Lesson 1
We know and love God
When we make friends, we don’t get to know everything about our friends all at once. As we spend more time with them, we learn more about them and we learn to love them. Our ‘friendship’ with God is the same way.
God wants us to get to know Him better and there are many ways that we can know more about Him. One way is through Creation. God our Father is the Creator of everything that is good. We know this because it is in the first story in the Bible (read Genesis 1:1 – 31):
In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God made the sky. God made the earth and the sea. God made plants and trees and flowers. God made the stars and the sun and the moon. God made all the fish and the other creatures that swim and live in the water. God made the birds and all the flying creatures. God made all kinds of wild animals and cattle and creeping things that live on the earth. Then God created people. God created people in his image and likeness. Then God looked at everything he had made and saw that it was very good!
When we look at all the beautiful things around us it reminds us of God’s love for us and it helps us to believe in God.
The good people around us also help us to know and love God. Our family, teachers and friends help us to believe in God but it is God who invites us to know and love Him.
God sent His only Son, Jesus, to help us to know him and to believe in Him. Jesus tells us that God invites everyone to trust and love Him.
In the Bible, Jesus also tells us how much God loves us. In one of the stories, Jesus said: “Look around at the birds in the sky! They do not plant and grow food to eat. Yet your Father in heaven takes care of them. They have all the food they need. Your Father in heaven knows you. Are you not more important to God than the birds and all the animals? Trust Him.” (Read Matthew 6:26 – 34).
In this story Jesus taught His followers to trust God. Jesus helped them to know that people are important to God. God will always care of us and love us.
We can show others that we believe in God by our words and actions. Faith means accepting God’s invitation to believe and trust in Him. We can show our love by helping others in need, being kind to everyone even if they look different from us. We live our faith with our Church community.
Questions:
- What is one way in which we can learn to know God better?
- What does God invite us to do?
- What are some of the ways we can show others that we believe in God?
- What does faith mean?