We Are God's Workmanship

One of my favorite ministries is discipling the kids at New Day. After three years of working with our older kids, I'm now working with the middle kids. They are a little more challenging than the first group because they wiggle a little more and do not have a long attention span. But, at the same time, it is a privilege to be given this opportunity to invest in their young lives. 

Some times they are even standing on their heads when I am teaching.

Our focus since January has been Ephesians 2:8-10, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no man can boast. For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

We first focused on verses 8 and 9 and the gift of salvation being something that we don't deserve, don't earn, and cannot boast about. We emphasized that our good works cannot save us. 

In the last month we have focused on verse 10. We looked at the good works that God has prepared for us to do even before we were born. We've talked a lot about people in the Bible who were called by God to leave their home, often not by choice, to do good works that He had prepared for them.

We looked at the story of Moses and how God's plan was for him to grow up away from his home in a palace so he could learn the ways of the Egyptians and be prepared to lead the Israelites out of slavery. He did not make the choice, God did. 

We looked at the story of Esther, an orphan, who left the home she knew with her cousin Mordecai to become the queen so that should could save her people from destruction. She was not orphaned by her own choice, did not even become the queen by her own choice. It was all part of God's plan for her life to do the good works He had prepared for her in advance. 

I often wonder what great plan God has for these girls who have all been chosen to live at New Day.

We looked at the story of Daniel and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who were taken from their home to Bablyon where they had to make tough decisions to stand up for what was right: to not eat the food forbidden by God, and to not bow down to the golden image. Going to Babylon was not their choice, but it was all part of God's plan prepared in advance for them. God had good works for them to do in Babylon so that His name could be made known. 

I think about these boys who have all, in some way, been taken away from their home to live at New Day. God has a special plan for each of them. 

We looked at the story of Samuel, and how he too was taken from his home to live in the temple. It was not his choice, but it was all part of God's plan prepared in advance for him. In the temple he learned to listen to God's voice.  


We looked at the life of Jonah and the plan God had for him. But because he did not like God's plan, his life got all twisted up and we all know where that got him.

The game of Twister helped us introduce the lesson on Jonah and what happens when we don't want to follow God's plan.

We also looked at the story of Samuel, and how God's plan for each of us is to learn to listen to God's voice. We had fun listening to different sounds downloaded from the internet. Some of the sounds they were familiar with, others they had to be told what they were. Samuel didn't know God's voice at first, he had to be taught by Eli, who knew God's voice. 

I love discipling these kids because it keeps me on my toes. These lessons are a great reminder that God has a great plan for our lives that started before we were even born and continues on throughout our lives no matter how old we are.