Bible lessons for persons with cognitive disabilities
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Psalms 1 (© Jeff McNair)
The book of Psalms is written by a variety of authors including David. It is largely prayers and praise. It is therefore people speaking to God. Chapter 1 sets the stage for the whole book of Psalms. We plan to use verse 1 to build an instructional routine that we will follow. It begins, "Blessed is the man" who in this case refrains from doing one of 3 things...he does not
walk in the council of the wicked stand in the way of sinners sit with mockersSit, walk, stand. These three will be the rallying point of our study of the Book of Psalms. You are referred to the book by Watchman Nee called Sit, Walk, Stand (based upon Ephesians) for more information about the sit/walk/stand concepts. Nee says that SIT refers to our position in Christ. We can relax in Christ. We sit at the feet of God and learn his law so we can be obedient. We can learn many things about God by sitting, contemplating, praying, reading, etc. WALK refers to our life in the world. Do we live in love for God, love for our neighbors and love for ourselves (Love God with all your heart, soul mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself, Mark 12:30-31). Our walk, implies action as we move through our lives. How do we treat our coworkers, or people we meet. Are we friendly and caring, do we give people our time? These are questions we need to be asking ourselves. STAND relates to our attitude toward God and our attitude toward our enemy, Satan. We can stand for something and we can stand against something. I demonstrate this by having a person stand up by me. I stand next to him so I can put my around him. We are standing together. We then turn face to face and put up our fists. We are now standing against each other. Stand, then, means we are standing for something good, and standing against the temptations we face, the evil we see around us.
Each person is then given
a 2x8 card or laminated piece of paper.
On one side, is a picture with the
word "Sit" at one end and a picture with the word "Walk" on
the other end (see picture of example above). You then flip the card over and
you see a picture with the word stand. Use the pictures to the left below
if you would like to make your cards. I then describe how each week will
discuss whether persons in our group sat or walked or stood in their Christian
faith. Talk through examples from the week before:
Sit
"When I was
waiting for my friend, I listened to a Christian radio station."
"I prayed every
day this past week."
"I read my Bible
every day this week."
Walk
"I was kind to
my coworkers at work this week."
Stand
"I changed the
TV station when something came on I thought I shouldn't watch."
"A friend tried
to tell me a dirty joke and I said I didn't want to hear it."
"Someone asked
me if I was a Christian and I said yes I was."
"My friend's
mother died and I told him I would pray for him."
We then went back to the passage and talked through what it means to sit with mockers, to walk in the counsel of the wicked versus walking in the counsel of God, and to stand with sinners, rather than standing for God. None of those things are things we want to do. Instead we want to sit in our position as saved by faith, walk as Christ's representative in the world, and stand for things of God and stand against evil things.
Now if we do those things, Psalm 1:3 says we will be like a tree planted by water. Draw a picture of a tree by a river on the board. So our lives now will be good and we will prosper like a tree that is planted by the water. How do you know you are blessed? You are like a tree yielding its fruits. Our group just finished studying Galatians 5:22 so we had an idea of what the fruits of a prospering Christian are (love, joy, peace...self-control). These fruits will be on your tree as a Christian. We also know that we are blessed, we will prosper because verse 6 says "the Lord watches over the way of the righteous." Our group has memorized Proverbs 3:5 "...and he'll make your paths straight." That is the same as the Lord watching over our ways/paths.
So next time, I will ask everyone to hold up their card so that either the picture of "SIT" or "WALK" or "STAND" is at the top. I will then ask them to tell me what they did in that area this week. How did you sit and listen to God? How did you walk as a Christian in your life this past week? How did you stand for God or against Satan?
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© Jeff McNair