Teaching Notes

My daughter did this drawing and it is titled "New Life of Me". What instantly stood out to me was the pink was replacing the blackness and I thought about this lesson.  God wants to remove the hardness (callus) from our hearts, which is what makes our lives black.  He wants to give you the "new life of me".  He want to replace darkness with light.  Will you let him?

Worship is Important to God

Deuteronomy 30:6-7 (The Message)

6-7 God, your God, will cut away the thick calluses on your heart and your children's hearts, freeing you to love God, your God, with your whole heart and soul and live, really live. God, your God, will put all these curses on your enemies who hated you and were out to get you.



Notes: The children of Israel were being given a promise that God would come and gather them from the places where they had been scattered because of their disobedience.  This part of the scriptures gives them the promise that God would cut away the thick calluses from their hearts so they could love God with their whole hearts and soul and live because of this freedom God would give them.  The people would be able to really worship God.  Worship is really the act of showing one (that being God) that you love them, adore them and respect them.  The people were not able to truly worship God before because their hearts were not right.



Question: What do you think it means to be callused?



Answer: A callus is a piece of hard skin around an area.  Sometimes we call that skin a "corn".  It is hard skin that has built up and the area is no longer soft.  The area has also been built up with this hard skin causing the "corn" look in that area.  What the scripture is saying is our hearts have been callused or hardened because we have allowed things to built up in it and now you cannot get to the core of it.  It will take something to remove that hardness so that the soft, subtle skin beneath can be seen.  God does not want our hearts hardened because when they are we cannot truly worship him freely because there is too much in the way for us to be able to do it.



Prayer: Lord help me today so that no hardness will prevent me from worshipping you.  I want to worship you freely and live because it is in the ability to truly worship you that life comes to the worshipper.