Lesson 1
How to Pray
Spending Time With God
Unit Game
Play the Books of the Bible Game you have chosen for today’s lesson as students arrive and settle in. Start with 10 books and continue to add more each week as the children learn their order. This should only take up about five minutes of your time. The point is to repeat a handful of games throughout the year so that the kids memorize the books of the Bible over time. If the students are new to it, feel free to help them find the answer so the game keeps moving.
Prayer
We are always going to begin our lessons with prayer, because we want the Holy Spirit to be the One who is leading our lessons.
Pray, thanking and praising God for everything He does for us, and that He loves us and wants to teach us more about Him. Thank God for His Word. Invite the Holy Spirit to lead the lesson and open up hearts and minds to be able to understand the truth of His Word.
Lesson
Talking to God
Have you ever wondered what prayer really is? It sounds like a silly question, but sometimes it’s easy to forget what even the simplest things are, because we take them for granted and don’t stop to think about them.
Does anyone want to explain what prayer is? Allow answers.
Prayer is how we talk to God. It’s having a conversation with Him. A conversation takes two people. It’s talking and listening. We talk and then listen to what the other person has to say. We do our best to understand what the person is saying because we want to get to know them. If we don’t bother to listen to what they are saying and try to understand them, it’s not really a conversation!
How important do you think conversation is in a relationship? Allow answers.
Have you ever tried to be friends with someone who doesn’t speak your language? Is it easy? Allow answers.
Have you ever tried to be friends with someone who doesn’t talk very much? Or maybe you are the friend who doesn’t talk a lot? Allow answers.
What about your family? Is it important to talk to them? Allow answers.
The most important relationships we have on this earth are usually with our families. So it is very important for us to talk to our family, because we love them and we should want to have good relationships with our family. The point is, it’s very important to talk to someone if you want to get to know them. If we want to keep a good relationship with anyone we need to talk to them, because the only way to get to know someone is by having conversations! The more we get to know someone, the closer we become to them. Usually the closer we are to someone, the more we talk to them. So the relationship gets better the more we talk and listen to each other.
So, if prayer is supposed to be a conversation, and it’s the best way to get to know someone, how important do you think it is to pray to God? Very important!
Our relationship with God is the most important one we will ever have, so it’s very important!
When someone spends time talking with you, how does that make you feel? Allow answers.
When someone wants to spend time talking to us it makes us feel loved and valued! They want to get to know us! They care enough to listen to us!
Conversation is very, very important in every relationship we have. Whether the conversation is silly, short, serious, or even sad—conversations build something called intimacy between us and that other person. Intimacy is when we feel close to someone, and they are close to us. A close friend is someone we are intimate with. It could also be a parent, or a loved one who we feel very comfortable, close, and familiar with. But intimacy is even more than that—someone we have intimacy with is someone we can trust enough to say anything to, and we know that they aren’t going to make fun of us or reject us.
Can you think of anyone in your life who is like that? Allow answers.
Hopefully you can think of someone, but even if you can’t, the amazing thing is that God wants to be intimate with us! He already knows us intimately, because He is omniscient, which means that He knows everything, but He wants us to know Him and He wants us to have an intimate relationship with Him. Prayer is one of the best ways for us to have that kind of intimate relationship with Him.
Because what is prayer? A conversation with God.
And how do you build intimacy with someone? By having conversations with them.
Listening to God
Prayer isn’t just about talking to God though, it’s also about listening to God. There are always two parts of a conversation! Talking and listening! If it’s all talking or all listening, is it really a conversation? No!
Listening is the part that is usually a little harder for us. Listening is hard, right? We have to be patient, we have to wait, we have to be quiet. But when God speaks to us, it is the most amazing thing ever! The God of the universe wants to speak to us! Did you know that?
He wants to talk to us, but He also wants to spend time with us. And we should want to spend time with Him. Prayer is also about being in God’s presence. This is why we spend time at church worshipping and praying and just enjoying His presence.
Have you ever thought about God wanting to spend time with you? Allow answers.
The Bible is all about God wanting to spend time with us, His creation. He spent time with Adam in the garden. He talked to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and then He even dwelt among the people of Israel. He came down in a cloud and in fire. But when Adam and Eve sinned it separated them from God’s holy presence. That’s why God sacrificed an animal for their sin—so that He could be reunited with His creation. That is also why He sent Jesus to die for our sins, so that a way could be made for us to come into His holy presence.
If you have younger students you can skip to the next section.
[Older Students: When Jesus died on the cross the Bible tells us that the veil (a heavy curtain) that separated the Most Holy Place in the Temple, where God’s presence was, was ripped in half! Jesus’ death on the cross, which paid for our sins, made the way for us to come back into communication with God Himself. Let’s read those verses now.
Matthew 27:50-51. Read or assign a reader.
This is what happened at the moment when Jesus died on the cross. This shows us that the point of Jesus dying was not only to atone (pay) for our sins, but also to bring us back into the presence of God—the veil no longer separates us from the holiness of God.
Since man is sinful, the priests of the Temple were not able to enter God’s holy presence in the Holy Place without first offering a sacrifice (an animal had to be killed in their place), and even then, only the High Priest was allowed to go behind the veil into God’s manifest presence. God’s “manifest” presence means God’s literal presence that can be seen and felt. God is always with us, but there are times when He reveals Himself in a way that He can be seen (like when He appeared in fire and smoke to the people of Israel) and felt.
The High Priest was the only one who went into the Most Holy Place once a year to make atonement (payment) for the sin of the people of Israel. No one else was allowed into the Most Holy Place. But Jesus changed that. Now we can also come into God’s holy presence because Jesus has made the ultimate atonement for our sins by giving Himself as a sacrifice. His sacrifice—His blood—is better than the blood of animals. He is the perfect, sinless, “Lamb of God.”
Let’s read some more verses that explain how Jesus’ death has brought us back into God’s presence. Hebrews 10:19-22. Read or assign a reader.
These verses have a lot in them that can be hard to understand, but don’t worry, we are going to go through them one by one!
What does it say we have confidence to enter into, in verse 19? The Holy Place.
We just read about the Holy Place, right? Where was the Holy Place? In the Temple.
How are we able to enter the Holy Place? By the blood of Jesus.
Let’s read verse 20 again. Read.
This says something about a veil! Just like the veil that separated the people from the Holy Place in the Temple. The author of Hebrews is explaining how Jesus’ body is like the veil. His body was broken from us. The veil was torn, to bring us into the manifest presence of God! Wow! This should speak to us that God cares very much about being in our presence. Look what Jesus went through to be with us! He brought us to the Father. We should want to be in His presence!
How did it say we should enter God’s presence in verse 19? With confidence.
Other versions say to enter God’s presence with “boldness.” How are we able to be so bold? By the blood of Jesus.
That’s right! It is not by our own efforts, but by Jesus’ blood that we can be confident.Let’s continue reading verse 21. Read.
What does the author say Jesus is? A great priest.
Earlier in Hebrews the author calls Jesus our High Priest. (Heb 3:1, 4:14) Do you remember what we said the High Priest does? Allow answers.
He enters the Most Holy Place to offer atonement—which means payment—for the sins of the people. Isn’t that exactly what Jesus has done for us? Yes!
Let’s read verse 22. Read.
What does it say we should do? Draw near.
“Draw near” means to come close. That means we are supposed to come close to God’s presence “with full assurance of faith,” which means we can relax and know that we are forgiven and able to enter into God’s presence with confidence. Jesus paid the price for our sins so we are able to spend time with Him and experience His manifest presence in our lives, all because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. That’s what it means when it says our hearts are “sprinkled clean from an evil conscience” and our bodies are “washed with pure water.” These words are taking us back to the Temple worship. The priests would wash their bodies before coming into God’s presence. We are washed by the blood of Jesus! (This is also where we get baptism from.) And when it talks about our hearts being “sprinkled,” it means they have been sprinkled with Jesus perfect, sinless blood, which cleanses us. The priests of the Temple were supposed to sprinkle things with the blood of the sacrifices to make them holy. Everything in the temple, including the priests, had to be “consecrated,” or made holy, so that God’s presence could dwell among them. Jesus has done all of those things for us so that we can come into God’s presence now, wherever we are, and whenever we want to. ]
Maybe you already know that Jesus is also called “Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.” We usually sing about Jesus being “Emmanuel” at Christmas when we celebrate Jesus coming to earth as a baby and living among us. But it’s more than just about Jesus coming as a baby and living on the earth for a while. “Emmanuel” came so that we could also be with Him. The reason Jesus came to earth was to bring us back into a relationship with God. He wants to communicate with us. He wants to spend time with us! What an amazing thing! We have so much to be thankful for.
Great job listening to the lesson today. Let’s play a review game and see how much you can remember about what we learned.
Review
Play the Review Game you have chosen for today’s lesson using the questions below.
Review Questions
- What is prayer? Talking to God. Having a conversation.
- There are two parts to a conversation, and there are two parts of prayer. What are they? Talking and listening.
- God wants to __________ _________ with us. Spend time.
- What separated us from God’s presence? Sin.
- What has God done so that we are able to be in His presence now? Sent Jesus to die for our sins. And before that animals were sacrificed.
- Is it important to spend time talking and listening to God? Yes.
- Why is it important to spend time talking to God? To get to know Him and have a relationship.
- What is the word we use to describe feeling close and being able to trust someone? Intimacy.
- How to we become intimate with God? Spending time with Him, talking to Him.
- How is God able to know us intimately before we even talk to Him? He knows everything.
- What is the word we use for God that means He knows everything? Omniscient.
- How does it make you feel when someone spends time talking to you and listening to you? Loved. Cared for.
- Does God want to spend time with us? Yes.
- What is another name for Jesus that means He is with us? Emmanuel.
- Why did Jesus come to earth to die for us? To make a way for us to come back into God’s presence and be with Him.
Older Students:
16. What happened inside the Temple when Jesus died on the cross? The veil was torn.
17. What did the veil separate us from? The Most Holy Place where God’s presence is.
18. What does it mean that the veil was torn? We are able to come into God’s presence.
19. What is God’s manifest presence? His presence which can be seen or felt.
20. What was the job of the High priest? To go into the Most Holy Place once a year and make atonement (payment) for the sins of the people with an animal sacrifice.
21. What did the High Priest need to do before he could go into the Most Holy Place? Offer a sacrifice for his own sin.
22. What has Jesus’ blood done for us? Allowed us to enter God’s holy presence.
23. What does “draw near” mean? To come close.
24. What are we supposed to have when we enter God’s presence? Confidence. Boldness.
25. What are we washed by? Jesus’ blood.
26. What sprinkles our hearts clean? Jesus’ blood.
Memory Verses
Choose a memory verse that fits your classes’ abilities. Or choose more than one and award prizes accordingly.
Non-Readers/Beginner Readers:
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7 NIV
“You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.” Psalm 139:1-2 NIV
Older Readers:
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” Matthew 7:7-8 NIV
“The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry; but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to blot out their name from the earth.” Psalm 34:15-16 NIV
“You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.” Psalm 139:1-4 NIV
Play the Memory Verse Game you have chosen for today’s lesson or play the memory verse song to review the memory verse.