Aim to understand how our spirit self grows
Aim
* To understand how our spirit self grows
* To understand the importance of our physical life
Materials
* Divine Principle
* Pictures showing God’s love, good actions and bad actions
* Large pictures, words and arrows to illustrate the relationship between the physical self and spirit self
* Story – the Unforgiving Servant
* Children’s worksheet
Lesson Outline
1. Introduction
2. The Physical Self and Spirit Self
3. How our Spirit Grows
4. The importance of our physical life
5. A Story teaching forgiveness
6. Activities – worksheet
7. Review the aims
8. Prayer
1) Introduction
We have both a physical self and spirit self. The physical self lives for about 100 years on the earth, while the spirit self lives forever in the spirit world. The relationship between them is like a tree and its fruit. For example, the purpose of an apple tree is to produce healthy apples. The purpose of our physical life is to develop a healthy spirit that is ready to live in the spirit world. In the physical world we breathe air. In the spirit world we breathe love. During our life on earth we need to learn to love, so our spirit can fully breathe the atmosphere of love in the spirit world.
2) The Physical Self and Spirit Self
* The physical self has two parts, a mind and a body and 5 physical senses
* The physical mind is the most important part of the physical self. It controls all the unctions of our body and the desire for such things as food and sleep.
* The physical body needs certain things to grow and be healthy – air, sunlight, food and water.
* The spirit self also has two parts, a mind and a body and 5 spiritual senses It looks just the same as the physical self. But our spiritual senses became dulled because Adam and Eve became
separated from God
* The spirit mind is the most important part of the spirit self. It is the place where are conscience is and where God can dwell. From it we get the desire for such things as love, truth, beauty and
goodness.
* The spirit self needs two things to be healthy and grow – life elements and vitality elements. Life elements are God’s love and truth. Vitality elements come from the good deeds of the physical
body.
3) How the Spirit Grows
1. God’s Love
God’s love is the most important thing our spirit needs to grow. And the family is the most important place to receive it, from all the different relationships in the family. We first receive God’s love from our parents. Parents love is the same as God’s love. It is the strongest in the world, it is given freely, it never ends and it never changes. Without parents love our spirit cannot grow.
Examples of parental love
Cuddling a baby forgiving a son for his wrongdoing caring for a sick son
Other examples of God’s love
Grandfather carrying his grandson Sisters walking arm in arm Comforting a friend
2. God’s Truth
Teacher helping children draw
This means God’s words that teach us right and wrong. We need to understand that we are not on this earth just for ourselves. God wants us to be good. He wants us to be kind, unselfish
and caring towards others. The Bible is full of stories and rules teaching about how we should live our lives.
* The 10 Commandments – God gave Moses the 10 commandments: respect your parents, don’t lie and don’t steal are three of them.
* Jesus’ Words – Jesus taught the golden rule, to treat other people the way you would like them to treat you. He said forgive those who do wrong to you. Otherwise how can you expect others to forgive you when you do wrong to them?
* Jesus’ parables – Jesus told many stories called parables such as the good samaritan and the lost son
* Stories – God’s truth can also be found in good stories, such as Cinderella. She was kind to everyone even though she was treated badly. Her stepmother and stepsisters were very selfish. The story teaches us that evil is punished and goodness is rewarded.
* Rules – Parents teach children right and wrong by having family rules God’s love and truth together are like food for our spirit self. They give energy and make our spirit strong and bright.
3. Vitality Elements
Our spirit also needs vitality elements. These come from the good actions of the physical body. We put God’s word into practise by doing good deeds. When we do this vitality elements enter our spirit and make it strong and bright. Doing good deeds is also a way to give love to others. Receiving God’s love and giving God’s love are both needed for us to grow properly.
Examples of good actions
Washing dishes taking the garbage out sharing a an apple
Serving food Caring for animals offering your seat on a bus However if we do bad actions, such as stealing, we give bad vitality elements to our spirit.
Then our conscience feels bad and our spirit can’t grow. In fact our spirit becomes dark and ugly
Examples of bad actions
Being selfish stealing cheating
disrespecting parents hitting others
4. Spirit Elements
When we do good deeds and give vitality elements to our spirit self, our physical self gets something back in return. These are spirit elements and they make our body feel strong and full of energy. This why we feel good when we do things such as helping in the home. Before doing a good deed we might feel tired, but afterwards we have lots of energy and feel happy.
4) The Importance of our Physical Life
The spirit self is meant to control the physical self, but because Adam and Eve became separated from God, our spiritual senses became dulled. The physical self often dominates the spirit self instead. It is much easier to centre on the physical desires and comforts rather than listening to our conscience. Instead of doing the right thing, our body complains and we don’t always feel like doing the right thing.
This is why we must strengthen our spirit by studying God’s words and doing good deeds every day. This makes our conscience stronger. Then we develop good habits, which help our spirit to grow and form a good character
Our physical life is very important. We can only receive vitality elements while we are living in our physical body. People who lived a selfish life while on earth and didn’t learn to love others cannot be in a place in spirit world where God’s love is. The spirit of people who lived very bad lives on earth, becomes evil. In spirit world they go to a place with other people like themselves. This is hell. But God does not send them there. In order to change they need vitality elements. They have to influence people on earth to do good deeds. When this happens they also get vitality elements. But it is much easier to do this while we are in our physical body.
5) A Story teaching Forgiveness
The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant – Matthew 18:21-35
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy seven times.
“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents (millions of dollars) was
brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. “The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.(a few dollars) He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he
demanded.His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and
told their master everything that had happened.
“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
6) Activities
Worksheets
Fill in the missing words to show the relationship between the physical self and spirit self
Fill in the missing words to explain how the spirit grows
Life elements mean God’s love and truth. We receive these in the loving atmosphere of our family from our parents. The family is the school of love where we develop our sensitivity to God’s love
and truth. Without life elements we become closed in heart and cannot experience God.
Vitality elements come from the good deeds of the physical body. Good deeds give good vitality elements to the spirit and make the spirit grow strong and bright.
Bad deeds give bad vitality elements (poison) to the spirit and make it dark and ugly.
7) Review the aims
* To understand how our spirit self grows
* To understand the importance of our physical life
8) Prayer
