Knit and Crochet Bible Study

Month: September 2017

  • Felted in Jesus

    Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised. Hebrews 10:36

    (download a copy of the lesson FELTED here)

    Project Suggestion: knit or crochet a square with wool and felt it, then cut out a shape to use as a reminder you are felted.

    Wool felts with water and agitation which causes the scales on the wool to swell, rub against each other and bind together. This process creates a denser, shrunken fabric. Felting is the name of the process that give us the finished product.

    Have you ever noticed in Bible stories that a person is often put in situations that can be described as felted, often rubbing against someone or something? In the end, they become stronger in the Lord.

    Think about King David. Before he slew Goliath, before he became king he was a shepherd boy. How did David know he could take down Goliath? By the many years he spent protecting the sheep from wolves, bears, and other torments. He had been in danger, in agitating situations, many times and had learned how to handle himself. (see 1 Samuel 17:12-30)

    What about Shadrach, Meshach and Abendnego? Imagine the agitation they felt standing in a fiery furnace. (see Daniel 3)

    Ruth went through the loss of her husband, leaving her family and hometown. She cared for her mother-in-law and moved to a country where she was an unwanted foreigner. She went on to be a part of the lineage of Jesus Christ. (Read the biblical book of Ruth for the full story)

    Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers. He gained the confidence of the Pharoah and was promoted to being second in command. He was imprisoned when Pharoah’s wife falsely accused him of rape and still, years later, he was back in a position of authority again. Talk about being agitated.

    What other Bible persons can you name? How about persons in your life you have witnessed experience this felting in their life? Do you remember Martin and Gracia Burnham? They were missionaries from Kansas who serves as missionaries in the Phillippines. They were captured and held hostage for over a year by a militant group of Muslims in 2001. Martin was killed during their rescue. (You can read the story in Gracia’s book In the Presence of My Enemies. You can also read more about this on her website GraciaBurnham.org .) They endured because they were felted with the Lord.

    How have you been felted? Have people around you created the hot water and agitation in your life? God doesn’t give you the people you want, He gives you the people you NEED – To help you, to hurt you, to leave you, to love you and to make you into the person you were meant to be.

    Can these discouraging periods of our times remove us from God? Read Romans 8:35-39.

    Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written: For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

    Once a piece is felted it cannot be torn. It can be cut and shaped as desired. Once you are felted with God, nothing can rip you away from Him.

    Are you felted into Jesus?

  • BROKEN AND SEPARATED

    Is there a relationship in your life that has been severed? You used to be so close but something came between you and now you no longer speak? A boundary was broken whether in word or deed, that could not be repaired. It could be a family member, a loved one, a friend.

    I am sure there was great pain when the break came in your relationship no matter what the reason. You regretted the cause and cried over the loss of someone you care about so dearly. And along with that person, there is also a separation with those near that person.

    God experienced such a break.

    He had gently, carefully and with His hands formed man and woman. He created a beautiful place to share with them. Yet they crossed the one boundary set before them. In Genesis 2:16-17 God tells Adam,

    “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

    We learn in the next chapter that one day they did eat of that tree. And because of this they were banned from the garden, but more importantly, they had caused a great rift between them and God. The relationship they had before was now destroyed.

    God wants that relationship back. But it can’t be like before. Once the barrier was built a way needed to be made to break it down.

    Have you tried to devise ways to break the barriers built by rejections in your life? If you did break them, did it come at a price? Even if you moved forward in the relationship without mentioning the “situation” you still always feel the pulling of that weight. You cannot “unbreak” a vase once it is shattered. So it goes with relationships as well.

    “You iniquities have separated you from your God” Isaiah 59:2

    There was only one way to repair the relationship between God and man: a sacrifice. He made the first sacrifice when He found Adam and Eve hiding in fear because they were naked. He made them clothes of animal skin. He sacrificed an animal so they could be dressed.

    God prepared, from the beginning, the sacrifice that would be required to restore that relationship: Jesus Christ.

    He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm worked salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him. Isaiah 59:16

    How would we know when this salvation came? The Old Testament is filled with hundreds of descriptions of this Savior. Many prophecies are detailed by God so there would be no question of His coming.

    Professor Peter Stoner served as Chairman of the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy at Pasadena City College until 1953 and Chairman of the Science Division of Westmont College from 1953 to 1957. He is best known for his teaching in evidences of Bible prophecies. He calculated the probability of one man fulfilling only a handful of the prophecies made in the Old Testament was 10 to the 17th power. The probability of fulfilling only 48 of these prophecies are 10 to the 157th power.

    Jesus fulfilled every single prophecy. Why such explicit detail in the foretelling of this Savior? So the true salvation would be clearly visible to all who look for Him.

    God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. Acts 17:27

    We are separated from God by our sin, but we have a way back to him. That way is Jesus Christ.

    Just like your relationship with your family, your best friend, your spouse, your bible study group, a relationship must be nurtured. You must spend time, talk with each other, open up, love and trust. You must participate for a relationship to be complete. So goes your relationship with Christ.

    What does a relationship with Christ look like?

    How do you know if you have that relationship?

    What do you do to maintain that relationship?

    What will you do to draw closer to him?