Memory Text for September 28–October 4

New quarter's theme: Absolute Surrender

Key Thought for Lesson 1, "Divine Magnet"
God has a wonderful plan for our lives. He cannot work out this plan without our absolute surrender.

Memory Text:
“The king of Israel answered and said, My lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am thine, and all that I have” (1 Kings 20:4).

Project: Memory
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth” (Ephesians 6:1–3).

Those Juniors, Part 18 - Pursuing the Practical, # 2

by Eric B. Hare

Last week: If you want to have the greatest amount of power through influencing (or tempting) your children/students to do good and be good, you must pursue the practical.

Give Them Good Books and Good Papers to Read
In the light of the arresting and repelling of contrary ideas, read this statement: “Furthermore, a large share of the periodicals and books that, like the frogs of Egypt, are overspreading the land, are not merely commonplace, idle, and enervating, but unclean and degrading. Their effect is not merely to intoxicate and ruin the mind, but to corrupt and destroy the soul. The mind, the heart, that is indolent, aimless, falls an easy prey to evil. It is on diseased, lifeless organisms that fungus roots. It is the idle mind that is Satan’s workshop. Let the mind be directed to high and holy ideals, let the life have a noble aim, an absorbing purpose, and evil finds little foothold.”1

Sometimes young people come to me and say, “What can we do so that we can enjoy reading the Bible more?” They say, “We read and our minds wander, and sometimes we read a whole chapter and don’t even know what we have read.”

Do you wonder that I reply, “Stop reading the funnies and novels and magazine stories”?

“But how did you know we read them?” they ask, surprised.

In Touch

Dear Young Disciples,

Dwight Moody, the famous evangelist, once spoke to a crowd of children in Edinburgh, Scotland. In order to get their attention he began with a question: “What is prayer?” He didn’t expect to get a good answer. He rather imagined that he himself would have to answer the question.

To Moody’s amazement, little hands shot up all over the hall. Moody pointed to a little boy who stood up and said in a clear voice, “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgment of His mercies.”

“Thank God, my boy,” Mr. Moody told him, “that you were born in Scotland—a country that fears God and that believes in teaching its children well.”

Of course, that was long ago. I wonder what sort of answer he would get today. How would you answer? Many Christians would say that prayer is asking God to give us things or to help us. In other words, they see it sort of like a beggar knocking at the door of a rich man.

But prayer is much more than that. True prayer lifts us up to God—and when we are with Him, He gives us everything we need. David understood this and said, “Unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul” (Psalm 25:1).

When we lift up our souls to God in prayer, we give Him an opportunity to work out His will in us and through us. We entrust our lives to Him, to do as He sees fit.

We need never worry when we do this, because God is always on our side!

Your friend,

Prayer in the Science Lab, Part 3

by Cheyenne Francis Reiswig

Have you ever felt sick to your stomach from anxiety or worry—and then felt the physical tension subside as you waited before God, releasing the situation to Him? Does your hope in God help you deal with depressive feelings that try to get you down?1 Have you seen friends and relatives—or maybe yourself—healed of a physical or emotional malady more quickly or fully because of prayer?

Memory Text for September 21–27

Key Thought for Lesson 13, "Making It Real"
A definite plan is essential to having a vibrant prayer life.

Memory Text:
“I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men” (1 Timothy 2:1).

Project: Memory
All done with Ephesian 3:14–4:7. Can you recite it? Comment below!

Those Juniors, Part 17 - Pursuing the Practical #1

by Eric B. Hare

Last week: There are different types of ideas. Contrary ideas are part of what forms the law of substitution, which can be employed to influence children to a higher standard of thinking and reasoning—and eventually, behaving.

Let us consider a few very practical suggestions that will help us tempt our children to do good.

Educate Them in Our Own Christian Schools
We should place our children in an atmosphere in harmony with God’s plan. “Parents and teachers do not estimate the magnitude of the work given them in training the young. The experience of the children of Israel was written for us, ‘upon whom the ends of the world are come.’ As in their day, so now the Lord would have the children gathered out from those schools where worldly influences prevail, and placed in our own schools, where the Word of God is made the foundation of education. . . .

In Touch

Dear Young Disciples,

One day during my devotions, I began to think about my prayers. Was I really getting all I could from my time with God? I felt sure my prayer life could use a boost. That’s why I began a Bible study on the subject of prayer.

To begin with, I found a binder and divided it into several sections:

• What to pray for
• Bible prayers
• Promises about prayer
• Dangers of not praying
• When we should pray
• Principles of prayer
• Postures in prayer

From then on, whenever I found a Bible verse or a Spirit of Prophecy statement about any of these subjects, I added it to my binder. As the weeks passed, the longest section became my favorite: the section on what to pray for.

Since then, whenever I review my prayer notebook, I am encouraged and humbled to think of the many blessings God offers me just for the asking. And I marvel at why I ask for so little.

Why not start your own prayer notebook? I believe you’ll find it to be one of the most rewarding experiences of your life!

Your friend,

Midnight Confession

by R.A. Torrey

The members of the board looked at me in amazement. “Do you mean to tell us,” one man finally choked out, “that you want us to end our financial support of your project? That you don’t want our financial backing for your family, or even for the missionaries you employ?”

The knob on the board member’s throat worked up and down in a peculiar fashion as he spoke. “Are you saying that you plan to continue your work without a salary, without an allowance, without taking up any collections, and without asking for money in any way?”

Memory Text for September 14–20

Key Thought for Lesson 12, "Fellowship with the Father"
Prayer can be a real, heartfelt conversation between you and your Lord!

Memory Text:
“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Philippians 4:6).

Project: Memory
“But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ” (Ephesians 4:7).

Of All the Week the Best: Little Things

Preparation: For this activity, each person will need a pencil, paper, and magnifying glass.

Action: After prayer, instruct each person to go out into nature—and think small. Many of the most beautiful patterns and designs in nature are very, very small. What does the inside of a flower look like under a magnifying glass? How about an ant? Moss? The bark on a tree?

If you have a microscope, you might want to use it to observe things that are even smaller: pollen, an insect wing, or even pond water.

Application: When God created this world, He gave amazing attention to detail. As you discover some of the beauties of thinking small, draw what you find. Later, share your discoveries with the whole group. Then read and discuss this quote: “Faithfulness in little things should characterize the life. . . . Little deeds of charity, little words of kindness, little acts of self-denial, a wise improvement of little opportunities, a diligent cultivation of little talents, make great men in God’s sight. If these little things are faithfully attended to, if these graces are in you and abound, they will make you perfect in every good work” (The Youth’s Instructor, April 21, 1898).

Now have a song service focusing on little things. (Song choices could include "This Little Light of Mine," "Less of Me," "Jesus Loves the Little Children," etc.)

Those Juniors, Part 16: The Law of Substitution

by Eric B. Hare

Last week: By adding percept to concept, you can compel a child to do something. You can influence for good by simple repetition—so much so that afterwards, the boy or girl will be compelled to do that which you so often repeated that it will become an almost insatiable urge.

Let us take one more step in this study of developing ideas. There are just three ways in which apperception is built up; that is, in which ideas are combined and developed.

1. Similar ideas merge and make a bigger, more comprehensive idea. For instance, I can speak of a wooden pulpit, and in your mind you can picture a wooden pulpit. I can speak of a brown pulpit, and in your mind you can picture a brown pulpit. These ideas are similar; they both express quality. Now, when I say a “brown wooden pulpit,” do you picture two pulpits? Certainly not. The two similar ideas have fused into one bigger idea, and in your mind you picture one brown wooden pulpit.

Hometown Preacher

by Nicole Crosier Parker

Pastor Edward Phillips leaned down to pluck a handful of daisies along the side of the road. “Sister Schlade loves flowers,” he told the spotted hound that loped beside him. “These ought to make a bright spot in her kitchen.”

Soon he turned up a narrow path leading to a weathered cabin on the hillside.

“Well, look who’s here!” A tanned, pleasant-faced woman straightened from weeding a row of cabbage plants. “What brings you here today, pastor?” She smoothed her hair with dirt-stained hands. “At last I can introduce you to my Peter!”

“That’s the main reason I am here.” The pastor looked past the woman to the young man striding toward the house. “And is this Peter?”

“I guess that’s me.” The young man smiled self-consciously and slipped his arm around his mother’s shoulders.

Memory Text for September 7–13

Key Thought for Lesson 11, "Stumbling Blocks"
The things in our lives that can keep our prayers from being answered are not worth keeping!

Memory Text:
“Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (James 4:3).

Project: Memory
“One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Ephesians 4:5, 6).

Of All the Week the Best: Listen!

Here’s a wonderful activity for a Sabbath afternoon hike. When you have gone far enough to be away from the noises of machines and cars, give each person in the group a pencil and a stiff piece of paper with a small ‘X’ drawn in the center. The paper will be used to make a “sound map,” and the ‘X’ represents where they will be sitting. After each person has found a place where he can be alone and quiet, he should note each sound he hears. A mark should indicate the location, direction, and description of each sound.

Those Juniors, Part 15: Tempting to Teach, #2

by Eric B. Hare

Last week: We can learn good things from bad people. Learning the art of tempting children to good is an effectual way of bringing them into submission to Christ. By the thoughts, one can induce themselves to do something so strongly that the urge cannot be resisted. When applied for good, this is an invaluable skill.

Now, let me give you my one-hundred-dollar proof for this statement.

As I explained in the introduction to this book, into our home sixteen years ago was born a little girl who, at the age of ten months, became deaf after an attack of meningitis. Following the advice of the specialist who was caring for her, we finally procured a preschool correspondence course from the Wright Oral School in New York for $100 and began to teach our little girl to speak and lip-read. Follow carefully as I describe the steps that enabled us to teach our two-year-old deaf girl to speak her first word—”yellow.”

Memory Text for August 31–September 6

Key Thought for Lesson 10, "When Nothing Happens"
When we want something from God that we know is His will for us to have, we should keep praying until we receive it. This can teach us precious lessons of faith, trust, and patience.

Memory Text:
“Men ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1).

Project: Memory
“There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling” (Ephesians 4:4).