Key Thought: God’s pleasure with His creation shows how valued we are in His eyes and how much He treasures us. How can we value the worth of each person?
January 18, 2025

1. Have a volunteer read Luke 15:11-32.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point is in this passage.
2. What does this reveal about God’s compassion and love?
3. Personal Application: How do we deal with fairness in our lives? Have you seen unfair treatment in your family? Workplace? Society? How do we balance our personal sense of justice with love and compassion for others? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states, “What was the problem of the older son? I don’t see that he did anything wrong in this story. He was faithful. He stayed and worked with his dad. He didn’t go off and do stupid things like his brother. And yet there seems to be a warning about the older son here.” How would you respond to your relative?

2. Have a volunteer read Isaiah 43:4, Psalms 149:4, Proverbs 15:8,9.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What do these texts tell us about God taking delight in His people?
3. Personal Application: Does knowing God can be so intimately involved with us help when you are going through a difficult time? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your friends states, “I see a lot of Christians that despise the dignity and value of others in their words and interactions. How should our Christian love override our social and political viewpoints and actions?” How would you respond to your friend?

3. Have a volunteer read Romans 8:1, 5:8, I Peter 2:4-6, Hebrews 11:6.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What do these texts teach us about our standing with God?
3. Personal Application: Why is the idea of Christ mediating as your defense attorney and mediator in heaven for you encouraging? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your neighbors states: “Can we get people’s attention and share the gospel with them if we have no care or concern for them? If we don’t value a person’s life, is there any way God could use us to help them in their salvation?.” How would you respond to your neighbor?

4. Have a volunteer read Mark 9:17-29.

1. Ask class members to share their thoughts on the most important point in this text.
2. How does God respond to the man in this story? How much faith is enough faith?
3. Personal Application: How well do we follow the adage to treat people how you want to be treated and love your neighbor as yourself? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: Think of one person who needs to hear a message from this week’s lesson. Tell the class what you plan to do this week to share with them.

(Truth that is not lived, that is not imparted, loses its life-giving power, its healing virtue. Its blessings can be retained only as it is shared. ”Ministry of Healing, p. 148).

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/3-to-be-pleasing-to-god-teaching-plan/

Daily Lesson for Monday 13th of January 2025

Hard as it is for us to imagine, God considers each person of incalculable value, which is why He rejoices over the salvation of even one soul.

Image © Educational Concepts Collection at Goodsalt.com

Zephaniah 3:17 emphatically displays the delight of God over His redeemed people. Just about every word for joy and delight in the Hebrew language is packed into this single verse, descriptive of God’s delight over His redeemed people. It’s almost as if no one of the terms by itself is sufficient to describe the magnitude of God’s delight on that day.

Notice, too, where God is according to this verse—in the “midst” of His people. The reconciliation that arises from the relationship of love comes with the immediate presence of God. Just like the father—when he sees the son afar off, he comes running—here God is in the midst of His people.

In Isaiah 62:4, similar imagery is couched with a marriage analogy. According to Isaiah 62:4 (NKJV), God’s people will “be called Hephzibah,” which means “My delight is in her,” and the land will be called “Beulah,” which means “married.” Why? Because, the text says, “The Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married.” The very pinnacle of God’s joy is reserved for the day of restoration, when He will receive His people and rejoice over us, even as the father rejoiced over his prodigal son.

This passage exhorts husbands to love their wives “just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,” and to love their wives “as their own bodies” (Ephesians 5:25,28, NKJV). These texts not only highlight the kind of unselfish and sacrificial love a husband is to have for his wife but also show that Christ Himself loves His people (the church) as part of Himself.

<–Sunday Tuesday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-03-rejoicing-with-gladness/

Daily Lesson for Sunday 12th of January 2025

As we saw in an earlier lesson, there is no one—even the worst sinner or worst evildoer—whom God does not love. And because God values people more than we could possibly imagine, He is displeased by sin because He loves us and knows what sin does to us, as well.

Image © Pacific Press at Goodsalt.com

In this story that Jesus tells, the man’s son requested his inheritance early, effectively rejecting his father and his father’s household. The prodigal son then goes on to squander his inheritance and is reduced to poverty and hunger, envying pigs that eat from a trough. Realizing that the servants in his father’s house have more than enough food, he decides to return home in hopes of becoming a servant.

What follows is powerful. Some fathers would turn such a son away upon his return. “You took your inheritance and cut yourself off from my house. You no longer have a home here.” That would be a logical, even reasonable, attitude, would it not? In the eyes of some human parents, the son had gone too far to be accepted back home, especially as a son.

But, in the parable, the father (representing God Himself) does not respond in any of these ways. Rather, “ ‘when [the prodigal son] was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him’ ” (Luke 15:20, NKJV). Even though it was considered less than dignified in such times for the master of the house to run out to meet someone, the father in his great compassion ran out to meet his son and, more astonishingly, restored him to his household, even throwing a celebration in his behalf, signify­ing the great compassion of God for each wayward person and the delight He takes in even a single person returning home. What a picture of God!

<–Sabbath Monday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-03-more-valuable-than-you-can-imagine/

Daily Lesson for Sabbath 11th of January 2025

Image © Pacific Press

Read for This Week’s Study: Luke 15:11-32, Zephaniah 3:17, Ephesians 5:25-28, Isaiah 43:4, Romans 8:1, Romans 5:8, Mark 9:17-29.

Memory Text:

“The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17, NKJV).

Imagine the following scenario: a five-year-old child comes to his father with a poorly wrapped gift on Father’s Day. Excitedly, he hands the gift to his father.

Imagine that the father says, “Son, I do not care about your gift. After all, there is nothing you could give me that would please me. Anything you could give me, I could get for myself, and anything you give to me was either bought with my money or made from materials that I paid for. So, keep your gift. I do not need it or want it. But I love you, anyway.”

Ouch!

What do you think of this father’s reaction? Such words as heartless, cold, and unfeeling come to mind. Is this the way God responds to us? Can we actually be pleasing to God? Hard as it is to imagine, even we as fallen beings, corrupted by sin, and prone to evil—yes, we can be pleasing to God! In other words, God does not look upon us, or the gifts that we bring Him, with the attitude of that father. On the contrary, we can be pleasing to God, but only through Christ.

*Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, January 18.

Sunday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-03-to-be-pleasing-to-god/

Our Sabbath School program has always been linked to the support of the Seventh-day Adventist Mission program. This video provides a little insight into this important work.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/mission-spotlight-for-january-11/