath off, then you might try finding another job that will. If no other jobs are available, then you have to provide for your family. I believe the Sabbath-breaking will then fall at your employers feet, not your own.

Also, I do believe that work for the Church and mission work is permissible on Sunday. Jesus himself implied that it was permissible to do good on the Sabbath. So, urgent charitable work is fine.

3. No Buying: We do all that we can not to buy anything on Sunday. We do not want to support businesses that have employees breaking the Sabbath. We do shop at those businesses, but not on Sundays.

4: Family Time: Keeping our family together is something that we feel is important on Sunday. We don’t usually allow our children to go to friends on the Sabbath.

5: Activities: On Sunday, we try to keep the focus on God in all of our activities. We have our kids read the Bible or Christian books. If they watch a movie, it has to be a Bible show. Sometimes we take the time to make cards for a orphan that we support, or encouraging cards for friends and family members. They are lots of possibilities, we just try to keep it Christ-centered.

6: No Sports: We do not play or watch (organised) sports on Sunday. I am not saying that you can’t; I’m just saying we don’t. Remember we try to keep our activities God-centered. Since our kids are young (our oldest is 7), this isn’t too hard. I realize as they get older the pressure to compromise will be intense, but the greater the sacrifice the greater the meaningfulness.

7: Special Day: Janine and I do what we can to make Sunday a special day. We usually cook a special breakfast and wear our best clothing the entire day (when it makes sense to). We don’t want our children dreading the Lord’s Day; we want them to look forward to it.

8: No Substitutes: The Sabbath is about making God our chief priority in life, so it kind of defeats the purpose when something comes up and we “reschedule” our Sabbath. God’s time shouldn’t get bumped to another time, or another day, because we have a soccer game to attend. God is the priority, period.

There are hundreds of tempting ways to get around the Sabbath. You can do work that you call “relaxing.” You can point to God when you score a touchdown, and pretend that you are breaking His commandment, for His sake. You can squeeze in a quick Bible reading at halftime, and pretend it is the same as communing in Church with other believers.

There are many ways to “cheat”  yourself out of your Sabbath, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Breaking the Sabbath will hurt you more than it hurts God.

And if you won’t keep the Sabbath for your spiritual well-being, do it for your children’s. They need to see your faith and commitment. The world will offer them a million God-substitutes. Show them, by your example, that nothing can replace God!

The post Keep the Sabbath for Your Kids’ Sake first appeared on True Aim.

Because our society is in the process of turning its back on God, keeping the sabbath is not easy. To the rest of America, the Lord’s Day is just another day. If you want to raise your children in the Lord, the Sabbath is a must; it is God’s weekly devotion. Don’t try to replace it with your own version. God’s knows your family’s needs better than you do.

So, what is the Sabbath and how can we keep it in today’s secular world? The Sabbath is one day in seven to rest and worship God. It is a whole day, not a Church service.

Keeping the whole Sabbath used to be a big struggle for me. I’d wake early and work, go to Church (where I often daydreamed about work) and then returned home and continued my work. I wasn’t keeping the Sabbath; I wasn’t giving that day over to the Lord. I was checking a spiritual block and then returning to my ‘pressing’ work.

If you want to keep the Sabbath I’d recommend sundown Saturday night to sundown Sunday night. That is a full day and I promise, God is worth it.

If we want our children to respect the Sabbath, then we have to set the example. I recommend that parents try not to work on Sunday, unless your work is in emergency care. Jesus says that, “It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” So, when we talk about work, we are talking about working for our own benefit.

When I first attempted to take the Sabbath more seriously, I resolved NOT to work on my business on Sunday. Then I did something worse. I worked hard all week, sometimes 16 hour days, only on my business. So when Sunday came around all the house and yard work had piled up and I used “my day of rest and worship” to catch up on it.

Instead of doing petty chores during the workweek, I was saving them for the Sabbath, again putting my work ahead of God.

It is funny how hard we try to find a way around honoring the Sabbath when the Sabbath was created for our own benefit; honoring God is what we were made for and when we do it our lives work better.

There is no job, no soccer game, no football game that can fill that void. The minute you start compromising, cutting the day short, substituting days, claiming work is rest for you, redefining work, you begin to destroy the Sabbath for yourself; and you and your family suffer.

Activities to Do with Your Children on the Sabbath

1. Pray – Make 3 prayer lists. One of things to pray for yourself, one of things to pray for others, and one of people you want to give their lives to Jesus.

2. Fast – Choose 1 meal to skip and give the money to those who are in need. This is one of the hardest things for children to do, but the impact is greater.

3. Sing – It keeps the house joyful and pleases the Lord. Psalm 9:2, “I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High.” Some of my favorite songs are here and we also LOVE Songs for Saplings.

4. Read – Of course your Bible would be a good pick, but also anything that glorifies Him.

5. Watch – A Bible Movie after reading are great to help kids remember the lesson and we highly recommend watching a movie about Eric Liddle (aff. link), who wouldn’t run in the Olympics on the Sabbath.

More Ideas for Day 7 of the Creation Story for Kids

Creation: Rest – No Sew Quiet Book for Toddlers

Creation Paper Plate Project

The 7 Days of Creation in Legos {Day 7 – Rest}

The Creation Story for Kids Series

The post The Creation Story for Kids: Day 7 – God’s Rest first appeared on True Aim.

I didn’t see this as a big deal because we are, after all, “ONE.” The problem was, we have different voices and unique tones. My wife’s tone is softer, gentler… just overall more gracious. My tone is more sarcastic, opinionated and aggressive. So, I wrote the post in my tone and then poor Janine got to handle the firestorm it created.

That is why I now have my own account on her blog. Some people loved my style, but others condemned my “unGodly” tone.

I disagree that all people, or even just Christians for that matter, must tow the same line, sound off in the same tone, and with the same talking points. I don’t understand this crusade to silence opposing views, tones, styles or voices.

I get more condemnation from people who share the same beliefs, but don’t like my tone than I do from people with opposing views. Of course, we cannot be all things to all people. There is no perfect tone that suits all audiences, all the time.

That is why it is so important to welcome all voices and tones that speak God’s truth.

But lately, people, especially Christians, seem to think that only a wimpy, soft, meek, and nice voice is Christ-like. They vehemently attack other Christians who dare raise their “off-key” voices. I know these people mean well, so instead of ignoring them, I want to make this appeal:

In the Bible, God used a myriad of different people, voices and tones to get His message across.

• Moses boldly commanded Pharaoh to release the Hebrew slaves and threatened him with plagues.
• David cursed the Philistines, and went on to cut their champions’ head off.
• Elijah sarcastically mocked the prophets of Baal.
• Isaiah walked the streets naked to get his point across (definitely not my style).
• Daniel was solemn and humble, quietly refusing to compromise his faith.
• Esther humbly begged for her people’s lives, not condemning the king, but pleading for mercy.
• John the Baptist publicly called out King Herod and condemned his adulterous affair.
• Jesus always acted in love, but rarely with the same voice. At one point he played with children, another time he healed the sick, another time forgave an adulterer, and on the cross, He forgave His own murders because they, “know not what they do.” This seems to be the only voice modern Christian accept as valid. But then there are Jesus’s other tones, like when he called the Pharisees “sons of Satan” and “whitewashed tombs,” chased people out of the Temple with a whip, shamed his disciples for falling asleep on Him, and told Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!”

Even Jesus had more than one voice and tone, yet who can say that they weren’t all in truth and love? You see, there is more than one way to speak the truth in love.

I encourage Christians to find their own voice, or voices; and not to condemn those who mean well, but speak the truth in a different tone.

What is your voice? How do you use it for God’s glory?

The post What’s Your Voice, or Voices? first appeared on True Aim.

Supplies for a Resurrection Craft

You’ll need: Scissors, a brad, coloring supplies, and this handy template.  Just click the image below.

You have two choices:

1.  You can use colored construction paper like I did below or,

2.  You can print it out on white paper and allow your children to color a scene around the tomb.  My oldest daughter likes to do this because she can draw animals and people that have come to see Jesus.

To make our “tomb”, we first painted our picture of Jesus.

I helped the children cut out the hole in the middle of the tomb.  Then, we cut Jesus’ picture out and taped it to the back.  Remember to score your paper for the brad so you can “roll away the stone”.

Place the extra circle over the hole of the tomb and fasten it with a brad.

After our craft we talked about the importance of Jesus rising from the dead.  Apart from Jesus’ being born, it is the most important event in the history of Christianity.

There are so many fun ways to introduce your children to the resurrection.  More importantly, don’t let them forget it!  If you don’t talk about it with them, then they won’t know why they are Christian!

What’s your favorite way to remember the resurrection?

The post Resurrection Craft for Easter first appeared on True Aim.