THINK TOGETHER.
Have you ever felt like you couldn’t do something that you were asked to do?
READ TOGETHER.
Zechariah 4:6 Then he said to me, “This is what the Lord says to Zerubbabel: It is not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
Zechariah, like Ezekiel and Isaiah, was another prophet of God. Zechariah is the “me” in today’s verse. God is talking to Zechariah telling him what to say to a man named Zerubbabel (that’s a fun name).
Zerubbabel was sort of like the king of Israel, leading the people as the rebuilt the Temple of God in Jerusalem. The Babylonians had destroyed the temple years earlier, but now the Israelites were back in Israel and they are being allowed to rebuild the city and the temple. Yay!
Rebuilding the city of Jerusalem and the temple was a huge task. Not only was it physically hard, but there were also lots of bad people surrounding them that did not want the Israelites to rebuild. They kept threatening to attack Zerubbabel and the Israelites while they were trying to finish the Temple.
God is reminding Zerubbabel, and us, that it will never be our own force or our own strength that accomplishes what God asks us to do, it will always be the power of the Holy Spirit.
Have you ever felt really tired or weak? That’s OK. The Holy Spirit will give you the strength you need to do the things that God asks you to do. God might not ever ask you to build a city, a wall, or a temple, but he is asking you to do some things, isn’t he? He is asking you to honor your parents and be kind to others. And God always gives us the strength to do whatever he asks us to do. How? By the Holy Spirit in us.
When mom and dad ask you to obey and you feel like you can’t, the Holy Spirit can.
When you know you should be nice to the new person at church but don’t want to, the Holy Spirit wants to.
When God asks you to do your best in school but you’re too tired to have a good attitude, the Holy Spirit has a great attitude.
When you want to argue with someone and fight with them for being mean to you, the Holy Spirit can give you the strength to be forgiving and peaceful.
We don’t ever have to force ourselves to obey God. Instead we need to trust in the Holy Spirit and all of his love for us to help us to do what God wants. Not because we have to, but because we want to. Because Jesus loves us and we love others like Jesus.
Because of the Holy Spirit we don’t have to rely on our own strength anymore.
With the Holy Spirit we can do everything God asks us to do.
DO SOMETHING TOGETHER
Cut up some slips of paper and have each family member write something that God wants us to do that is hard for them to do on their slip of paper. See if you can guess which family member wrote each answer. Talk about how the Spirit gives us the power to obey God. How does his love and grace empower us?
PRAY TOGETHER
Father, everything you ask me to do you give me the power to do through the love of the Holy Spirit. Help me to pay attention to the Spirit’s love in me. Amen.
TLICfamily 