Questions? Session #2 "Who told you that?"

 

QUESTION #2    "WHO TOLD YOU THAT?"

 Supplies needed:  Colored tissue paper, a canvas or board, watered down glue in a bowl and a sponge brush, magazines.

Welcome to The Maker’s Space.  This is a safe place where we slow down and use art to practice listening to God.  This year, The Maker’s Space will be looking at 5 questions that God asks us that we can ask ourselves in order to get to know ourselves and God, and others, better.  You might feel like you are at languishing point in your life, [a state between despair and flourishing] and I think that asking questions of God, ourselves and each other can help us do the “what’s next?” and move us into flourishing.  Think about doing this session by yourself, and then invite a group of friends or family to do it together and encourage conversations.  When we practice listening to God, we can then practice our listening skills with others.  There will be more discussion questions at the end to take it further to promote conversation with each other.  My hope is that you will see how using art as a tool, can help us hear God and each other.

Session #1’s question was “Where are you?” and can be found on www.themakersspace.us

Session #2’s question is…”Who told you that?” and is our question for this session.  

It can be found in Genesis 3:1-13

Let’s begin:

We are going to be looking at the lies that we hear every day, starting with advertisements and moving on with those that you have heard spoken by others.Try to be brutally honest with yourself.

We are going to start by putting a colorful background on the canvas by layering tissue paper all over to cover the canvas, using glue to layer it down.  While you are doing that, I will read

Genesis 3:1-13 to you for background.  If you are doing this on you own, take time to read the passage.

“The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: “Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?” The Woman said to the serpent, “Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’” The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.” When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it—she’d know everything!—she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate. Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on”—saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves. When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God.  God called to the Man: “Where are you?” He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.” God said, “Who told you you were naked? Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?” The Man said, “The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it.” God said to the Woman, “What is this that you’ve done?” “The serpent seduced me,” she said, “and I ate.””

Genesis 3:1-8, 10-13 MSG

Let’s look at the lies in this passage.

“Don’t even touch it”  “You won’t die.. you’ll be just like God, knowing everything…”

When you are finished with your background you can start flipping through magazine ads and find lies that you hear every day, perhaps ones that resonate with you. Go as quickly as you can, pasting down lots of lies all over the canvas. 10-15 minutes. 

 While you are doing that, I am going to play a video on collage.

https://youtu.be/-HB3IrP_jRQ

Let’s pray, and invite the Holy Spirit to do art with us and to speak to us:

“Holy Spirit, we invite you to come and be with us today.  Help us to notice the thoughts that you are speaking into our minds about who God is and who we are as His children.  Help us to block out the thoughts of the world that want to keep us from listening to you.”

Now, let’s listen to what God has to say and who we should be listening to instead of the voices around us.  All of the chaos that we have just been tearing out of magazines could have caused our heart rates to increase instead of decrease, so let’s begin by deep breathing which can slow your heart down, bring a sense of calm, just be regulating your breath.

RELAX, Slow down and take deep, breaths, breathing in and out deeply.

Now, let’s still ourselves from the inside.  Notice your body at this moment, in the present and any tight places that need to relax or stretch. Return to attend to your breath.  Just the sitting and being still is prayer, listening prayer, opening yourself and slowing down thoughts so that you can hear.  Any anxious thoughts or distracting thoughts, redirect to your breath and the present moment.  We have been conditioned to be scattered with many distractions, so we need to practice to focus on God, the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

Now close your eyes, continue to breathe deeply and purposefully, while I read a portion of Jesus Calling and the book of Isaiah and imagine God speaking to you. 

 3/15 JC  Listen to the Love Song

LISTEN TO THE LOVE SONG that I am continually singing to you. I take great delight in you. I rejoice over you with singing. The voices of the world are a cacophony of chaos, pulling you this way and that. Don’t listen to those voices; challenge them with My Word. Learn to take minibreaks from the world, finding a place to be still in My Presence and listen to My voice.

There is immense hidden treasure to be found through listening to Me. Though I pour out blessings upon you always, some of My richest blessings have to be actively sought. I love to reveal Myself to you, and your seeking heart opens you up to receive more of My disclosure. Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

“The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” —ZEPHANIAH 3:17

Isaiah 45:5-7,9,11-12,18 NLT

“I am the Lord; there is no other God. I have equipped you for battle, though you don’t even know me, so all the world from east to west will know there is no other God. I am the Lord, and there is no other. I create the light and make the darkness. I send good times and bad times. I, the Lord, am the one who does these things.”

Isaiah 45:5-7 NLT

““What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator. Does a clay pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying, ‘Stop, you’re doing it wrong!’ Does the pot exclaim, ‘How clumsy can you be?’”

 “This is what the Lord says— the Holy One of Israel and your Creator: “Do you question what I do for my children? Do you give me orders about the work of my hands? I am the one who made the earth and created people to live on it. With my hands I stretched out the heavens. All the stars are at my command.”

Isaiah 45:11-12 NLT

“For the Lord is God, and he created the heavens and earth and put everything in place. He made the world to be lived in, not to be a place of empty chaos. “I am the Lord,” he says, “and there is no other.”

Isaiah 45:18 NLT

Now we are going to ask God to speak to us.  Close your eyes and ask God to show you a color. Notice the first color that pops into your head.  Quickly look through the magazine tearing out that page of color wherever you see it.  Continue until you have a small pile.

Next, cover over the previous lies on your canvas with a thin veil of tissue paper so that it is semi-transparent.

Pray that God will tell you who you are as His child and know that He made you and did not make a mistake.

Next, start looking at the pages that you tore out and notice any phrases or words that jump out at you as truths.  Tear them out and start pasting them onto the canvas, partially covering the other lies. If you feel compelled to glue them into a design or image of something, feel free.

We are practicing discerning the things you hear about yourself, and if you can’t trace it back to God when you ask yourself, “Who told you that?,” then we need to toss it from our thoughts.  If you need a reminder or help about the things God says about you in Scripture, look over the list of Scripture promises at the end of this lesson.  You are welcome to use those as well if you can’t find phrases in magazines— or feel free to build phrases from different places.  Use pictures as well, or stamps.  When you feel that your composition has taken shape, sit back and look at your art and see what it says to you.  Write any thoughts down that come to you.  Share your art with someone and what you discovered.

Further discussion questions for family and friend groups:

1. What specific product branding do you like to look at?  Do certain images of this branding make you want to be like the images?  What decor to you feel most reflects your aesthetic?
2. In Genesis 1:27 it says “So God created human beings in His[their] own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
3. God made us in His pl. image.  We can only really know ourselves if we know who God is.  Without God, we no longer know who we are.  This is true for individuals as well as entire cultures.  So, if we say we want human flourishing without God, is that even possible?
4. Discuss in how our culture try to ignore or remove the existence of God.
5. In the 20th century, we have tried to sever human dignity from its Christian roots.  Christianity has historically contributed many things to the world, but none more important than its vision of the human person.  As atheist philosopher Luc Ferry describes it, “Christianity introduced the notion that men were equal in dignity-an unprecedented idea at the time and one to which our world owes its entire democratic inheritance.”

      One hundred years earlier, F. Nietzsche called human equality “another Christian concept”      that “furnishes the prototype of all theories of equal rights.”  Human dignity and equality are concepts taken for granted as given today, but this grew out of the Judeo-Christian doctrine of Imago Dei.  No society fully achieved this ideal, but no society without Christian influence even attempted to build a world in the first place.

Today, many want the fruit of human dignity while soundly condemning its roots.  What do you think about the above?

[Excerpts taken from the book, A Practical Guide to Culture, Helping the Next Generation Navigate Today’s World by Kunkle and Stonestreet and The Quest by Beth Moore.

PROMISES

• I  have  everything  I  need  for  life  and  godliness.  (2  Peter  1:3)  

• I  have  the  ability  to  get  wealth  and  glorify  God  through  it   (Deuteronomy  8:18,  Proverbs  8:17-‐21,  II  Corinthians  8:9)  

• I  am  surrounded  by  the  favor  of  God  (Psalm  5:12,  Proverbs  11:27,   12:3)  

• I  am  overtaken  and  chased  down  by  the  blessings  of  God  (Deut. 28:1-‐2,  Luke  6:38)  

• I  will  prosper  in  whatever  I  put  my  hand  to  (Joshua  1:8,  Psalm  1:3,   Psalm  35:27,  III  John  2)  

• I  will  live  in  increase,  prosperity  and  blessing  as  I  love  and  obey  

God  (Deuteronomy  30:15-‐16)  

• I  have  everything  I  need  according  to  God’s  riches  in  Glory   through  Christ  Jesus  (Philippians  4:19,  Proverbs  3:9-‐10,  Matthew   6:8  &  33)  

• I  live  under  God’s  blessing  (Galatians  3:13-‐14)  

• I  am  blessed  and  cannot  be  cursed.  I  am  the  head  and  not  the  tail,   above  and  not  beneath,  I  will  lend  and  not  borrow.  (Deuteronomy   28:3-‐14,  Proverbs  10:6)  

• I  can  participate  in  God’s  Divine  Nature  through  His  very  great   and  precious  promises  (2  Peter  1:4)  

• I  am  a  Child  of  God  (John  1:12)  

• I  have  been  justified  (Romans  5:1)  

• I  am  Jesus's  friend  (John  15:15)  

• I  belong  to  God  (1  Corinthians  6:20)  

• I  am  a  member  of  Christ's  Body  (1  Corinthians  12:27)  

• I  am  assured  all  things  work  together  for  good  (Romans  8:28)  

• I  have  been  established,  anointed  and  sealed  by  God  (2   Corinthians  1:21-‐22)  

• I  am  confident  that  God  will  perfect  the  work  He  has  begun  in  me   (Philippians  1:6)  

• I  am  a  citizen  of  heaven  (Philippians  3:20)  

• I  am  hidden  with  Christ  in  God  (Colossians  3:3)  

• I  have  not  been  given  a  spirit  of  fear,  but  of  power,  love  and  self-‐ discipline  (2  Timothy  1:7)  

• I  am  born  of  God  and  the  evil  one  cannot  touch  me  (1  John  5:18)  

• I  am  blessed  in  the  heavenly  realms  with  every  spiritual  blessing   (Ephesians  1:3)  

• I  am  chosen  before  the  creation  of  the  world  (Ephesians  1:4,  11)  

• I  am  holy  and  blameless  (Ephesians  1:4)  

• I  am  adopted  as  his  child  (Ephesians  1:5)  

• I  am  given  God's  glorious  grace  lavishly  and  without  restriction   (Ephesians  1:5,8)  

• I  am  in  Him  (Ephesians  1:7;  1  Corinthians  1:30)  

• I  have  redemption  (Ephesians  1:8)  

• I  am  forgiven  (Ephesians  1:8;  Colossians  1:14)  

• I  have  purpose  (Ephesians  1:9  &  3:11)  

• I  have  hope  (Ephesians  1:12)  

• I  am  included  (Ephesians  1:13)  

• I  am  sealed  with  the  promised  Holy  Spirit  (Ephesians  1:13)  

• I  am  a  saint  (Ephesians  1:18)  

• I  am  salt  and  light  of  the  earth  (Matthew  5:13-‐14)  

• I  have  been  chosen  and  God  desires  me  to  bear  fruit  (John  15:1,5)  

• I  am  a  personal  witness  of  Jesus  Christ  (Acts  1:8)  

• I  am  God's  coworker  (2  Corinthians  6:1)  

• I  am  a  minister  of  reconciliation  (2  Corinthians  5:17-‐20)  

• I  am  alive  with  Christ  (Ephesians  2:5)  

• I  am  raised  up  with  Christ  (Ephesians  2:6;  Colossians  2:12)  

• I  am  seated  with  Christ  in  the  heavenly  realms  (Ephesians  2:6)  

• I  have  been  shown  the  incomparable  riches  of  God's  grace   (Ephesians  2:7)  

• God  has  expressed  His  kindness  to  me  (Ephesians  2:7)  

• I  am  God's  workmanship  (Ephesians  2:10)  

• I  have  been  brought  near  to  God  through  Christ's  blood   (Ephesians  2:13)  

• I  have  peace  (Ephesians  2:14)  

• I  have  access  to  the  Father  (Ephesians  2:18)  

• I  am  a  member  of  God's  household  (Ephesians  2:19)  

• I  am  secure  (Ephesians  2:20)  

• I  am  a  holy  temple  (Ephesians  2:21;  1  Corinthians  6:19)  

• I  am  a  dwelling  for  the  Holy  Spirit  (Ephesians  2:22)  

• I  share  in  the  promise  of  Christ  Jesus  (Ephesians  3:6)  

• God's  power  works  through  me  (Ephesians  3:7)  

• I  can  approach  God  with  freedom  and  confidence  (Ephesians   3:12)  

• I  know  there  is  a  purpose  for  my  sufferings  (Ephesians  3:13)  

• I  can  grasp  how  wide,  long,  high  and  deep  Christ's  love  is  

(Ephesians  3:18)  

• I  am  completed  by  God  (Ephesians  3:19)  

• I  can  bring  glory  to  God  (Ephesians  3:21)  

• I  have  been  called  (Ephesians  4:1;  2  Timothy  1:9)  

• I  can  be  humble,  gentle,  patient  and  lovingly  tolerant  of  others   (Ephesians  4:2)  

• I  can  mature  spiritually  (Ephesians  4:15)  

• I  can  be  certain  of  God's  truths  and  the  lifestyle  which  He  has   called  me  to  (Ephesians  4:17)  

• I  can  have  a  new  attitude  and  a  new  lifestyle  (Ephesians  4:21-‐32)  

• I  can  be  kind  and  compassionate  to  others  (Ephesians  4:32)  

• I  can  forgive  others  (Ephesians  4:32)  

• I  am  a  light  to  others,  and  can  exhibit  goodness,  righteousness  and   truth  (Ephesians  5:8-‐9)  

• I  can  understand  what  God's  will  is  (Ephesians  5:17)  

• I  can  give  thanks  for  everything  (Ephesians  5:20)  

• I  don't  have  to  always  have  my  own  agenda  (Ephesians  5:21)  

• I  can  be  strong  (Ephesians  6:10)  

• I  have  God's  power  (Ephesians  6:10)  

• I  can  stand  firm  in  the  day  of  evil  (Ephesians  6:13)  

• I  am  dead  to  sin  (Romans  1:12)  

• I  am  not  alone  (Hebrews  13:5)  

• I  am  growing  (Colossians  2:7)  

• I  am  His  disciple  (John  13:15)  

• I  am  prayed  for  by  Jesus  Christ  (John  17:20-‐23)  

• I  am  united  with  other  believers  (John  17:20-‐23)  

• I  am  not  in  want  (Philippians  4:19)  

• I  possess  the  mind  of  Christ  (I  Corinthians  2:16)  

• I  am  promised  eternal  life  (John  6:47)  

• I  am  promised  a  full  life  (John  10:10)  

• I  am  victorious  (I  John  5:4)  

• My  heart  and  mind  is  protected  with  God's  peace  (Philippians  4:7)  

• I  am  chosen  and  dearly  loved  (Colossians  3:12)  

• I  am  blameless  (I  Corinthians  1:8)  

• I  am  set  free  (Romans  8:2;  John  8:32)  

• I  am  crucified  with  Christ  (Galatians  2:20)  

• I  am  a  light  in  the  world  (Matthew  5:14)  

• I  am  more  than  a  conqueror  (Romans  8:37)  

• I  am  the  righteousness  of  God  (2  Corinthians  5:21)  

• I  am  safe  (I  John  5:18)  

• I  am  part  of  God's  kingdom  (Revelation  1:6)  

• I  am  healed  from  sin  (I  Peter  2:24)  

• I  am  no  longer  condemned  (Romans  8:1,  2)  

• I  am  not  helpless  (Philippians  4:13)  

• I  am  overcoming  (I  John  4:4)  

• I  am  persevering  (Philippians  3:14)  

• I  am  protected  (John  10:28)  

• I  am  born  again  (I  Peter  1:23)  

• I  am  a  new  creation  (2  Corinthians  5:17)  

• I  am  delivered  (Colossians  1:13)  

• I  am  redeemed  from  the  curse  of  the  Law  (Galatians  3:13)  

• I  am  qualified  to  share  in  His  inheritance  (Colossians  1:12)  

• I  am  victorious  (1  Corinthians  15:57)