Christian
Churches of God
No.
CB130_2
Lesson:
Putting on the Armour of God Through Prayer
(Edition 1.0 20080725-20080725)
In this lesson we will review the main points associated with the lesson on Prayer in the Armour of God series. Activities associated with the lesson will follow the question and answer section.
Christian Churches of God
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Lesson:
Putting on the Armour of God Through Prayer
Goal:
To review the basic concepts of prayer and its role in the Armour of God.
Objectives:
Resources:
Lesson on Prayer Part A
Teacher's Guide (No. CB31)
Relevant Scriptures:
Ephesians 6:11ff.
Isaiah 43:7
Matthew 6:5-7
John 14:13-14; 17:3
Mark 11:25
Isaiah 59:1-2
Daniel 6:10
Format:
Open with
prayer.
Putting on
the Armour of God Through Prayer
Activity
associated with Prayer.
Close with
prayer.
Lesson:
Read: Putting on the Armour of God Through Prayer (No. CB130)
Questions and Answers:
Q1. What is
the Armour of God comprised of?
A. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, word of God.
Q2. How do
we put on the Armour of God?
A. Through prayer. Each day we can
pray that God would help us put on each piece of Armour that we can be able to
withstand the temptations of Satan the devil.
Q3. Why do
we need to pray when God already knows our thoughts and needs?
A. To establish a relationship with God. Prayer is how we communicate with God and allow Him to be a part of our daily lives.
Q4. What are
our prayers compared to in the Book of Revelation?
A. Incense. Our prayers are like the incense that was burned continually in
the Temple of God.
Q5. What is
our main purpose in life?
A. Our main purpose is to
glorify God through our actions and words.
Q6. Did
Jesus Christ ever pray to God the Father?
A. Absolutely. He gave
us many examples of prayer and each one was directed towards God.
Q7. Who do
we pray to?
A. God the
Father, Eloah. If we are not praying to
God in the name of Jesus Christ, then He will not listen to our prayers.
Q8. Is it ok
to pray to Jesus Christ?
A. No, it is not ok to pray to Jesus. He is our
High Priest and intercedes for all our prayers. However, he must not be the
object of our worship.
Q9. In order
for our prayers to be effective, what must we have?
A. Faith. We must believe that there is a God in
heaven, that He hears our prayers and that He will answer our prayers.
Q10. What
about sin? Does that interfere with our
prayers?
A. Yes. Our sins can separate us from God. That is why we must repent and ask God for forgiveness.
Q11. Where is
the best place to pray?
A. The Bible teaches us to pray in private. We do not want to have the attitude that we need others to see us praying. That is self-righteousness.
Q12. When
should we pray?
A. We should always be in a proper attitude, ready for prayer at all times. However, a good routine would be to pray in the morning, afternoon and evening. This could be early morning, at midday and before we go to sleep. The meeting together in prayer in the Temple was from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 3 p.m. to evening. A person can pray alone morning, noon and evening.
Q13. What is
the significance of 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.?
A. These were the times of the
morning and evening sacrifices.
Q14. What
are some examples of what we should pray about?
A. Pray for the Armour of God, the fruit of the Spirit, the needs of
others, our leaders, our enemies, etc.
We can use the model prayer as an example.
Give each person a small journal. (This can be either store-bought or made by stapling paper together.) The children can decorate their journals with stickers, markers, ribbon, sequins, buttons, etc.
Have each child approach a minimum of ten people that they know. It would be beneficial if there were a wide range of ages.
Write on one of the pages the person’s name and one thing that they would like you to pray about.
Instruct the children to use their prayer journals at one of their daily prayer times. Pray for at least one person in your journal each day.
Have the person that is being prayed for follow up with you and let you know how God answered that prayer. Write follow-up notes in your journal below that person’s prayer request.
Bring your prayer journal to each Feast and continue to add ten more things to pray about each Feast.
Think of six things to pray for based on the letters P, R, A, Y, E and R. Some examples might be:
P – patience, perseverance, peace
R – righteousness
A – attitude, armour of God
Y – your family, your leaders, your enemies
E – eternal life
R – repentance
These are just examples. Have the children incorporate their six things into their daily prayers. Do this for at least one week.
Another example is to take the Lord’s Prayer as a guide:
Our Father, Who art in Heaven (addressing the Great God of the Heavens and His place in the heavens)
Hallowed (Sanctified) be thy (your) name (considering His Holiness)
Your Kingdom Come (appealing for just rule)
Your Will be done: (and His Plan of Salvation)
On earth (given the situation here)
As it is in Heaven (in comparison to the situation in Heaven among the Loyal Host)
Give us each day, our daily bread (satisfy our needs)
Forgive us our sins (extend your goodness and mercy to us)
As we forgive those who are indebted to us (as we extend mercy to others)
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil (Lk. 11:2-4; cf. Mat. 6:9-10) (help us to overcome the sins of the world)
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever, Amen
(Of the 500 Manuscripts that contain this text in Mathew only eight omit it. The doxology is thus included in Matthew, but not in the text in Luke, and is hence wrongly excluded by the Roman Catholic liturgy.) It is a fitting way to end your discussion with God by acknowledging His Majesty.
Think about these sections.
Idea – since our prayers relate to incense, this activity will try to portray the difference in our prayers when we do not have a repentant attitude.
Take a piece of foil and put some sweet smelling incense powder in it. If you don’t have that, you can use cinnamon. Now wrap some hair around the outside of the foil. (Just use some hair from an old brush.) You can wear rubber gloves to handle the hair.
Put the ball in a large aluminium bowl. Tell the children that this ball represents us, and the foil with hair on it is our sin. Light the hair on fire. It will smell horrible. This is what our prayers must smell like to God if we come to Him with a non-repentant attitude regarding our sins.
Now remove the foil. All that will be left is the incense powder or cinnamon. Tell the children that, in order to remove our sin, we must come to God with a repentant attitude and ask God to forgive us of our sins. Tell God we need His help to change, and we will do our part to try and remove sin from our lives. Even though we know that we will sin again, it is our attitude of repentance that God desires. He will remove the sin from His mind.
Now light the incense or cinnamon. This should smell very sweet and pleasing to God. These are types of prayers that we want to send up to God.
First you make brownies or cookies. And then, you cut them out into the letters P, R, A, Y, E and R. As you distribute the cookies or brownies to other members of the group, ask them what you can pray about for them.