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LESSON 1: AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL

When we talked about loving God with our heart we referenced our personality and passions. That’s pretty deep. When we talk about loving God with our soul, that’s deeper still because our soul is the innermost part of who we are. It is used as a synonym for life, our life, our essence. It’s the part God created to last for eternity. Sadly when sin entered the world it separated our soul, our life, from God’s presence. We are eternally dissatisfied until our soul finds rest in Him. Why? Because before we accepted Christ our soul was enslaved to sin. We were longing for Him, for a perfect leader in this Quest called life. After we know Jesus our souls can rest because we have “returned to the shepherd and guardian of our souls” (1 Peter 2:25).

LESSON 3: MY GIFT OF LOVE

Loving God Is My Gift to Him

“So what’s on your heart this week?” Hopefully you have taken some time during our study to reflect on how to use your interests and passions for God. But what about when you see things in yourself that fall short of God’s standard? Do we assume we’re a lost cause and of no use to God? We cannot hide our good qualities or our failures from Him. He “alone knows every human heart” (1 Kings 8:39). But be of good cheer, the ungodly things I find in my heart bring me to Him in a special way, a humble way. I wish I could bring to Him a Great Commandment Christian-fully assembled and ready to serve, but I came broken and, though I’m not a slave to sin, my flesh still fights against my makeover. When I recognize this and grieve my sin then I am in a position for God to transform my heart. Yes, it’s uncomfortable, but the Lord promises that He is near to the brokenhearted.

LESSON 2: GOD’S GIFT OF WISDOM

Wisdom – God’s Operating System for Your Heart

About two years ago I started using a Mac laptop instead of my old PC. One thing that prompted that switch was the problems I was having with viruses on my PC. As it turns out, the Mac operating system is much less prone to virus problems. It does a better job on its own, without the expense of extra virus protection services, of keeping out unwanted and damaging material that could slow down or freeze up my machine.

Last week we talked about the good passions and desires that God has put in our hearts, let’s call them the pre-loaded software. We also talked about guarding our hearts from storing up ungodly things, let’s call them malware or viruses.

LESSON 1: START WITH YOUR HEART

For an Extreme Makeover: Start with a Heart Check

When Jesus gave the greatest commandment, He was responding to a scribe who was asking the most important question for someone who believes in the all-powerful God of the Bible. What does God want from me? Jesus was glad to answer. He quoted from Deuteronomy 6:5. The answer was simple but profound…if you want to know what God really wants from you, the answer is love – practical, everything I have and am, love – and it starts with your heart.

INTRODUCTION: THE GREAT COMMANDMENT

Introducing a Really Big Idea – The Great Commandment

Thanks for joining us in this quest to educate and challenge the children of our church. We want to give you a preview for the upcoming lesson. Any hiker worth his Gatorade looks over the map before he heads out. Our ‘Trail Guide Devotional’ gives you an opportunity during the week to think about the Big Idea and to look for ways that God is using these lessons in your own life.

LESSON 11: WISDOM IS AS WISDOM DOES

Character and a good name are built, not with increasing knowledge, but rather one choice at a time, one action at a time, one day at time. If you’ve ever learned to type you remember the hunt and peck phase. Struggling to not look down at your fingers, wearing out the backspace key, and breaking the auto-correct on your computer. If your work has forced you to keep at it, day in and day out, over any length of time, your fingers are now likely
flying over the keys as you bang out emails, reports, and social media posts. You may even be able to carry on a conversation with someone while looking at them and still be typing. How did you get there?

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ABOUT FAMILY QUEST: At Reston Bible Church, we firmly believe that parents are a child’s first and most important spiritual leader.  In order to support you that mission, we have created a parent devotional and some discussion starters to go along with each lesson your grade school age children are learning at Quest on Sundays. Our hope and prayer is that this material will help you to engage with your children around the topics they are learning on Sunday mornings, answer their questions, go deeper with them, and find real, day-to-day applications. We are honored to be able to partner with you in the critical task of sharing Christ with the next generation.

LESSON 10: WISDOM CHOOSES WISE FRIENDS

There are two lessons that we’d like to teach the children in this Quest. The first is how to be a friend worth choosing. The second is to choose their friends wisely. One of my favorite examples of friendship from scripture is that of David and Jonathan. Jonathan proved to be a friend worth choosing.

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ABOUT FAMILY QUEST: At Reston Bible Church, we firmly believe that parents are a child’s first and most important spiritual leader.  In order to support you that mission, we have created a parent devotional and some discussion starters to go along with each lesson your grade school age children are learning at Quest on Sundays. Our hope and prayer is that this material will help you to engage with your children around the topics they are learning on Sunday mornings, answer their questions, go deeper with them, and find real, day-to-day applications. We are honored to be able to partner with you in the critical task of sharing Christ with the next generation.

LESSON 9: WISDOM BRINGS BLESSING

“What difference can I make? I’m only one person.” I’m not sure if God laughs out loud at this statement or shakes his head in frustration. It could not be a more absurd thing to say. In the hands of a sovereign God, who works all things together according to His will, every life wisely lived in faith is a powerful tool. Let me give one astonishing example of how your life, lived with the wisdom that comes from God, can have staggering impact.

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ABOUT FAMILY QUEST: At Reston Bible Church, we firmly believe that parents are a child’s first and most important spiritual leader.  In order to support you that mission, we have created a parent devotional and some discussion starters to go along with each lesson your grade school age children are learning at Quest on Sundays. Our hope and prayer is that this material will help you to engage with your children around the topics they are learning on Sunday mornings, answer their questions, go deeper with them, and find real, day-to-day applications. We are honored to be able to partner with you in the critical task of sharing Christ with the next generation.

LESSON 8: WISDOM DELIGHTS IN THE LORD

Does God really want us to have the desires of our hearts? A quick reading of Psalm 37:4 seems to point us in that direction. Proverbs 13:12 lays out the very common sense principle that a longing or desire fulfilled is a blessing, while hope deferred is discouraging. We can all relate to that. But what of our ungodly desires? Here in lies the danger of reading any scripture in isolation, disconnected from its context and from the whole counsel of God on any subject.

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ABOUT FAMILY QUEST: At Reston Bible Church, we firmly believe that parents are a child’s first and most important spiritual leader.  In order to support you that mission, we have created a parent devotional and some discussion starters to go along with each lesson your grade school age children are learning at Quest on Sundays. Our hope and prayer is that this material will help you to engage with your children around the topics they are learning on Sunday mornings, answer their questions, go deeper with them, and find real, day-to-day applications. We are honored to be able to partner with you in the critical task of sharing Christ with the next generation.

LESSON 7: WISDOM CONTROLS THE TONGUE

Sitting in a small Indian village in Brazil with a half dozen other men under a thatched roof shelter, I couldn’t believe my good fortune. We were about to have the opportunity to hear from an Indian pastor with more than forty years of experience preaching the gospel in some of the most remote parts
of Brazil, in tribal communities where a white man like me would never be allowed to set foot.

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ABOUT FAMILY QUEST: At Reston Bible Church, we firmly believe that parents are a child’s first and most important spiritual leader.  In order to support you that mission, we have created a parent devotional and some discussion starters to go along with each lesson your grade school age children are learning at Quest on Sundays. Our hope and prayer is that this material will help you to engage with your children around the topics they are learning on Sunday mornings, answer their questions, go deeper with them, and find real, day-to-day applications. We are honored to be able to partner with you in the critical task of sharing Christ with the next generation.