Aim to know that God created all things for joy
Aim
* To know that God created all things for joy
* That we can give joy to God by fulfilling the Three Blessings
Materials
* Bible passage: Genesis 1 (6 days of creation, the 3 blessings)
* Divine Principle, chapter 1
* Worksheets
* Pictures to illustrate the three blessings
* Children bring something they made that they are proud of – picture, paper craft, model
Lesson Outline
1. God’s Purpose of Creation – Genesis 1:1-31
2. The Three Blessings – Genesis 1:28
3. Activities – worksheet, discuss pictures
4. Review the Aims
5. End with a Prayer
1) God’s Purpose of Creation
The Six Days of Creation
Why did God create the world? Let’s read Genesis 1:1-31 in the Bible which explains the six days of creation.
At the end of each day it says, “God saw that it was good.” God felt happy when He saw what He had created. The idea in His mind turned into reality. The most important part of God is His heart that seeks an object to love. God cannot be happy all alone. Even though God is a God of love, if He has no one to love he cannot be happy. When God sees good objects he feels happy, because He has someone to love. And He created everything as objects that He could love – flowers, animals, birds, humans, etc. So God’s purpose is to feel joy from the things He made.
Things I Made
What about the thing you made? You had an idea in your mind. You put in a lot of time and
effort. When it turned out well you felt happy, just like God. Children show the things they
made and share their experiences.
Why did God create us?
On the 6th and final day of creation, when God created Adam, he didn’t just see that it was
good. He saw that it was very good. This is because we are created as the highest creations,
as God’s children. He created us to be partners of love and can give the most joy to God.
How can we do that? First we must be good objects to God. How? We can find out from the
Bible, because God told Adam & Eve what to do in Genesis 1:28
2) The Three Blessings
“And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:28
God gave Adam and Eve three great blessings. By fulfilling them we can be good objects to God. A good object means to be the way God wants us to be, to be like Him, full of love
BLESSING means God’s gift to make us happy.
FRUITFUL means to bear fruit as on an apple tree
MULTIPLY means to increase in number
DOMINION means to control things
1st BLESSING
Be Fruitful means to become an Ideal Person
* Fruitful means to grow fully. When a tree bears fruit it is fully grown and mature. God wants us wants us grow to be good fruit also. He wants us to have kind and loving hearts and be like Him. He doesn’t want us to be bad inside like rotten apples. In other words, to be selfish and uncaring.
* The 1st blessing means we must unite our mind and body with God’s love at the centre, and express true love through our actions. Then we fulfill the first blessing and perfect our character. Then we become ideal people and good objects to God.
2nd BLESSING
Multiply means to create an Ideal Family
Multiply means to build families filled with God’s love. God’s love should be at the centre of our families. This is an ideal family, where we can give and receive God’s love. It is the school of love where the love of parents, husband and wife, bothers and sisters, and children can be found. From an ideal family we create a world of ideal families.
3rd BLESSING
Have dominion means to create an Ideal World
Dominion means to take care of the creation with God’s love and create an ideal living environment. God made the world to be a beautiful, peaceful place to live, and it is our responsibility to take care of it. When we do this we can create an ideal world.
When we fulfill the three blessings we can be good objects that God can love. This brings happiness to God and to us. The pictures of happy people, loving families and a beautiful peaceful world gives us an idea of the ideal world God wants to see
3) Activities
* Complete the worksheet
– Write the words from Genesis 1:28
– Fill in the missing words for each of the three blessings
– Picture a flower in your mind and draw it
* Discuss the pictures of happy people, loving families, and a beautiful, peaceful world to emphasize that God’s purpose of creation is to experience joy
4) Review the aims
Ask each child what they could learn from today’s lesson. Refer to the lesson aims:
* To know that God created all things for joy
* That we can give joy to God by fulfilling the Three Blessings
5) End with a Prayer
