Wed Apr 22

Listen up, little ones

Especially for the littles in your household.

Listen for the words hands, knees, heart.

Reading

Isaiah 35:1–10—Strengthen the Weak Knees

Optional Reading

Hebrews 3:12-14

Keys for kids

Also for the littles. Young households might choose, after Keys for Kids, to go directly to praise and prayer.

Sometimes we take our eyes off God/Jesus.
When that happens, we get weak and shaky.
Christians are to strengthen each other in the Lord.

Questions

(Some read the ?s before the notes/ ask them after.)

What is the alternative to encouragement between believers?
Who is responsible for encouraging weak believers?
How has God used other Christians in your life to encourage you?

Notes

(See Saturday for authors.)

As we have seen in Heb 3, failing to hear God’s voice and respond in faith and obedience will result in God’s judgment. Isa 34:1-4 details some of that judgment on the nations. Here in Isaiah 35, we see the merciful salvation of God.

Isaiah calls on his hearers to rejoice in God’s gracious salvation. Lebanon, Carmel, and Sharon were renowned for their beauty, fertile and green. What was once barren wasteland will flourish like these places of beauty. We too, having been a wasteland of sin and death, are now being made beautiful in Christ.

So, we are to delight in God’s glory and majesty. But do we? Always? No. We at times get discouraged, distracted, disobedient. The spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak. What is the solution? Encouragement from one believer in God to another. The alternative is to be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness (Heb 3:13).

To be sure, we are responsible before God to walk faithfully in the salvation that is ours by faith. But the call is not only to us to walk with strong hands and knees and hearts—but also to us to encourage others to do so as well. Remind them in their weakness that their Lord is strong. Encourage them in their fearfulness that their God is faithful. Who have you encouraged today?

Swedish Method questions

See the Sunday notes for meaning of the symbols.

Praise

Psalm 133a, 2a

Prayer

Commit yourself in prayer to encourage someone today (or tomorrow), with God's help.
Pray for change in you from last Lord’s Day’s sermons.
Pray for a member of our church, for your family, and for a non-Christian friend/family member.